Books : The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 951.156
EAN: 9780802716521
ISBN: 0802716520
Label: Walker & Company
Manufacturer: Walker & Company
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: June 24, 2008
Publisher: Walker & Company
Release Date: June 24, 2008
Sales Rank: 17136
Studio: Walker & Company
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
A fascinating, intimate portrait of Beijing through the lens of its oldest neighborhood, facing destruction as the city, and China, relentlessly modernizes.
Soon we will be able to say about old Beijing that what emperors, warlords, Japanese invaders, and Communist planners couldn’t eradicate, the market economy has. Nobody has been more aware of this than Michael Meyer. A long-time resident, Meyer has, for the past two years, lived as no other Westerner—in a shared courtyard home in Beijing’s oldest neighborhood, Dazhalan, on one of its famed hutong (lanes). There he volunteers to teach English at the local grade school and immerses himself in the community, recording with affection the life stories of the Widow, who shares his courtyard; coteacher Miss Zhu and student Little Liu; and the migrants Recycler Wang and Soldier Liu; among the many others who, despite great differences in age and profession, make up the fabric of this unique neighborhood.
Their bond is rapidly being torn, however, by forced evictions as century-old houses and ways of life are increasingly destroyed to make way for shopping malls, the capital’s first Wal-Mart, high-rise buildings, and widened streets for cars replacing bicycles. Beijing has gone through this cycle many times, as Meyer reveals, but never with the kind of dislocation and overturning of its storied culture now occurring as the city prepares to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Weaving historical vignettes of Beijing and China over a thousand years through his narrative, Meyer captures the city’s deep past as he illuminates its present. With the kind of insight only someone on the inside can provide, The Last Days of Old Beijing brings this moment and the ebb and flow of daily lives on the other side of the planet into shining focus.
Average Rating: 
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It is a "what i did on my summer vacation and why i did it" kind of book. Chatty without being gossipy, informative and full of personal research into questions he saw as he lived there. Kind hearted and sympathetic to the people and culture he is surrounded by. really the best of this genre, giving us who would like to be there a real window into what it meant to him to live in a hutong in Beijing.
i envy him both his experiences and his ability to communicate them to us. this is his first book but i expect i will see his name on a few more volumes. i'll go looking for his blog when i finish this.
it is simply a must read book.
go get it. worth the price many times over.
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This was a well-written book by someone who has lived in the hutongs in Beijing and taught at a hutong school. The time period is just before the 2008 Olympic Games, and the book shows the dichotomy between the old (hutongs)and new (rapidly-rising modern buildings) Beijing. The hutong population is wonderfully drawn, and you feel as if you are there, trying, as they are, to save their homes and an important part of Beijing.
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Michael Meyer has crafted an engaging, sometimes funny, sometimes sad account of his life in Beijing. The people, places and occurences draw you into everyday situations in Meyer's current life. The mix of historical references is just right for those without a semester of Chinese History 101 in their past. Having recently visited Beijing, the author compels me to check my bank balance for the funds to return and find his neighborhood. Read this book - you won't be disappointed.
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I find this book hard to put down, as I am really enjoying reading about the real life of Chinese citizens.
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Reading my way through translated Chinese literature, I've found that there's so much assumed knowledge that words flip by without leaving their mark. Meyer is the remedy to the problem. He's not a giddy traveler, pausing for a week or two, observing and moving on again. He stayed put, settled down, got a job, all in the backstreets of Old Beijing. He is soon accepted as a part of the community, not so much as a foreigner, but as a teacher. It's a patient, somewhat wistful book. Meyer isn't a romantic, he understands that for many, a working toilet and electricity will be welcome as they leave the old, winding streets behind. But he also conveys what will soon be lost, and more importantly, gives us a background to the vast rebuilding project that has uprooted more than a million Beijing citizens, producing the stories of his neighbors to give us a focused view. In the context of China in the 20th Century, the Olympic push seems more of a strange continuum from the Japanese Invasion, through the Great Leap Forward and into the 21st Century. Meyer writes well, but this is a rather beautiful dirge and like all dirges, you'll find that it relies on playing the same notes again and again. Still, a beautiful and timely book, at least for the summer of 2008 and a glimpse beyond the pomp of the Olympic welcome.
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