Hutongs: Passage of way of life

BEIJING -- It's 8:30 a.m. on Smoking Pipe Street, and one of the city's oldest neighborhoods is sputtering to life again.

The narrow pathway has been washed clean by overnight rain. Locals are slowly leaving for work on foot and bike, while the aroma of fried dough bursts from a wok of boiling oil in the tiny outdoor kitchen at Cheng Dou Snack.

This neighborhood, a labyrinth of ancient passageways and alleys, and others like it are Mao Xian's passion.

Still home to about half of inner-city residents, the 13th-century courtyard communities -- known as hutongs -- are rapidly disappearing in a controversial concession to China's explosive development sparked in part by the Olympic Games.

But Mao, a Mandarin professor at Beijing's Capital Normal University who is writing a book on the traditional communities, is part of growing movement to preserve their character and unique ...