Beijing is a city of contrasts: It has dazzling Olympic venues as well as the ancient city, a maze of homes and alleys, called hutongs, that are rapidly being demolished to make way for high-rise development.
Michael Meyer, 36, is a former Peace Corps volunteer. He lived in Beijing for years, but says he felt detached from the city. He then moved to a hutong and finagled a job as a teacher in a local, hutong school.
Out of that experience came his book, The Last Days of Old Beijing.
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