We understood that though the price of land was very high, the couple would be allowed to live in their home of 40+ years as long as they wanted. They liked to keep turtles and birds as their hobby. Every morning the father would go and catch small fish in a nearby river for his turtles to eat. Their grown children preferred to live in the city not very far away.
The hutongs are a disappearing cultural icon and the government is now preserving them. It used to be that one extended family would live in three or four buildings surrounding a garden, but now each building is housed by a separate family and whole communities share a common toilet facility (consisting of about ten squat toilets).
This couple lived in three rooms: the living room pictured here, a bedroom consisting of two single beds and a dresser and a kitchen akin to those found in most studio apartments.
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