Kindle Price: $9.99

Save $6.01 (38%)

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Read with our free app
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

Buy for others

Give as a gift or purchase for a team or group.
Learn more

Buying and sending eBooks to others

  1. Select quantity
  2. Buy and send eBooks
  3. Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs

Follow the author

Michael Meyer
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed Kindle Edition

by Michael Meyer (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 149 ratings
See all formats and editions
Journalist Michael Meyer has spent his adult life in China, first in a small village as a Peace Corps volunteer, the last decade in Beijing--where he has witnessed the extraordinary transformation the country has experienced in that time. For the past two years he has been completely immersed in the ancient city, living on one of its famed hutong in a century-old courtyard home he shares with several families, teaching English at a local elementary school--while all around him "progress" closes in as the neighborhood is methodically destroyed to make way for high-rise buildings, shopping malls, and other symbols of modern, urban life. The city, he shows, has been demolished many times before; however, he writes, "the epitaph for Beijing will read: born 1280, died 2008...what emperors, warlords, Japanese invaders, and Communist planners couldn't eradicate, the market economy can." The Last Days of Old Beijing tells the story of this historic city from the inside out-through the eyes of those whose lives are in the balance: the Widow who takes care of Meyer; his students and fellow teachers, the first-ever description of what goes on in a Chinese public school; the local historian who rallies against the government. The tension of preservation vs. modernization--the question of what, in an ancient civilization, counts as heritage, and what happens when a billion people want to live the way Americans do--suffuse Meyer's story.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    385 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Bloomsbury USA
  5. Publication date
    July 23, 2010
  6. File size
    7225 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
Next page
Add a debit or credit card to save time when you check out
Convenient and secure with 2 clicks. Add your card

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Just in time for the Summer Olympics in Beijing, the Old City's narrow lanes and shops are being bulldozed and their residents displaced to make way for Wal-Marts, shopping centers and high-rise apartments. Part memoir, part history, part travelogue and part call to action, journalist Meyer's elegant first book yearns for old Beijing and mourns the loss of an older way of life. Having lived for two years in one of Beijing's oldest hutongs—mazes of lanes and courtyards bordered by single-story houses—Meyer chronicles the threat urban planning poses not only to the ancient history buried within these neighborhoods but also to the people of the hutong. The hutong, he says, builds community in a way that glistening glass and steel buildings cannot. His 81-year-old neighbor, whom he calls the Widow, had always been safe because neighbors watched out for her, as she watched out for others: the book opens with a delightful scene in which the Widow, a salty character who calls Meyer Little Plumblossom, brings him unsolicited dumplings for his breakfast. The ironies of the reconstruction of Beijing are clear in the building of Safe and Sound Boulevard, which, Meyer tells us, is neither safe nor sound.Meyer's powerful book is to Beijing what Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities was to New York City. 25 b&w photos. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

One of the wonders and terrors of freewheeling capitalism is its dynamism. Old ideas, technologies, and physical structures are swept aside without sentimentality or regard for the human costs. This is especially evident in the rapidly emerging economies of India and China, where the old struggles to coexist with the new. Meyer first went to China as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1995, and he continues to reside in one of the few remaining old neighborhoods in Beijing, one that is clearly doomed, as high-rises, shopping malls, and widened avenues move ever closer. Meyer describes his adopted home ground with a mixture of affection and hard realism. Living conditions are harsh, homes are crowded, the wood in many structures is rotting, and outhouses rather than indoor plumbing are the norm. Yet residents, including Meyer, have a strong and stubborn attachment to their community; he provides touching examples of how many strive to stay put. A wistful, charming paean to a community and way of life that is soon to be swept away in the name of progress. --Jay Freeman

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B003WUYE3E
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury USA; 1st edition (July 23, 2010)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 23, 2010
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 7225 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 385 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 149 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Michael Meyer

Michael Meyer

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

"Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet" author Michael Meyer took a wide route to the story, starting back in 1995, when he was sent to China as one of its first Peace Corps volunteers. His first book, the acclaimed "The Last Days of Old Beijing," resulted in a Whiting Writers’ Award for nonfiction, followed by a Guggenheim Fellowship. His second book, "In Manchuria," won a Lowell Thomas Award for Best Travel Book from the Society of American Travel Writers, as did the third book in his China trilogy, "The Road to Sleeping Dragon." Among other outlets, Meyer’s stories have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated, Slate, the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Architectural Record, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Iowa Review, the Paris Review, and on National Public Radio’s This American Life. He has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar award, the Berlin Prize, and residencies at MacDowell, the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy.

Currently a Fulbright Scholar in Taipei and a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University's Centre for Life-Writing, Meyer is working on a biography of Taiwan. He is a professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaching nonfiction writing. He lives in Mr. Rogers' actual neighborhood, Squirrel Hill.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
149 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

lms
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read before visiting Beijing
Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2010
Verified Purchase
This book is a non-fiction memoir, travelogue, and historical work about life in Beijing hutong. Hutong are narrow streets lined with old courtyard homes that are shared by many families and located in central Beijing. Written over the course of several years by an American ex-pat living and volunteering within a community slated for destruction, the book provides a compelling and comprehensive analysis of the current redevelopment situation in the city. The author's main premise is that the race to redevelop Central Beijing by government and private developers, the city is destroying the fabric of the traditional neighborhood and irreparably damaging the long-term growth of the economy and sustainability of the region. What is being lost is the community feeling, along with the basic functions of the neighborhood, in ways that will have impacts on Beijing, but also China as a whole.

Beijing's urban renewal program is not a new subject for Western accounts of Chinese growth, nor of Beijing's efforts to modernize the city. However, the author's storytelling approach and vibrant writing style are unique and provide a new perspective on the old debate. Unlike other accounts of the hutong destruction or reports of the city's extensive preparations for the Olympics, which focus on documenting the breadth of the destruction, this book zooms into the fate of one community to tell the story. The author provides personal anecdotes and stories from his time living and teaching in the Fresh Fish Junction area of Beijing to illustrate the impact of the demolitions on individuals. I highly recommend this book.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
V. Mac
4.0 out of 5 stars The Last Days of Old Beijing
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2011
Verified Purchase
This book is both what I hoped for and what I hoped it wouldn't be. There are very interesting stories of the author's experiences in Beijing, however, there is a plethora of information about other cities, other countries, that is quite dull reading. Too much information is almost as bad as not enough.

I am glad to have this book and even if I knew about all the extra info, I would still buy it. The service was very good and the book is in excellent condition.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
A. Silverstone
5.0 out of 5 stars Unique Viewpoint from American Living in Hutong
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2009
Verified Purchase
Michael Meyer has constructed an engrossing book about life in the traditional lower class communities of Beijing. The courtyard houses are subdivided into small one or 2 room dwellings clustered around narrow lanes, hutong in Chinese. They do not have plumbing or even proper kitchens. There are public latrines and bathhouses for taking care of the necessities of life. This is not an easy way of life, at least to Westerners used to a higher standard of living. However, these hutongs thrive with a communitarian spirit that is absent anywhere else in the city. Meyer chronicled his two years of living like no other Westerner, among the poor in the hutong. Despite initial apprehension, his neighbors accept him as their own. Meyer alternates between life in the hutong, teaching English at a neighborhood elementary school and describing the rapid destruction of hutongs, especially in the run up to the Olympics, in the name of "progress" and the loss of the lifestyle associated with them. He also puts it in the context of the greater history of Beijing, and attempts at preservation in China and around the world. This fascinating book gives a realistic view of the hutong life that is rarely seen, even in modern Chinese literature, but in a way that is very approachable for the Western reader. Meyer excels when describing the lives and the travails of himself and his neighbors in the hutong.
4 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Jim McCutcheon
5.0 out of 5 stars Not going to Beijing? You should still read this book!
Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2011
Verified Purchase
"The Last Days" is a real-life drama of both the author who lived there and dedicated years to understanding life in the hutongs of Beijing, and of the residents of this traditional lifestyle neighborhood. Although the story-line centers on Michael Meyer's own experiences while living in a space smaller than many American's walk-in closets, his weaving together of the histories of both the hutong's and of China in general produces a depth of understanding for the reader that other travel writers can only dream of creating. The book has plenty of facts and statistics for those readers who need that type of information - Mr. Meyer obviously had done his homework and then some. For me, though, what made the book compelling were the life stories of his neighbors, from school children, to the wise elderly widow, to the man who could and did recycle everything for a living. In no uncertain terms he relates the frustrations of the few native Chinese who recognized that destruction of the hutongs destroys a piece of everyone's cultural foundations, and who sought to stop the work of The Hand that mysteriously identified buildings for destruction. Although the edition I read contained the 2009 epilogue, I'd love to read "Part 2" of the story to learn what has happened in the last few years.
If you plan on visiting Beijing, please read this before you go and then arrange a tour through one of the hutongs before they are all razed. If you are not going to Beijing, read the book for the insights it provides into a culture that is struggling to maintain a respect for its history while becoming a super-power in the 21st century.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Katerina
4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful look at Beijing's Hutong life
Reviewed in Australia on January 8, 2019
Verified Purchase
I read this while travelling in Beijing. It provides a wonderful insight into Hutong living and provided a better starting point for my daily walks through them. The mix of history and current impacts makes this a good read for anyone spending time in Beijing.
Report
Ian Kennedy
5.0 out of 5 stars one of the best books on Beking I've read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 9, 2009
Verified Purchase
If you want a tourist guide don't buy this book. This is probably one for people really interested in the Chinese people (every day folk)not China. The author's total immersion system gives him a genuine view and experience of what it is like to live in a Beijing Hutong, among the lower social classes who scrape a living but are full of life and character. It gives an insiders view of a community. Their fears for the future and their struggles with authority. The ever present threat of demolition and relocation. The efforts of individuals to record or stop the wholesale desecration of a city. Meyer writes with great sensitivity and insight. I hope he writes another. Having seen the interview on youtube it would be a real treat to meet him and have him guide you around Beijing.
3 people found this helpful
 Report
Midshipman
4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 6, 2021
Verified Purchase
Can't praise this book highly enough. The author writes movingly and from the inside as it were, about a fascinating world on the brink of extinction.
Report
Suzanne Australia
5.0 out of 5 stars I really enjoyed this book
Reviewed in Australia on August 10, 2015
Verified Purchase
I really enjoyed this book. It started me wanting to read more about China. The author has a very interesting viewpoint as he lived in parts of the city being destroyed. He also linked it to many other big cities in the world. This is a worthwhile read. .
Report
J
4.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 21, 2017
Verified Purchase
A fascinating book that helps to put a face to policy in contemporary China. Thoughtful and engaging, the book touches on many issues, not just the demise of the hutong.
Report
Report an issue

Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report