Douglas Keister,
To Grandmother's House: A Visit to Old-Town Beijing
Gibbs Smith, 2008.

Ages 4-10

Acclaimed architectural photographer Douglas Keister set out to document the changing landscape of Beijing through the eyes of two local girls on their way to visit their grandmother, Laolao, who lives in a courtyard house, or siheyuan, in one of the city's few remaining hutongs, the oldest neighborhoods of Beijing.

Zhang Yue and her cousin Han Li make their way to Laolao's at a leisurely pace, traveling by pedicab and stopping at a hutong market, where they enjoy looking at traditional crafts for sale and a variety of foods and everyday essentials. "Laolao tells us she can find everything she needs in the hutong," Zhang Yue remarks. The 750-year-old drum tower, which once served as a public clock, is the next stop. The girls climb the tower and look out over the hutong and at a large group of people doing tai chi near Shishahai Lake.

The narrative, in both English and simplified Mandarin characters, reads like the voice of a local tour guide filling in foreigners on the particulars of life in her changing and unique city. When they finally reach Laolao's house, Zhang Yue explains that originally one family, including grandparents, parents, and children would all live in a single courtyard. Now these courtyards have been divided to house many families.

When the girls arrive, Laolao teaches them how to make dumplings, or jiaozi. Patiently the trio flattens, fills, and pinches the dough together. After feasting, the girls are back in their pedicab, concluding the day-long tour of old-town Beijing.

While the narrative is simple and straightforward, the beautiful photographs transport readers to a pleasant village in the heart of Beijing that seems a thousand miles from the bustling, modernized city so often depicted in Western media. In an author's note Keister explains that the Beijing he set out to photograph in this book is one that is rapidly disappearing. Many of the hutongs in the center of the city have been destroyed to make room for modern buildings. He encourages readers to go to Beijing and visit the hutongs in the hope that their relevance to tourism will help preserve them.

If you can't make the visit any time soon, reading To Grandmother's House is certainly the next best thing.

Abigail Sawyer
July 2008