Hu Xinyu: Renew Mind before Renewing Walls
Within Xilou Hutong, one of the hundreds of fameless (if not nameless) hutongs in Chaoyang District of Beijing, slumbers a cypress-dotted courtyard. The courtyard, being home to a couple of historical relics protection organizations, is permeated with an air of knowledgeability and responsibility.
At the twilight of an April day, we strolled towards the mystique courtyard, with a hope to visit Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP).
Previous to the interview of Mr.Hu Xinyu, director in chief of CHP, his monk-like image—carefree and unemotional—loomed in my head, out of the assumption that whoever chooses so peaceful a place to work should be equally peaceful, until a conversation with Mr.Hu, who turned out to be a careful and graceful gentleman. And in no way is CHP built on sand by a bunch of illusionary youngsters, as is misunderstood by some.
Charity—from faith to practice
A volunteer at NPPCN, who once worked with CHP, took down what Mr.Hu called ‘dilemma’ faced by China’s NPO organizers:
“At present, most NPO organizers and volunteers are still faith-driven. Their awareness of responsibility pushes them to be excessively concerned and visionary. So overhead hangs a big question mark for all NPOs—how to turn passion into practice.”
Just as his peers in NPO fields, Mr.Hu used to struggle with such confusions at first. “The most difficult part of NPO is the balance between fairness and efficiency. We were only registered as a non-business organization in 2003, not a profit-making business,” he said, “so we are under great pressure from outside. And it’s real hard to gain an efficient and practicable approach to communicate with other social entities.”
What Mr.Hu spoke out mirrors the essential problem for an NPO. It is far from enough to work with faith, and there is a long way to go for a fantasy to become a fact. In the field of cultural heritage protection, NPOs always have to take blames from all interest groups. For example, people are divided in opposite groups around what to do with ancient buildings. Those who stand up against knocking them down pour blames on cultural heritage protection organizations for failing in conciliation and mediation, while people who stand oppositely urge them to stay out of the trouble. So how could those conflicts be moderated? What should be removed or preserved? After years of exploration CHP has found a way out—to appeal to laws. First of all, it set its own rules and regulations, which are implied in its logo. “The outer profile of our logo is quadrate, suggesting a law-based principle. With that we have a ground and we can hold the line when mediating or even disputing on protection issues. The inner profile is round, indicating flexibility in practice. We take various means to do our job, such as lectures, media communication, or even street work,” explained Mr.Hu at large. When asked if the laws in effect were specific enough to guide the judgment on the removal or preservation of an old building, Mr.Hu responded with a firm voice:
“Yes! But it’s unrealistic to hand everybody a law brochure. So one of our jobs is to inform them of the red line for heritage protection. In fact your confusion is quite typical and informative. You are not clear about the laws. That means we still have a lot to do!”
“It matters more to arouse awareness than to repair buildings”
CHP has its own specifications on the function of the organization:
Collect and sort out relevant files. “For instance we can share academic papers and books online and offline,” said Mr.Hu, “we have a mini-library here that houses books donated from all over world.
Educate people through forums, trainings and lectures.
Build up personal and structural competence.
Plan on specific solutions.
Select problems to address.
With these guidelines, an industrial chain of cultural heritage protection is shaped, compacting ‘protection’ both conceptually and practically.
“Of course, what we are doing now is ‘software repair’ rather than ‘hardware repair’ (which could be our business in future). For now we need to tell the public what and how to protect, which makes more sense than persuading them to repair the buildings,” he said, “more often than not, we have to arouse public awareness to contribute to heritage protection, just like planting a seed. When the seed grows into a tree, people will be pulled together.”
Another concern for CHP is the performance effect it gains from its programs. Performance is widely seen as a weakness for grass-root organizations that are distracted by too wide a spectrum of programs and gathering little fruit. To tackle this problem, Mr.Hu stated that they had already pieced together the programs into a system. “Most of our programs in operation are in Beijing, considering that it has the largest number of buildings and may serve as a model for future work,” he explained, “But it’s impossible to rest assured of all problems with only a single program. Let’s say…the program called ‘The Beijingers’ is a key to another program—‘Media Training Saloon’. The door-by-door interviews spun off an initial database that were analyzed and compared. For example, we made a contrast between Beijing’s hutongs in 2005 and 2007 to learn how quickly they vanished. These data were afterwards used as materials in the media training program that invited influential media representatives such as Southern Weekend, Beijing Youth Daily and Chinese National Geography Magazine. In essence, they got the knowledge and we got their readers.”
Another two programs, namely “Beijing Siheyuan Renovation Training” and “Hutong Culture” were aimed at the residents who lived in hutongs. “We chose those whose dwelling area per capita surpassed 14 square meters as the supporting subjects. We tried to make them realize the houses would be devalued if stripped of their history, and help them with the renovation without ruining original style,” said Mr.Hu excitedly, “in this process, we were melting the awareness of heritage protection into practice.”
In addition to those four cultural heritage protection programs, CHP has completed the first stage of the program “Memos of Ethnic Dai’s Culture” and is working on a book introducing their culture to the public, covering the oral history of their villages and other respects of their culture.
On how to deliver a louder voice to the society, Mr.Hu replied, “if you haven’t heard our ‘voice’, it means we are not doing the best we should. And we also need backup from all walks of life, including a considerable number of volunteers.”
Heritage protection is under way, and it’s a long, long way.
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