| On October 16, he became perhaps Beijing's oldest resident to take the plunge into business, opening a little shop in a hutong just behind Qianmen. |
| Among people living in the same hutong there exists a very special degree of familiarity. |
| Last week I visited some friends in the evening, in a tiny little hutong near the Drum Tower. |
| Our Beijing guide Max arranged for us to stop in and visit a hutong family and drink a cup of tea with them. |
| We met Shen Mai, or Snow Plum Blossom, a young woman in her early 30s who has lived in the same house in the same hutong all her life. |
| Thousands of people can live in a hutong which is made up of hundreds of quadrangular courtyards each surrounded by four homes. |
