Xie Fei was born in Beijing during the 1980s, and she has lived in a hutong for more than four decades. Xie is the owner of a dessert brand, "The Sweet Hutong." She integrates her memories of hutong life into her designs and production of pastries.

When Xie was a girl, she often visited her grandfather's courtyard, located on Meishuguan Houjie, a street in Beijing's Dongcheng District. Then, the young Xie liked climbing — up and down — a table placed in the courtyard for playing ping-pong (table tennis). When she grew tired, she would rush into her Grandpa's room, and she would often grab a mug to have a drink, and more times than not, she would drink some of her Grandpa's favorite jasmine tea. Once, after she recalled her memories of ping-pong and jasmine tea, Xie designed a puff pastry, the shape of which resembled a ping-pong ball, and the cream filling of which tasted like jasmine tea.

"I bought a standard ping-pong paddle, which did not have the padding. I asked a carpenter to polish the handle, and to make it into a wooden plate. I placed several cream puffs onto the 'ping-pong plate,' and I decorated the plate with a Chinese character '囍' (the character is formed by doubled 'xi' [喜], meaning 'doubled joyfulness'), written with sugar," Xie says, describing how she created one of the most popular desserts of her brand.

Xie believes that pastry, in particular, gives people "a direct impression of what life is like in a hutong." In addition to the "ping-pong puff," Xie has asked her chef to develop other breads and cakes. "Soda Ertiao,"  a pair of interwoven braid-shaped breads, is named after a series of hutong, each of which has "Ertiao" (二条) in its name, such as Dongsi Ertiao, Caochang Ertiao and Beixinqiao Ertiao. 

The Sweet Hutong's products also include gateau basque with the taste of a baked sweet potato, pound cake with the flavor of Chinese toon, and mousse cake, made with dark plum juice or haw jelly.

Since 2020, when The Sweet Hutong began taking online orders, the brand has been known as an interesting pastry from Beijing's hutong. During the past two years, Xie has promoted her creative products in various events featuring hutong culture. "My brand is rooted in a hutong. Desserts make us think about something sweet. So, I named my brand 'The Sweet Hutong'," Xie says.

She has a studio, in a courtyard near the eastern wall of the Forbidden City. She sometimes organizes craft-making workshops in her studio. Once, a participant posted the courtyard's address and photos on the Internet. Some netizens were attracted by the courtyard, in a tranquil hutong, and they started to visit Xie's studio.

Every time Xie receives visitors, she treats them with her desserts. Xie has a collection of hundreds of glasses, plates and other housewares with the designs of " 囍," which were commonly seen in newlyweds' houses and/or during wedding ceremonies in the past. "The element of 'doubled joyfulness,' in Chinese, must be a trendy design, because so many items of glassware, which are easy to break, have been well kept over such a long time. I have several hundred of the ' 囍'  items. I see through them the vigor of our traditional, and classic, designs," Xie tells Women of China.

Xie believes the current popularity of guochao is connecting Chinese with trends of the past. Many of those trendy things in the past were actually closely related to people's everyday lives.

"Many of the young visitors have told me they saw the glassware with a ' 囍' design for the first time. I think this element is traditional, or nostalgic, but they think it is trendy and fresh. What I want to do, for the future, is to develop more pastries that will become interesting gifts from Beijing. The Sweet Hutong will make people think of Beijing's hutong — integrated with something old and something new," Xie concludes.

Photos Supplied by Zhang Jiamin

(Women of China English Monthly October 2022 issue)