Apart from Nianhua Temple, Dashiqiao Hutong hosted two other temples: the Miaoyuan Guan in No. 23, and Guangji Branch Temple in No. 11. When I arrived at the Miaoyuan Guan, it hardly looked any different from the residential courtyards around it. This particular Guangji Temple has also been largely overlooked by history. It was founded at 1465 by the eunuch Liu Jialin based on his own house, but in 1949 this branch of the currently-in-use and still-quite-famous Guangji Temple was shut down.

The 40-year-old Li moved to Dashiqiao Hutong when he was 8 years old. Now he lives at the intersection between this hutong and Shuangsi Hutong in the north. "This lane used to be the part of the Dashiqiao Hutong back in 1911," said Li, "so the No.11 in Shuangsi Hutong was also part of it before. The space inside No.11 was as huge as the main temple two decade ago." When Li was a child, he often played football inside the temple, using its gate as the goal.

"This place was once occupied by the Jiankang newspaper of the Ministry of Health," Li said. "Two years later they rented it to a hotel called The Old Courtyard Hotel. That hotel is a lot like a trendy night club, which is ironic given its temple past." I was surprised by the casual treatment of these official cultural relics, and I have to say that Dashiqiao Hutong has lost its battle with the changing times.

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