Culture club

• Source: Global Times
• [10:13 December 14 2010]
• Comments

Photos: Courtesy of Hutong School

By Matthew Jukes

When Jeremie Rossignol was looking to get started with his own business, he had just 10,000 euros and a few friends to help him out. They knew what they wanted - to offer Chinese language and culture lessons in a picturesque hutong setting. The only problem was the money they had to play with wasn't enough to afford the rent. To make their dream come true, Rossignol and his team had to come up with a creative way to afford the four-compartment building.

"In a perfect world the school would have been in a courtyard, but we started with 10,000 euros and first we moved into Jiaodaokou with a small residential apartment," Rossignol said.

Business was good, and it wasn't long before they spotted the ideal location: A siheyuan (four sided traditional courtyard) well out of their price range.

 "We used the west and south sides, and rented the north to an events company and the east to an IT company," Rossignol added with a smile.  

Not only did the shared rent allow each of the startups, all from abroad, a little space to breathe when it came to rental contracts, but also allowed them to grow. Online marketing could be outsourced to the IT company, if extra legroom was needed for performances it could be handled by the events company and if anyone needed a quick Chinese lesson, they could pop over to the cultural school.

Conveniently, as the three businesses grew, the event and IT companies moved away and left the hutong site to what is now officially known as The Hutong School. 

The Hutong School, very much a labor of love on behalf of the staff that run it, now caters to Westerners looking for internships, organized before they even leave the country, and the opportunity to learn the most spoken (and CV-boosting) language in the world. Students are given between two and four hours of Chinese classes a day, as well as the opportunity to work in a business in Beijing and get used to the cut and thrust of Beijing business life. Unsurprisingly in these times of economic crisis, the tide of espresso that costs more than a euro has driven many to The Hutong School's elaborately decorated archway.