Nanluoguxiang is a street that runs through one of Beijing's most historic hutongs, or alley-crossed neighbourhoods. Red banners hang from the tiled roofs of its old homes these days, bearing the message: 'The reconstruction of this hutong needs your support and understanding.'
You'll see similar signs all over Beijing, as the city reshapes itself for the 2008 Olympics. But that's not the plan for Nanluoguxiang. Instead, the local Dongcheng district government wants to turn it into a bar street, a nightlife hub for foreigners.
Beijing's current nightlife heart is Sanlitun, where many foreign embassies are located. All over Beijing, local governments and entrepreneurs have long envied the way Sanlitun dominates the city's nightlife. Its cluster of bars, nightclubs and restaurants attract a mainly foreign crowd happy to spend 50 yuan on a cocktail.
Taxi drivers who pick up westerners, or weiguoren, on a Friday or Saturday night often assume automatically that they're heading to Sanlitun.
Beijingers have tried, with little success, to lure westerners to bars and clubs in different parts of the city. Those efforts have resulted in a number of notorious white elephants, such as Yuan Dynasty Bar Street in northern Beijing and Nuren Jie, or Lady Street, in the west. They might mimic the bars of Sanlitun, but they're forlorn places where the staff outnumber the customers and the anticipated profits have failed to materialise.
But such failures haven't scared off Dongcheng's officials. They are sparing no effort to turn Nanluoguxiang into their idea of a foreigner-friendly location. The ancient buildings are being spruced up and the entire street repaved - presumably so drunken westerners don't trip when they emerge from the bars.