hutong

noun

1. A narrow alley or street in a traditional residential district of a city in China, especially Beijing.

   “The fish-bone-like transportation network is also present, especially in large neighbourhoods, where a series of major hutong (usually running east-west) are either joined by smaller transverse hutong or lead to even smaller dead-end hutong that occasionally run between housing plots.”

   “'I spent my childhood in those old hutong courtyards. Relationships were warmer then.' His mouth puckered, as if hunting a lost taste.”

   “In Beijing, near the Forbidden City, a winding maze of hutongs, or narrow alleyways, is home to one of the world’s most exotic markets.”

   “Today, just 1,300 hutong remain, and many more neighborhoods, like the colorful Qianmen district just south of Tiananmen Square, are scheduled for renewal.”

   “He led me along a dog-legging route through the fifteenth-century alleyways that were the lacework holding old Beijing together. Hutongs, as they were called, defined China's old capital, their grey stone walls pierced at intervals by weathered wooden doors that opened onto four-sided courtyard houses.”