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Remembering Hutong Beijing An Anonymous Student from China Memories of an old neighborhood that has changed with time bring nostalgia to this Chinese student. I often miss the neighborhood I lived in when I was a student in Beijing, China. It was very interesting and traditional, and it was a small neighborhood located in one of the many Hutongs in Beijing. Hutong Beijing, the street surrounded by many small houses, is very famous in the world. The neighborhood was an historic place, and all of the houses were in the style of Chinese tradition made of wood. Each house was square-shaped with warp towers on all four corners. It was painted in red, blue, yellow, and green. All of the houses had belonged to many famous historical people in China almost fifty years ago, and now most common people live in them. My neighborhood was one of the historical relic protection places in China. Every morning, I awoke to hear many people yelling and selling different kinds of breakfast, and I was accustomed to listening to the voices that sounded very warm. While I started to walk out to get some food, at first I smelled the aroma of Youliao and boiling tea eggs, and they were both my favorites. Youliao looks oily, but tastes very delicate and delicious. The tea egg is boiled in the tea water, and it tastes lightly salty. I will never forget these delicious foods. After finishing my classes, I liked walking on the street of the neighborhood because I could hear some common people talking about something popular such as a method of cooking, family things, and especially the historic stories that had happened in this neighborhood. I was willing to hear the genuine dialect of old Beijing while the people were talking, and the dialect sounded different from the modern language of Beijing. Sometimes my classmates and I went to some old houses, for example, a house which the last empress in China had lived in. When I stood in front of the house, which was very old and dirty, I always imagined the picture of when the empress lived in it. I was afraid of touching the walls because I didn't believe there was such short time between the history and today. But as soon as I touched it, I realized that it was true, and the empress had lived there about a hundred years ago. I looked at the house which common people were living in now, and I understood what history is, and what today is, and tomorrows are. I learned from here that on the earth, there is only 'today', and it belongs to us forever.
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