In the centre of Beijing there is still a lot of the traditional Chinese housing. These are small, single-storey, grey-painted houses. Inside the houses are very dingy and there is usually no furniture for storage so everything is piled on the floors and walls. These areas are rabbit warrens of alleyways known as "hutong" in Chinese. The alleyways are often only a metre or so wide, so everything feels very cramped. The houses do not have toilets, but there are modern public washrooms every hundred metres or so.
Many of the hutong are being cleared in the cause of development. This is resisted by many of the residents who cling to their traditional communal lifestyle, and to the central location of their home.
Modern housing is also very community-based. It is quite common for it to be provided by the workplace, so for example Da Ping's flat belongs to the university where she works. This means that colleagues are often also neighbours. In the past housing was provided by the "work unit" to which one was assigned by the communist system. Xia's family live in a different kind of area but she also refers to it as a community. This is more like a gated estate in the UK - they pay a service charge which includes community facilities such as playgrounds, sports halls, etc. At a rough guess, the estate probably has about 50 blocks with 16 flats per block.
Most of Beijing lives in blocks of flats. These look very Western in design, and I've realised that that is because the Chinese have no tradition of building above one storey. In fact they have a word, "lou", which specifically means a building with more than one storey. Nowadays all new building is of more than one storey in the hope of accommodating the ever-expanding urban population.
As anywhere else, the flats vary enormously. I have visited one flat which belongs to a student. Here the rooms are adequate in size but the bathroom is tiny, about 3 x 4.5 foot. There is about 30cm between the toilet and door, and the shower is just a shower head next to the basin and nothing to close it off from the rest of the bathroom.
Da Ping's flat is fairly small and very plain - white, painted walls throughout. There is one large bedroom for the parents and then one other room which serves as both the dining room and their daughter's bedroom. There is also a small kitchen and a bathroom.
The other flats which I have visited all belong to relatively wealthy families who have been able to afford study in the UK. These look very, very similar to a flat in the West, although the furniture tends to be rather heavier than our Ikea styles.
In all the flats, floors are tiled or wooden rather than carpeted. When you enter someone's home, you immediately remove your shoes and are given a pair of slippers. Given how dusty the streets are, this is very practical. The kitchens differ in that there is a hob but no oven since baking does not form part of Chinese cooking. In all the flats I have been to, there is an "English" toilet. However, the plumbing here is not good so toilet paper must always be thrown in the bin rather than down the toilet.
There also seem to be quite a lot of people who live on the streets or in the shacks on the pavements. They roast their food using a kind of metal oil can with a tray at the top for the food. They sleep on a bicycle rack or a make-shift bed.