The Last Days of Old Beijing
Subtitle: Life in the Backstreets of a Changing City
Publisher: Walker & Company
Published: June 24, 2008
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 336
ISBN-13: 9780802716521
Subjects: Asia - General; History / Asia; History; History - General History; History: World
Description: A fascinating, intimate portrait of Beijing through the lens of its oldest neighborhood, Dazhalan. Meyer examines how the bonds that hold the neighborhood together are being torn by forced evictions as century-old houses and ways of life are increasingly destroyed to make way for shopping malls, the capital's first Wal-Mart, high-rise buildings, and widened streets for cars replacing bicycles. Beijing has gone through this cycle many times, as Meyer reveals, but never with the kind of dislocation and overturning of its storied culture now occurring as the city prepares to host the 2008 Summer Olympics--From publisher description.