A Few Preservation Orders Issued in Peking

That bastion of truth, freedom and the harmonised way the China Daily reports that a number of properties in Peking, siheyuan and some former homes of politically acceptable famous people, have been added to the capital’s list of ‘most valued cultural heritage sites’ (a list some may find hard to believe actually exists!). The old Quanjude duck restaurant in Qianmen is included as well as some residential properties. Actually most sites are temples or tombs and, as in Shanghai, ordinary housing is largely left of any lists of preserved buildings (not that, as we’ve seen repeatedly in Beijing and Shanghai these lists ultimately mean nothing).

Apparently 100 buildings were considered and only a few chosen after 3 years!! This begs two questions: (i) what got bulldozed in the three years the ‘experts’ were pondering and (ii) what will happen to the ones that didn’t make the list and why were they left of? Peking has 6 World Heritage Sites including the understandable such as the Great Wall, Temple of Heaven and Lama Temple as well as, to my mind the not so important, such as Tiananmen Square which is a new creation and a nasty one.

Zhang Wei of oldbeijing.net wins the ‘No Shit Sherlock’ award for his quote (correct though it is) ‘historical buildings are vanishing rapidly…’ It’ll be interesting to see if we get any more listings and if those listed really are safe these days.