The smell of hot tea fills Tu Weiming's spacious apartment on the campus of Peking University as the soft tones of a wooden flute drift up from nearby Weiming Lake.
"Old Beijing is dead," he declares.
Tu is careful to clarify those words. A Harvard professor, an authority on Confucianism and a visiting lecturer here, he has heard it all before. Beijing has a long history of upheaval, he says, of dismissing the old to welcome the new.
"For a long time in China, there's been this notion that you have to get rid of the old to truly embark on a new era," Tu says. "The old is not just structures, but habits, books, ideas. Everything."
He says the present period of change pays homage to China's rich history. There has been a resurgence in Confucius studies and discussions, particularly among the youth, and many seem interested in safeguarding that which is authentically Chinese. In fact, Chinese leaders are eager to boast about their preservation efforts.
Archaeologists surveyed more than 3 million square feet of land at Olympic venues and unearthed 700 ancient tombs and hundreds of artifacts. Workers discovered an entire eunuch mausoleum buried beneath the site of one Olympic venue. The foundation of the aquatics center was moved so a nearby Taoist temple, 500 years old and dedicated to a fertility goddess, could survive. In their digging, the Chinese have found and preserved bronze mirrors, pots, snuff bottles, porcelain jars and a collection of jewelry that dates back 2,000 years.
"We are extremely concerned about retaining the cultural and historical relics," says Wang, of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games. She says a primary factor in securing the Games and a focus in preparations is the opportunity to share Chinese culture with the rest of the world.
The goal, she says, "is to achieve a high level of Olympic Games ... [that] includes Chinese characteristics, which is what we'd like to introduce to the world."
The romantic images slowly fade, replaced by the sound of growling bulldozers and the sight of endless cranes, a metal forest across the skyline. While Chinese leaders talk about the future, many Beijing citizens struggle to surrender what was a simpler - if sometimes inconvenient - way of life.
Dazhalan, a large hutong neighborhood off the southwest corner of Tiananmen Square, is perhaps the best example. In a city of more than 8 million people - twice the size of Los Angeles - this one neighborhood is jammed, with more than 57,000 people in a half-square mile, according to one report.
