This is the tour guide made by myself

1. Simon Sohn (BISS)
Hutong Architecture Tour
Meet Unique Chinese Traditional Style of Architecture!
People living along with tradition,
Only in Hutong!
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2. Siheyuan (Chinese Quadrangles)
“Siheyuan” is a historical
type of residence. It’s a type of house that
has a courtyard covered by four houses
forming a square. This style of
architecture was very common in the past.
However, it became very rare nowadays as
people demolished the place to build new
buildings.
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3. Houses Revealing Social Status
As you can see in the photo above,
some houses in hutong have circles on their
gates. These circles on the gates imply the
social status of the owner of the house. The
more circles are there on the gate, the higher
the social status do the owners have. It’s
apparently an interesting fact that Chinese
people use their houses to show their
position.
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4. Animal Statues
If you take a walk in hutong, you will find many animal statues
sitting in front of the house entrances. Many
non-Chinese may think that those statues are
just for the decorations, but there is a different
reason why Chinese people put them in front
of their houses. Superstitious Chinese people
believed that those animal-shaped statues
would protect their houses from unfortunate
things such as disease, thieves, accidents and
so on. That is why the animal statues often
look very scary.
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5. Hutong Map
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