正在消失的北京街头摊贩

The knife grinder, the street corner bicycle repairmen, the pavement pancake stalls, and the tailors who take one look at your clothes and run you up a perfect copy for next to nothing were easy-to-find in Beijing decade ago. However, local residents say those vendors are quietly disappearing.

"It's hard to find a stall to repair your bicycle now. We used to have all kinds of stalls in the neighborhood. It only cost you half a yuan to repair a zipper."

"The knife sharpener! My knife is blunt, and I've got nowhere to grind it."

Even young Beijing residents claim that the city is modernized but inconvenient.

"Now we have to shop in big supermarkets. It may only take you five minutes to shop inside, but then there is the time it takes you to get there and then there are the expenses for parking fees…It seems our life has become more complicated."

But where are all those convenient corner vendors? A bicycle repairman Gong Junfeng says he used to have one but that now he risks riding his own tricycle full of repair equipment to find customers.

"It's illegal to do this since I don't have a business certificate. I am always very cautious on the streets of Beijing doing this. It's too expensive to rent a store to do this. I only make three thousand yuan per month."

Beijing is emerging just like any other modern metropolis in the world, a complex of skyscrapers, grand shopping centers, shiny office blocks, and expensive houses, elbowing street vendors out of the market.

In order to preserve the traditional trades, the Chaowai Street Office has made a start. Deputy Director Hong Zhongqing.

"Considering our local residents' daily needs, we've established a series of small stores at corners of the communities, for example, knife grinders, small canteens selling steamed bread and so forth. We've found empty warehouses to rent to those vendors. Of course we'd earn more money by subleasing the houses to businesses like cigarette and wine sellers or beauty salons, but we've decided to lower the rent to provide daily conveniences for local residents. "

Now bicycle repairmen like Gong Junfeng have found a small place to safely run their small business in districts like Chaoyang. Before these trades all go away, it's worth the effort to find a where street vendors can work.

For CRI, I'm Liu Min.