Love of heritage too little, too late to save hutongs from the developers

As people enjoy free entry to heritage sites and museums around the nation today, the second annual Cultural Heritage Day, Xia Jie wonders if the new-found enthusiasm will save her 100-year-old courtyard house in Beijing's Dongsi Batiao, Dongsi's Eighth Alley.

On the day Ms Xia was born, her grandmother planted a guava tree in the family's courtyard at No11 Dongsi Batiao, which four generations of the family have called home since 1948. Ms Xia, now 33, grew up picking fruit in the courtyard, running up and down the hutongs, roaming in and out of neighbours' courtyards and wondering why she had to share her home with strangers, 'tenants' the family was obliged to take in during the Cultural Revolution.

When all the tenants finally moved out a few years ago, Ms Xia was thrilled that she could at last lay her hands on the whole of the 500-square-metre courtyard and transform it into a family-run hostel and art space, giving visitors a taste of authentic Beijing life and local artists a place to showcase their work.

But Ms Xia's plans for the transformation have been stalled by the rumble of bulldozers and a bureaucratic web of decisions by different layers and arms of the government covering what is officially a protected area of old Beijing. In response, she has been forced to embark on a legal journey to fight for her home.

In the past few decades, despite the government's commitment on paper to heritage conservation, two-thirds of Beijing's 3,000 hutongs - some of which have formed the capital's core since the Yuan dynasty - have been torn down as heritage protection has lost out to development. The threat to Dongsi Batiao is only the latest case.

The alley's residents first heard about demolition plans for the hutong in mid-April when the Dongcheng Housing Department put up a notice saying all odd-numbered courtyards between No1 and 23 Dongsi Batiao would be torn down for a development. They were told to move out by May 26 and the demolition permit was to remain valid until September 30, the day before the country's long-awaited Property Law takes effect.