[Jon Doll]

I love the idea of exploring these centuries-old neighborhoods in the hopes of catching a glimpse of local life unchanged from the hustle of the modern city. I've read that the streets are too narrow for car traffic, and the lack of grocery stores makes it a haven for vendors of all sorts. Reading about hutong life gave me the inspiration for a lesson idea contrasting China with Europe and the U.S. 

[Jon Doll]

            This lesson idea was inspired by Barbara Miller’s post about Beijing in which she talked about Beijing’s disappearing hutong’s. Hutong’s are neighborhoods that evolved around the narrow streets that connected traditional siheyuan’s, or enclosed housing complexes with a square central courtyard. Hutongs were first established in the Yuan dynasty (1206–1341) and then expanded in the Ming (1368–1628) and Qing (1644–1908) dynasties. The oldest surviving one is Sanmiaojie Hutong and is over 900 years old!

            Teaching history involves examining themes of continuity and change. These old neighborhoods present us with a human-scale window into the past that allows us to answer questions about how people have lived over many centuries. Although efforts have been made to preserve these important places of habitation, they have fallen victim to urban renewal in the recent past and there is no guarantee that they will not someday be knocked down to make way for modern developments.  Beijing’s famous hutongs could be the subject of a lesson that focuses on the need to preserve the continuity of culture in the face of forces for change.

            So important are the hutongs to the culture of Beijing that there have been many operas, plays and films about them. Lao She, one of 20th century China's greatest novelists and playwrights, is responsible for one such homily. His "Teahouse" is set in what is often the focal point of a hutong community and brings together several characters from the old streets of Beijing to discuss the problems of traditional society. A more modern love song for the hutongs is Zhang Yang's film "Shower" (1999) about a traditional bath house where men from the community gather to drink tea, receive massages, fight crickets and escape their marital problems. The film laments the loss of such old ways of life as the hutongs are being knocked down to make way for modern apartment blocks.

            The survival of these Chinese neighborhoods could be compared to Napoleon III’s dramatic remaking of Paris in the mid-1800s. Baron Haussmann erased much of the city’s medieval past to create the grand boulevards that Paris is known for today. Charles Baudelaire witnessed these changes and wrote the poem "The Swan" in response. Édouard Manet's famous painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère was a meditation on the social displacement created by Haussmann’s destruction of the old city.

            Closer to home, the mid-19^th century push to remake American cities in the image of the automobile is blamed for destroying neighborhoods, architectural treasures, and engendering the historic preservation movement as a response. Central to this story is urban master-builder Robert Moses, who forever changed the face of New York City, and whose outsized influence on urban planning affected cities across the country. His critics claim that his policies displaced hundreds of thousands of residents, uprooted traditional neighborhoods, and precipitated the decline of public transport through disinvestment and neglect. Chief among these was the urban activist Jane Jacobs, whose book The Death and Life of Great American Cities was instrumental in turning opinion against Moses.  

 

 

[Jon Doll]

If you haven't already, watch Zhang Yimou's films. We watched To Live (1994) last year in class.

 

[Jon Doll]

I covered a medical mission to Fray Bartolome de Las Casas back in 1997, just after the Civil War ended. It was amazing! I spent 10 days there and then got to visit Tikal, Antigua, and I even shot aerials of Lake Atitlan from a military helicopter!

[Jon Doll]

My name is Jon Doll and I am in my second year teaching High School Economics in Bakersfield California. Before that I taught 8^th Grade (U.S.) History for two years, and before that I was a television news videographer for almost 17 years.  As a cameraman I was fortunate enough to travel on assignment to Romania and Guatemala, and it instilled in me a love of travel, so I am thrilled at the chance to visit China and Taiwan. I have attended two sessions of the USC East Asia Seminar and I hope to expand on what I learned in this amazing program! My hobbies include cooking, eating, reading, and watching film, television and people! I am also a member of the local historical society, doing public history projects such as erecting plaques and giving walking tours around Bakersfield and Kern County.

I apologize for not fully participating in the video conference yesterday, I was in Yosemite on a school trip with students from my Multimedia Club and the internet was less than optimal. However, I look forward to meeting all of you in the months to come!

[Author]

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