| When you walk through a hutong 胡同 (hútong) what you primarily see are the doorways. There are many different types of entryways, each of which can be called traditional. Sometimes the difference is due to status, but most of the time the difference is made by money. People with money spent lavishly on the exterior decorations, while people of modest means spent to decorate the inside, where they live. Basic psychology applies the world over.
During the Cultural Revolution, anything decorative was considered evil. I met an elderly woman in a north eastern hutong who showed me where her family had buried the door guardians and engraved entryway to their home to protect them from the Red Guard.
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