Ancient Wisdom, Modern Fun

Liu Wenhui, a 41-year-old entrepreneur, has beautiful memories of visiting hutongs, small alleys threading residences, with friends when he was a boy in his hometown Fenyang, Shanxi Province in north China. It is not only the playing and laughing while the elders chatted under trees that he remembers fondly, but also some of the courtyards, which were over 100 years old.

He recounted how he was most impressed by a rich family’s wooden courtyard with a huge roof but without any nail. In the past, only wealthy people could build these types of yards due to the high costs of wood, labor, craft and design, he explained to Beijing Review.

He said he often wondered about the structure under the big roof and how it was supported. He didn’t find