BEIJING, Aug. 17 -- Living in a traditional courtyard
house and becoming a part of a Chinese family were not exactly what Odette Reich
had planned when she and her husband Thimo van Riet decided to come to Beijing
for the Olympic Games.
Little did they know that the hostel they booked on
the Internet would not be able to provide them the promised accommodation and
recommend they try an Olympic homestay family instead.
Little did they know that they would get this lucky
in a faraway land.
The house where they stayed for a week is a
traditional Beijing courtyard house with more than 150 years of history, located
in Qianmachang Hutong, not far from Houhai Lake.
Li Xiushi, the 80-year-old owner who inherited it
from her mother's family, had the house refurbished in March, and kept aside six
rooms for guests, becoming one of the nearly 600 homes to have opened its doors
to Olympic guests.
 |
|
A family, at Nanguanfang Hutong near
Shichahai Lake, have their dinner August 15, 2008. The family is one of
about 600 homestay families chosen for foreign visitors during the Beijing
Olympic Games.(Xinhua Photo)
Photo
Gallery>>> |
"I hired an artist who spent two months at my house painting birds, flowers and
other traditional patterns on the beams," she said.
She also bought an old rickshaw and a bridal sedan
chair and placed them in the courtyard, which has made it a hit with tourists as
it offers a perfect backdrop for photos.
The retired doctor prepares tea all day for visitors
who drop in at her courtyard. They can either sit around a porcelain table
sipping tea in the soothing shade of a grape trellis, or, like US tourists
Teresa Quigley and Anne Dalton, sit on an old-style Chinese bed and drink the
tea served by Quigley's son in the traditional Chinese way.
 |
|
Wang Zhixi, hostess of an Olympic
homestay for foreign visitors, talks to two American guests about the
traditional Chinese architecture in Beijing August 15, 2008. Wang's home,
at Dajinsi Hutong near Shichahai Lake, a tourist attraction in downtown
Beijing, is one of about 600 homestay families chosen for foreign visitors
during the Beijing Olympic Games.(Xinhua Photo)
Photo Gallery>>> |
Li has also decked out the windowsill with Chinese
toys such as diabolo and shuttlecock, which foreigners find fascinating.
Odette Reich said she fell in love with jianzi
(shuttlecock, but the variety that the Chinese play with their feet). "It's fun.
I want to take one home and kick it around on the beach."
The host also marks out the locations of nearby
restaurants and their special dishes for her foreign guests.
"It's an honor to stay in this unique place," Reich
said.
This unique Chinese touch is what makes these
traditional courtyards beat star-rated hotels as the first choice for some
foreign tourists in Beijing.
Wang Zhixi, who lives with her husband Jing Jichang
in a courtyard house in Dajinsi Hutong, said many of their foreign friends stay
at their home every time they come to Beijing.
Jacques, a French friend, has stayed there three
times in recent years, she said. "The first time he came by himself on holiday.
The next year he came back to learn calligraphy, and stayed with us again. This
April he brought his wife and grandson along."
Though ordinary Chinese homes are unable to provide
the hardware that star-rated hotels do, they provide "a feel of home", said
Nicholas Slyger, from New Zealand.
And home, for these tourists, is where the heart
is.
(Source: China Daily)
