It is a quiet afternoon at the Baigongfang Crafts Centre, a new handicraft base in Chongwen District. The aisle is almost silent expect for some casual talk from the workshops on both sides. Then there comes the sound of a CD playing Peking Opera by Xi Xiaobo, one of the top four Xusheng (elderly male role in Peking Opera) performers of the last century, from a studio at the end of the aisle.
It's a typical studio for Beijing folk art and crafts. Sitting among an array of hand-made traditional Beijing toys and clay figurines, a folk artist is making a figurine of the Peking Opera master based on the cover of the CD he is listening to and humming along with.
High above on the wall behind him is calligraphy reading "Zhang of Hutong." Behind him on the right is a miniature of a typical old Beijing teahouse in the 1930s, with clay figurines modeled from all walks of life at that time, a typical scene as reflected by the stage drama Teahouse of late playwright Lao She.
In front up on the wall there is something covered by a curtain, while down below are several alcoves displaying miniature models of hutong doorways, grey-walled and lion-guarded. There are also figurines of children frolicking in front of the gate.
A visitor comes by. He is interested in the art and crafts and picks up a wooden toy cart modeled after a duck and murmurs: "That's what I used to play with when I was a child." He is about to buy it when he finds that the artist, so engrossed with his work, is not to be bothered. He checks the price tag and leaves the money quietly.
It seems improper to start a conversation with the craftsman until he gets up to change the CD.
When asked how he got his nickname "Zhang of Hutong," the artist whose real name is Zhang Yujun, answers, shyly, while rubbing his hands: "Because I love hutongs and the old Beijing memorabilia. Everything I make comes from life in the hutongs."
He pauses for a second and then continues: "They are not easy to find nowadays, but they are vivid to me in here (he points to his own head)," he pauses again walking over to the front, "and here" as he pulls back the curtain revealing a life-like miniature of an old Beijing street of eighty years since.
There are various stores selling fresh and dry fruits, leathers and curiosities. It even has markets, teahouses, monasteries, opera houses, courtyards, electrical cable posts, announcements and posters on the walls, and utensils for the daily tasks. On the street are clay figurines featuring customers, vendors and shop owners. There are also old means of transport like rickshaws, carts selling water and limousines of traveling salesmen.
"This is only a small part of the street. I have made it 100 meters long with more than 200 store fronts and 20 archways," Zhang said, face beaming.
Born in 1961 as the sixth generation of a traditional Manchu family in Beijing, Zhang spent most of his childhood in the hutongs.
He has had his talent since he was a child, making clay figurines and toys for himself such as wooden guns, planes and bird cages. While other boys made snowmen and had snowball fights, he sculpted snow lions modeled after the stone lion figures in front of his courtyard house.
With his childhood deeply influenced by the life of old Beijing, Zhang finds it too painful to see most of the hutongs and courtyards disappear in the shadow of modern sky-scrapers.
He has become a passionate preserver of customs nearly forgotten in this city.
"My childhood memories come back to me all the time," Zhang says. "It is a pity that you can find it no more in today's Beijing. But at least they are not to be forgotten."
So in 1997, the self-taught artist quit his job at the state-run post office and set out to run a crafts shop on Wangfujing Street, and business has been brisk.
At first he made some old-style Beijing toys, then clay figures representing old Beijing culture, from courtyard houses to Manchu maidens, Peking Opera masks to scenes from life in the capital many years ago.
"I am not the only person that misses the old Beijing," Zhang laments. "I am glad that my crafts bring back memories for other Beijingers. They come to me chatting about the good old days."
One day late in 1997, he was lining an array of miniature hutong doorways when he found that "it looks like a street."
"'Why not make a street?' I asked myself, then I can bring alive the old Beijing with their century-old stores, long-lost professions and the almost forgotten customs," he recalls.
Zhang set about to the project immediately. He collected a lot of information about old Beijing, from books, photos, old films, field research and descriptions by the older generation. He bears them in mind so deeply that by the time he started to make the street, no draft was needed for the seven-year project.
During those years, Zhang recalls, "I was sitting in the studio, thinking about what to put in the street next. It was like day dreaming about the revival of the old Beijing customs."
After seven years of hard work his dream was completed, but it has been so popular that Zhang has to cover it up so he isn't frequently interrupted by excited visitors.
Not that Zhang doesn't want to share it with them, in fact, he hopes that he can open a museum to house them so that more people can have the chance to see it.
There is no lack of offers, but Zhang turns them all down. "Most of them are just talking money business," laments the craftsman. "That is an insult to old Beijing customs."
He is now saving money for a museum and there is still a long way to go, but Zhang says he won't give up.
(China Daily December 31, 2005)
