Acasual visitor to Beijing recently remarked that he had spent a day in the Forbidden City, and it had not struck him as particularly old. 'It just didn't have that ancient feeling about it,' he said, slightly disappointed. Granted, he had just come from seeing Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and compared to that 1,000-year-old monument, the Forbidden City is relatively fresh-faced, with only 600 years of history.
But what really keeps the Forbidden City from having that hushed, tree-root-wrapped air of antiquity is the fact that it has been in constant use throughout history, right up through the last century. And so it is with most of Beijing's historical structures: developed, inhabited, used - there's hardly a chance for dust to settle on them.
Many sites that don't fit into the framework of the modern city have been done away with; others, refurbished to appear new. The Confucius Temple is lined with ancient trees and crammed with pillars bearing the names of imperial examinees since the Yuan dynasty, but its back hall is still used as a classroom. The Fire God Temple north of the Forbidden City is re-emerging from a year's renovation, sporting new masonry and a fresh coat of red paint - there is nothing old about it.
The much-lamented courtyards and alleyways of old Beijing, a cause celebre of preservationists, are the most visible example. Once home to the city's upper classes, and later crammed full of its poor, many of the courtyard neighbourhoods are now being destroyed to make way for new apartments. Those that remain are getting retooled for Beijing's newly wealthy. Bricks will be scrubbed, wood replaced and surfaces repainted - little will remain of the original structure except for form and style. But, in this way, the courtyards will also remain true to their original use.
It is a tall order to ask a city that is struggling into full development to maintain costly facilities that generate little or no economic benefit. But more than that, it seems very like Beijing to look at all this living history and shrug, as if to say, 'we built it, and if we don't need it anymore, we'll tear it down. We've been building stuff like this for thousands of years'. One imagines modern Cambodians looking at Angkor Wat with a sort of reverence, as at a ghostly reminder of their past. Not so Beijingers.
One of the oldest, most worn-down courtyard neighbourhoods in the city, near eastern Jianguomen Street, was torn down about a month ago. In its place, giant office buildings are being built, something far more in demand than courtyards these days. They will go up, and be used, and they'll stay up - at least, until the city needs that space for something else.