Hutong

What is a Hutong? It is the word for a kind of little narrow street which originated in the Yuan Dynasty, and which, for many years, riddled Beijing. They could be long or mere short, but they were always more than simply streets. Many of them directly connected to one another, bringing the people of the courtyards of Beijing together, making their streets into neighbourhoods.
Nowadays, most of the Hutongs have disappeared, along with the unique character and culture they stood for.

Mao’s China was like a big, cut-off galaxy, apart from the rest of the universe. It grew into a thriving political centre, with Mao weaved into its roots, becoming the heart of a culture in which languages were created and many bizarre and terrible things happened.
Mao was worshipped and looked up to by millions of Chinese people - some of them still revere him even now. In their words, Chairman Mao was their helmsman, a red sun in the hearts of the Chinese people.
His influence and significance only grew when, in 1966, he launched his Cultural Revolution. It was a political movement in which many more unbelievable, preposterous events took place. Many Chinese worshipped, followed him blindly, while many others were subjected to political persecution, and often died as a result of it.
Mao’s era lasted from the founding of The People’s Republic on October 1 1949 until the death of Mao in 1976; a day which also marked the end of the Cultural Revolution. Meili, the girl Hutong is all about, was born in late 1950s.

She grows up as her country changes around her. Her mother had named her, Meili meaning ‘beauty’ in Chinese. Meili had never seen her father, as he had been marked as a ‘Rightist’ and sent away to a labour camp.
Meili lived in Hunan until she was five years old, which was when her mother sent her to Beijing - Curtain Hutong’s No.5 courtyard to be exact - to live with her grandparents.
While living there, she gets to know her grandparents; their joys, their sorrows, and their past. Their only son and Meili’s uncle, Zhu Zhen, once a lecturer at Beijing University, had been sent away to a labour reform camp just like Meili’s father, for daring to speak of his doubts about Mao and his Party. It was a fate he shared with tens of thousands of young intellectuals, whose lives were totally ruined, breaking apart just as many families; just as it broke the hearts of Meili grandparents.
Over time, Meili gets to know the people living in the Hutong, especially in her Courtyard. She befriends an older boy called Wan Ming, flying kites with him at the old Summer Place ruins, watching his grasshoppers fight, and talking with him about the future. And there are many people living in the Hutong, like Madame Pipa, Mr. Qi and his family, Little Lili, and many more, their stories reflecting the past of China.
Life in the Hutong remains relatively peaceful until late 1966 Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution. It changes everybody’s lives, and, in some ways, destroys China, so that it will never be the same again.
First, the Red Guards emerge, recruiting young students to support Mao. They march through the streets, ransacking museums and galleries, destroying old books, works of art, antiques; anything which they classify as part of the old ways, part of the ‘Old Fours’: such as old buildings, old streets signs, old temples, old churches, old mosques, people living old ways of life.
As Meili grows up in this world, she is at a loss; her mother far away, her grandparents more withdrawn with each day that passes, and even her Uncle Zhu Zhen now entirely out of contact. Can she possibly build a life in Mao’s China?

From the dawn of the Cultural Revolution, China is changed completely. Historically, many died during this terrible political movement. But, even now, some people still worship Mao blindly; they idolise him.
All of these facts are pretty surreal. But, they come from a very important page of China’s history, one which should not b