The soul of a city often lies in the folk customs and lifestyle symbols nourished by time. As an ancient capital with a history of thousands of years, Beijing has precipitated many unique cultural marks with a strong Beijing flavor. The bustle of temple fairs, the tranquility of hutongs, the humor of Beijing dialect, the folk charm of hairy monkey figurines, and the exquisiteness of snuff bottles are all vivid cultural footnotes of this city, linking the daily life and spiritual heritage of old Beijing.
Temple fairs are a totem of festivals etched in the memories of Chinese people, and even more the most brilliant part of Spring Festival in old Beijing. Every Spring Festival, temple fairs in various places such as Ditan Park and Longtan Lake Park kick off lively, becoming a grand stage for traditional festivals. Here, there are not only loud acrobatic performances and melodious opera singing, but also on-site displays of intangible cultural heritage skills such as dough figurine making, sugar blowing, paper cutting, and facial mask painting, with thousands of years of inheritance flowing between the fingers. The snack stalls on both sides of the streets are fragrant, and old Beijing flavors such as jiaoquan (fried dough rings), douzhi (fermented soybean milk), and rock sugar hawthorns tease the taste buds one after another. Adults and children shuttle between them, and laughter and shouts interweave, rendering the “New Year flavor” to the fullest. It has become an excellent window for Chinese and foreign tourists to experience the atmosphere of traditional Chinese festivals.
If temple fairs are the lively background of Beijing, then hutong tours are the footnote of slow life in this city. Riding a tricycle through the crisscrossing hutongs, the courtyards with gray walls and black tiles pass by one after another. The mottled door piers and exquisite brick carvings all hold the living wisdom of old Beijing. The rickshaw puller tells the rise and fall stories of each hutong in authentic Beijing dialect, taking you to visit the neat and elegant siheyuan (quadrangle courtyard), and experience the layout philosophy of “heaven is round and earth is square” and the warmth of family settlement. Deep in hutongs such as Nanluoguxiang and Yandai Xiejie, you can not only meet the leisurely daily life of old Beijingers sitting at the door chatting in the sun, but also encounter creative shops integrating modern elements. Tradition and fashion collide gently here, allowing people to immerse themselves in the folk texture of old Beijing.
Language is the most direct carrier of culture, and Beijing dialect is the “living fossil” of Beijing-style culture. Its most distinctive feature is the vivid retroflex ending. Words like “hutongr”, “mendunr”, and “bingtang hulu’r” (rock sugar hawthorn) become soft and approachable with a light “r” sound, outlining a unique sense of rhythm. At the same time, Beijing dialect is inherently humorous. Dialect words such as “beier bang” (extremely good), “kan dashan” (chat casually), and “juqi” (upright and generous) directly and vividly show the bold, straightforward, warm and open-minded character of Beijingers. Walking on the streets of Beijing, listening to the vendors’ shouts in Beijing dialect and chatting with uncles and aunts, the warmth of this language is the essence of Beijing flavor integrated into daily life.
Among the traditional crafts of old Beijing, hairy monkey figurines stand out for their exquisite folk charm. This intangible cultural heritage skill uses natural materials such as cicada slough, lily magnolia buds, and bletilla striata. With their skilled hands, craftsmen shape cicada slough into the body and head of the hairy monkey, use lily magnolia buds as limbs, and match them with micro props to restore vivid folk scenes—vendors carrying loads, rickshaw pullers, elderly people chatting in teahouses, and children playing in temple fairs. Each work contains the daily life of old Beijing, which can be called “a world in a square inch”. Although the production of hairy monkeys seems simple, it actually tests the craftsmen’s careful observation of life. These small ornaments carry the folk memories of old Beijing, allowing traditional skills to be passed down from generation to generation.
Different from the folk fun of hairy monkeys, snuff bottles are “art in the palm of the hand” that integrates the culmination of craftsmanship, showing the elegance and refinement of old Beijing. Originating in the Qing Dynasty, snuff bottles were initially used to hold snuff, and later gradually evolved into crafts with both practical and collection value, popular in the court and among the people. The charm of snuff bottles lies in the integration of diverse crafts. Painting, calligraphy, carving, inlay, inside painting and other skills can all be displayed on the small bottle body. Especially the inside painting technique—craftsmen extend a brush as thin as hair from the bottle mouth to paint in reverse, making landscapes, flowers, birds, figures and calligraphy vivid, showing the wonder of “divine craftsmanship”. Its materials are also very rich, including glass, jade, agate, ceramics, etc., each of which is exquisitely made. Today, snuff bottles have become a representative of traditional Chinese crafts, carrying the ultimate pursuit of Oriental aesthetics.
These folk customs and lifestyle symbols are vivid epitomes of Beijing culture. They are either noisy or quiet, simple or exquisite, jointly outlining the complete outline of Beijing-style culture. In the changes of the times, they are not only inherited, but also constantly glowing with new vitality, becoming a cultural bridge connecting the past and the present, the East and the West, allowing everyone who approaches Beijing to feel the most authentic temperature and heritage of this city.
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