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Inner City Hostel: The Chinese are sincere

By Chen Chen: 0 Comments Print E-mail China.org.cn, November 16, 2009

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Lily, the owner of the hotel, sits on her handmade coach. [Chen Chen/China.org.cn]

Inner City is a Quadrangle Courtyard hostel in a traditional Beijing Hutong. It is located in a vibrant local community and combined with the traditional Beijing natives' residence. Rooms are set around a peaceful garden courtyard. The hostess decorated the room and yard by herself elaborately, making it homelike to the visitors, most of whom are foreigners.

Lily prepares a kitchen for guests to cook whatever they want. If the guests want to experience cooking the Chinese food, she will go to the market to buy raw materials for them for free. [Chen Chen/China.org.cn]

On a late afternoon, I met the beautiful hostess, Lily and her friendly staff Chen Yue in her hostel.

"I want to change the stereotype of many foreigners that 'the Chinese are cheating'", said her. "So I provide my guests good service and not ask for extra money." She only charges fixed room fares and all other things are free.

Lily set out a special room as the kitchen and guests could cook there. For those people who want to experience the Chinese style food, Lily buys the raw materials for them and teaches them how to cook. Every night, Chen Yue partied with the guests in the yard and on the night I was there, they made dumplings! The dumplings are of strange shapes and not fully stuffed but the guests were so excited that the most traditional Chinese food is made out of their hands. A game room was also spared where the visitors could play computer games.

There are private rooms and mixed dorms at Lily's place and a Swedish girl told me that meeting and living with people is part of the travelling experience for her so she chose the mixed dorms. In the deluxe double bed private ensuite, Lily introduced me her hand-made traditional Chinese bed. It was made from deserted wooden doors and covered with red silk on the surface. It really looks like the emperor's bed at the Forbidden City.

When leaving, Lily showed me guestbook that was stuffed with the thanks and comments by the visitors. Some even use the simple Chinese characters they just learnt to express their gratitude to the hostess and her good service. From the guests' words, I can see Lily has livened up to her promise to make every coming visitor believe that "the Chinese are sincere".

Guests from all over the world are happily making dumplings with the staff. The dumplings are of strange shapes and not fully stuffed but they were so excited that the most traditional Chinese food is made out of their hands. [Chen Chen/China.org.cn]