英语角 angle

Eric Abrahamsen on Digging for History

In early 2007, as part of Beijing's pre-Olympic beautification campaign, a strip of land east of Houhai was leveled and prepared for the construction of a new park. That particular strip of land followed the course of the old Yuhe, a small canal that existed during the Ming and early Qing dynasties. The plan was to recover some of the Beijing's historic charm by recreating this tree-lined waterway.

That plan changed after the ground was broken. Digging along the course of the canal, workers discovered the Ming-era canal they had expected to unearth, lined with medium-sized gray bricks akin to those in the old city walls. But surrounding this was another canal, deeper and wider, shored up with massive yellow slabs of stone which bespoke the Yuan dynasty. Construction halted while the Ministry of Culture decided what to do.

The question they faced is a question that plagues ancient cities around the world. In the campaign to bring the past to life, how far back do you go? As bits and pieces of Beijing's history are retrieved from the dustbin, developers find themselves ma

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