When Sandy Ma, president of The Capital Mandarin School, takes you for a hutong tour, you can be sure you will be well taken care of.I had been to the Hou Hai area several times before and been offered a ride on the back of a rickety rickshaw by more than one eager cyclist, but when Ms. Ma offered to arrange a tour for me, I knew I would be in good hands.

We met at the subway station and walked about 10 minutes to one of Beijing’s countless narrow alleyways lined with small food stalls and old men playing checkers.Ms.Ma introduced me to our guide for the day, Ms Wang,a petite Chinese woman with excellent English skills and a vast knowledge of Chinese history.She had arranged for a couple of rickshaws to take us comfortably from place to place during our tour.Though the cyclist peddling our rickshaw was a small, wiry man about half my size, he carried us through the winding alleys as if we weighed nothing at all.

Our first stop led us down one of Beijing’s famed hutongs, where we paused on the front steps of a typical hutong courtyard entrance. Ms Wang explained the significance of the width of the entryway and the number of beams mounted over the door.

“In ancient times,” she explained, “the number of beams over the door indicated a person’s status in society.A four-beam house meant a rich family lived there,two beams meant middle class, and no beams meant a very poor family.”

She went on to tell us a story of two star-crossed lovers who were not allowed to marry since their families had different numbers of beams over the doors.We were very impressed by her knowledge of hutong history and folklore, and she was able to answer all of our questions.

 After our brief history lesson, we proceeded to the door of a typical Beijing hutong courtyard, where one of the residents had invited us in for tea.His name was Mr. Liu, but everyone called him Cricket Liu (we later discovered why).As we emerged into the courtyard, we were overwhelmed by the sound of exotic birds calling to each other from inside their various cages.He had birds from all over the world, including a pitiful-looking molting parrot and two minah birds who spoke more Chinese than many of Beijing’s expats.

Cricket Liu invited us into his home, where he served us hot tea and a plate of candied rose petals which he proudly announced were made by his son, a famous chef.He showed us a picture of his son in a magazine, and then used that segue to shower us with magazine and newspaper photos of himself and his famous crickets.

It turned out Cricket Liu raised enormous crickets the size of my hand for cricket fighting.Every October during their mating season, he would carefully measure the crickets to make sure they were the same size, then put them in a cage together where they would fight to the death for the right to mate with the females.A good fight, he told us, would last up to ten minutes and draw in great crowds of people.Needless to say, we plan to revisit Mr. Liu in October to witness this spectacle.

Cricket Liu and his wife gave us a tour of their house, which was built in the very typical layout of the hutong courtyard home.This was my favorite part of the tour, as not everyone gets to see the inside of a hutong home.The house was small but cozy, full of antique furniture and framed photographs of Cricket Liu with various celebrities from all over the world.

After exchanging goodbyes with the Lius (and with their minah birds cheerfully chirping “Zai jian!”), we once again mounted our rickshaws and were peddled to the heart of Hou Hai.We wandered down one of Hou Hai’s most famous alley streets, lined with peddlers offering everything from Mao memorabilia to small dragon statuettes made of caramelized sugar. Ms Wang pointed out the older buildings and told us stories of the statues that guarded many of the rooftops.Though I had wandered this street before, having a guide by my side enriched the experience and allowed me to notice many of the smaller aspects of the hutong that I had missed before.

Our rickshaw cyclists next peddled us to the ancient Drum Tower, where we hiked up an endless amount of steps to be rewarded at the top with an amazing view of Beijing.The drum tower is home to the world’s biggest drum, as well as a water clock used to mark time in ancient days.Every half hour they stage a spectacular drum show, reminiscent of ancient times when the drums were banged every morning at 5:00 to wake the citizens of Beijing, and every evening at 7:00 to announce the closing of the city gates.

To end the tour we hiked up the Bell Tower, which happens to be home to the world’s biggest bell.The view from the top was amazing, especially since it was a rare clear day and we could see all the way to the mountains.Looking out over the sprawling hutongs branching out in every direction, I was very thankful to have had the opportunity to see this other side of Beijing.Ms. Ma’s hutong tour not only gave me insight into ancient Beijing, but was also a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon.