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Q: Why do so many expats choose to live in hutong neighborhoods?
If you want the "authentic, genuine" Chinese experience, here it is: it's dark. It's cold. It's cramped. You may have a yard. It may have a tree. But you'll have lots of Chinese who are actively being nosy about every part of your life because you choose to live in hutong.
What did I miss? Slow internet? Having really quiet sex? Please elaborate.
10 years 50 weeks ago in General - Other cities
hang on, are you saying there are places where you can avoid noisy, nosy people 24/7 ?
I pucking love hutongs. I lived in one with my in-laws for a bit.
Good question. Who wants to live in a fucking slum? You think hutongs are awesome? Sure. Maybe a couple hundred years ago. But today? Fuck that shit. I'd rather live in a favela on the side of a hill in Rio or in a mud-and-straw cardboard shack in El Fanguito (The Mud Hole) in San Juan, Puerto Rico. At least the air is cleaner than in China and the rent is a helluva lot cheaper.
Red_Fox:
Hey, don't get me wrong. I love traditional hutongs provided they are upgraded and comfortable. And financially accessible. I suffered as I read over the years about all the Beijing hutongs being razed to put in high-rises, roads and shit. I'm a history buff, a classicist, a modern traditionalist, a heritage advocate. What rankles my ass is the neglect many historical neighborhoods (around the world, in fact) are subjected to. Gone overnight. History wiped out. What a shame. What a shame.
So, yeah, Give me a hutong over a high-rise 70-storey POS (piece of shit) in the sky any day and anywhere in the world.
Newbies coming to China thinking Hutongs are the main living accommodation. These people who choose to live in Hutongs will move in a few months realizing that China is not what they thought it would be.
It really depends in what kind of hutong you live.
Sure, most of them truly are shitty, cold, dark dumps (like where my ex used to live, the inside temperature was around 5 degrees), but some people managed to turn some hutongs into really nice, comfy places. Needless to say, it took a lot of work.
Because we don't want to climb the 8 flights of stairs to all the other affordable apartments.
probably because most expats are living in Beijing where hutong is quite popular among residents, so they just follow suit ? lol
