Courtyard life

Desiring an authentic taste of traditional Beijing, Barbara Aliguero, culture director at the Italian Embassy in Beijing, has opted for an old courtyard home with few modern luxuries. Her courtyard home is restored but not modernized.

"Except facilities like heating and bathrooms, it looks like it was," Aliguero said.

Aliguero has lived as a journalist in Beijing for more than 20 years since 1981, and returned to Beijing in 2008 after spending five years as a foreign correspondent in Cairo. "My job is to bring Italian culture to China," she said.

And her interest in culture and art is visible in her courtyard house.

In her living room, the floor is covered by strongly colored Afghan carpets surrounded by big cushions from Egypt. The smell of fresh roses and a lemon tree gives the room a "hippie chic" atmosphere. Adding to the room's ambience, Chopin flows from speakers hidden behind three oversized bookshelves where hundreds of books line.

The table in the living room is made up of 50 books stacked on top of each other, and a book titled A Panorama of Ancient Chinese  Architecture in Shanxi province serves as the perfect place to rest a cup of tea.

Aliguero's home displays artifacts from all over the world. In the dining room, there is a piece of furniture from Cairo and a traditional Chinese dining table made of marble and wood.

Most of her furniture was made in the Gaobeidian furniture market in Chongwen district. "I recommend this place. The carpenters and the quality have improved so much since I first moved here," she said.

On the wall of her dining room hang four original paintings of Nicole Dufour, a Dutch painter who lived in China in the 1980s and 1990s. In another corner of the room hangs a woodcut named The beggar, made by Chinese artist Li Hua in 1947.

The turquoise kitchen reminds visitors of the southern Italian island of Capri, with light emanating from the courtyard and reflecting off the warm colors inside, giving the room a feel of the Mediterranean.

Aliguero used to live in a diplomatic compound in Sanlitun when she worked as a journalist. Now in the courtyard house, she said she feels at home. "This is the first time I feel like I live in a real home," she said. "Above me is only the sky, it's very beautiful."

Although almost all the furniture in the house is Chinese, her place still feels Italian. She said the secret lies in the colors and the atmosphere.

"The colors in my home are typical colors from southern Italy, orange for the sand and blue for the sky," she explained.

"Also, the furniture is arranged in an Italian way. Some pieces are in the middle of the room and not along the walls, that's typical Italian style. And of course me, I am Italian!"

All five rooms in the house are separated. "Not many people like this," she said and laughed. "It can be a problem when I have the kitchen in one room and the dining room in another. Hot pasta becomes cold pasta."

"But it's not easy to find these traditionally restored courtyards, so I don't complain," she said.

The hutong outside the house is typically crowded and noisy. However, silence dominates Aliguero's courtyard. One of the best aspects of living in an original hutong is the opportunity to become immersed in traditional Chinese life, she said.

"You can hear people talking in the next courtyard, hear them playing Peking Opera," she said. "During the weekends people come around to sell things like fruit or collect empty bottles. It makes me believe that not everything in China has changed and I remain a fabric of Chinese culture."