Nanluogu Xiang Parking Lot Update: It's Coming, and Nothing to be Done About It

Either people aren't talking or they know nothing about the Nanluogu Xiang developments we reported this past Sunday. Among many residents, there's an unsettling uncertainty regarding the potential car park to be placed somewhere between Qianyuan Ensi Hutong and Qinlao Hutong. Meanwhile, officials are passing the buck best they can, and keeping lips sealed.

A spokesperson in the Jiaodaokou Neighborhood Bureau -- what people mean when they say "local government" -- said, "No one knows the exact details, and I personally don't, so I can't give you more information." Asked who would know, he replied, "Hard to say." When I posed related questions to a representative from the Nanluogu Xiang Community Committee, I was directed to the Neighborhood Bureau. "If they know nothing, then we really know nothing," she said.

But people who are in the know, including longtime residents on the hutong, seem to believe a parking lot is inevitable -- though the timeframe remains a mystery. Xu Yan, president of Nanluogu Xiang's chamber of commerce and owner of Taste, said the parking lot will indeed span the entire area between Qianyuan Ensi Hutong and Qinlao Hutong. It will apparently at least be partially underground.

"Nanluogu Xiang currently has a lot of problems, and one of those is the lack of parking spaces," Xu said. "Of course there is opposition among store owners, and the chamber of commerce doesn't want this, but there's no use opposing it. It will happen."

He added that while the car park will come, its appearance "has yet to be finalized."

Xu said the government wants to transform Nanluogu Xiang into a pedestrian-only walking street, but that we're at least a year away from seeing that happening.

As for whether Nanluogu Xiang needs a car park, opinions among store owners ranged from "yes" to "yes, but" to "no!"

"If Nanluogu Xiang is to be a pedestrian street, the parking lot would be necessary," Xu said.

The owner of No. 60 Bar, on the corner of Qinlao Hutong, said, "Parking really isn't convenient here." She expressed optimism in government planning: "The more development the better, right?"

The owner of a convenience store -- one of the oldest on the street, having been around for seven years -- grew steadily angrier as we discussed the potential parking garage. "The fengshui of the street will be ruined," she said.

There are 10 businesses in the proposed car-park zone, starting from Guitar Bar in the north to No. 60 Bar. The reactions of some of these tenants ranged from confusion to skepticism to resignation.

"I don't understand the situation," said James Zhu of Jiangnan Zhizao.

"I don't know the reasoning behind this proposal," said the owner of Double Happyness. "I feel Nanluogu Xiang is pretty good the way it is."

The people inside a police station on this stretch of road directed me to the Neighborhood Bureau.

Outside Guitar Bar, a few longtime Nanluogu Xiang residents chatted amongst themselves. They were suspicious of my presence -- I'd introduced myself as a journalist -- but gradually got used to it. "It'll be done before spring festival," one of them said, pointing out that this was all part of the tides of change. "There used to be a pork stall there," he said. "A beef stall there..."

"Of course, this was all before the country's liberation," he said with a laugh.

I encountered them in the same spot a little later, this time in the presence of Guitar Bar's owner. Unlike many tenants who have yet to hear anything official from their landlords, Guitar Bar's owner has actually received notice from his landlord that construction is imminent.

He was reluctant to go on the record with me on the significant issues. "It's not that I don't want to talk," he said. "There's just nothing to say, and no point. You know just as much as I do."

"Why do you care, anyway?" one of the men on the street asked.

At first I thought he was asking why the Beijinger's readers would care about Nanluogu Xiang, so I began explaining that a lot of us simply really like the hutong. But then I realized he was really asking: why are we bothering with this story now? Everyone will know everything in due time.

It struck me as a very Chinese attitude: why, indeed, should one question the inevitable. The bulldozers will come when they come, at which point we'll know exactly which stores are being knocked down and which are saved, there but for the grace of nothing.