Beijing Hutong Cooking Class Tour

In the morning, we will pick you up at your hotel and take you to Hutongs. These Hutongs were originally built in 1267 and has a history of more than 700 years. Many famous people once lived in the Hutongs. For example, in Mao’er Hutong, Wanrong, the last empress of the Qing Dynasty (1636-1912) had lived here before she got married. Wanrong’s family was not wealthy. But her parents decided to extend the gate of their house wider before her wedding, to make Wanrong’s bridal sedan chair pass through. In this place, you can imagine the life of the last empress of the Qing Dynasty before she married the emperor. Besides, in the 448-meter-long Dongmianhua Hutong, the house of No. 15 used to belong to General Feng Shan. Feng Shan is a famous general in the late Qing Dynasty. His private residence in Beijing used to be very large and almost covered half of Dongmianhua Hutong. Feng Shan was once sent by the government to go abroad for a brief visit to Europe. After he returned home, he built a brick arch in front of his house. The brick arch is similar to European architecture. But the brick carvings on it are of Chinese style. You will see the patterns of pomegranate, plum blossom, bamboos, and pines on it. Not far away from the Dongmianhua Hutong, you will see the Memorial Hall of Qi Baishi’s Former Residence (closed on Mondays) in Yu’er Hutong. In the Qing Dynasty, it belonged to an emperor’s son. But it was abandoned after the end of the Qing Dynasty. In 1955, Qi Baishi, a famous painter, started to live here. He was born of a peasant family and became famous for his excellent traditional Chinese paintings at his middle age. He tried to paint from the point of view of a peasant, which makes his paintings have a naive quality. You may enjoy some of his paintings in his former residence. There is a story about him. When Qi Baishi was young, he made a living by selling his paintings. One day, a person wanted him to draw some shrimps. After Qi Baishi finished, he told the person the price according to the number of shrimps in the painting. But the person asked Qi Baishi to draw one more shrimp in this painting and didn’t want to pay more money. Qi Baishi was unwilling to draw it. But he still listened to the person and added a shrimp in his painting. However, the person found that this shrimp looked so strange and asked Qi Baishi why. Qi Baishi said, “This shrimp is free. So I drew a dead one.” 

There are thousands of Hutongs in Beijing. You cannot visit all Hutongs at once. We will arrange to take a rickshaw to visit Hutong leisurely. Besides, we also arrange a cooking class for you. The teacher in this class will teach you how to cook Chinese food, such as dumplings. We will prepare all food ingredients, cooking utensils, and other things for you. You just need to come here and listen to your teacher carefully. Please don’t be nervous. Your teacher and friendly classmates will help you. After you finished, you can taste what you have cooked. It will be an unforgettable experience for you.

Hutongs

Rickshaw

Author: Xinli Zhang

Proofreader: Yan Liu