The Magic Hutong Portal

It was at the end of March that I discovered that foreigners had now become the main health concern in Beijing. Standing outside the checkpoint to Yangmeizhuxiejie, the Hutong where our gallery is located, it became clear to me that I could huff and puff as much as I wanted to, but the security guards and middle aged neighbourhood committee volunteers would not grant me access, because I was not a resident.

My colleagues Xiao Pan and Li Ying could still find ways of sneaking into our gallery space, but my foreign features immediately exposed me to scrutiny, so for almost two months I was locked outside.

It felt as if a portal to a magical world had closed. The old spells that I used to chant did not work anymore, and our neighbours including Hu Chengming the brushmaker and Wang Xiuren the Muslim lady whose family have lived in our hutong for 400 years, were now out of my orbit.

But then suddenly at the end of May I regained my powers. An APP on my phone worked like a magic wand and the gate to Yangmeizhu xiejie flung open. Walking in for the first time in months felt as if absolutely nothing had changed. It was like a frozen world. The neighbourhood was unusually quiet, but people sat in their usual spots out in the streets as if nothing unusual had happened. But what had they been doing?

First I went to chat to Hu Chengming the brushmaker. He had started to cook and his wife who suffered more from restlessness than him had started to grow things like tomato and chilli (actually only chilli - the tomato plant had grown itself).

Wang Xiuren had actually been abroad for a while in the U.S, so when she came back neighbours would report on her when she went to the toilet, she told me with a smile.

Across from her café, a pair of swallows had faced no travel restrictions when they returned to their nest, as they do every year. It is fascinating to think about these small birds flying more than 300 kilometers a day in the midst of a lockdown, arriving in Beijing to lay their eggs in the exact same spot as they have for many years. Interestingly enough we have just collected a new map of Beijing called “a bird eyes view of Peking”. Xiao Pan has just framed it and hung it inside the gallery.

Today, our hutong remains open. The guards at the entrance went in to a shock-like state when the second wave hit, but Li Ying calmed them down with both wisdom and cool drinks and now they will call us every time somebody turns up at the east gate of the hutong and would like to come to the Beijing Postcards gallery. So, we hope you will pay us a visit.

The portal is open!