By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 27, 2000
Filed at 2:19 p.m. ET
BEIJING (AP) -- The last traditional courtyard home in one of Beijing's grandest neighborhoods has been torn down to make way for a shopping complex promising old-style touches. Zhao Jingxin, 82, and his wife watched tearfully as crews tore down their 400-year-old home, the official China Daily reported Friday, after a lengthy battle that pitted preservationists against developers in rapidly developing Beijing.
As the fruit trees and grand courtyard homes of Beijing's past were torn down and replaced with towering office buildings and apartment complexes, Zhao filed three lawsuits to keep a city-owned developer from seizing his home.
His last lawsuit was rejected in September. The court ordered the city to pay Zhao $330,000 in compensation, the newspaper said. But the fight was not about money -- it was about history, Zhao says. The one-level home, simple but elegant with its brick carvings of butterflies and peonies, dated to the Ming dynasty of 1368-1644. The exterior was built during the Qing dynasty, which collapsed in 1911. `I don't want money. I have a responsibility as a Chinese to protect this Ming-dynasty house,'' Zhao said earlier this year from his living room, where he was surrounded by photographs and calligraphy. Sunny windows looked out to the quiet courtyard filled with rose bushes.
Not even good connections helped Zhao. The son of a prominent theologian and communist supporter, Zhao left a good job in British Hong Kong to support the communists when they came to power in 1949. Scholars, architects, even state media had championed Zhao's cause, criticizing a flurry of development that has shorn Beijing of its traditional architecture. The ``last-century'' shops replacing Zhao's old neighborhood are trimmed with fake roof tiles. Beijing, with an eye toward its 2008 Olympics bid, recently has sought to preserve what remains of its older neighborhoods. But now, with so many homes razed, talk of historical preservation ``is like strengthening the sheep pen after all the sheep are dead,'' the People's Daily lamented earlier this year.
October 21, 2002