What ’ s the purpose of introducing the W.C. Club in this part? 6 Meanwhile, Ju’er residents took full advantage of the well kept public space that fronted the new toilet . Old Yang, the local bicycle repairman, stored his tools and extra bikes there, and in the fall cabbage vendors slept on the strip of grass that bordered the bathroom. Wang Zhaoxin, who ran the cigarette shop next door, arranged some ripped-up couches around the toilet entrance. Someone else contributed a chessboard. Folding chairs appeared, along with a wooden cabinet stocked with beer glasses. 7 After a while, there was so much furniture, and so many people there every night, that Wang Zhaoxin declared the formation of the “W.C. Julebu”: the W.C. Club . Membership was open to all, although there were disputes about who should be chairman. As a foreigner, I joined in the fun. On weekend nights, the club hosted barbecues in front of the toilet. Wang Zhaoxin supplied cigarettes, beer, and grain alcohol, and Mr. Cao, a driver for the Xinhua news service, discussed what was happening in the papers. The coal-fired grill was attended to by a handicapped man named Chu. Because of his disability, Chu was licensed to drive a small motorized cart, which made it easy for him to transport skewers of mutton through the hutong . In the summer of 2002, when the Chinese men’s soccer team made history by playing in its first World Cup, the W.C. Club acquired a television, plugged it into the bathroom, and mercilessly mocked the national team as it failed to score a single goal throughout the tournament. 8 Wang Zhaoxin modestly refused the title of Chairman although he was the obvious choice, because nobody else had seen so many changes in the neighborhood. Wang’s parents had moved to Ju’er Hutong in 1951. Back then, Beijing’s earlyfifteenth- century layout was still intact, and it was unique among major world capitals: an ancient city virtually untouched by modernity or war. 9 During the 1990s and early 2000s, as the Wangs hawked cigarettes in Ju’er Hutong, developers sold most of old Beijing. Few sections of the city were protected. Whenever a hutong was doomed, its buildings were marked with a huge painted character surrounded by a circle: “pull down, dismantle.” 10 Like many Beijing people I knew, Wang Zhaoxin was practical, good-humored, and unsentimental . His generosity was well known — locals had nicknamed him Wang Laoshan, Good Old Wang. He always contributed more than his share to a W.C. Club barbecue , and he was always the last to leave . He used to say that it was only a matter of time before more buildings in our neighborhood were pulled down, but he never dwelled on the future. 11 For years, Good Old Wang had predicted demolition, and in September of 2005, when his apartment building was finally torn down, he moved out without complaint . He had already sold the cigarette shop, because the margins had fallen too low. And now there was no doubt who had been the true chairman, because t he W.C. Club died as soon as he left the hutong .