认识胡同 Know about Hutong

而且，胡同也不都是直来直去的，也有弯曲迂徊的，九湾胡同是北京拐弯最多的胡同，一个胡同拐了十三道的弯。叫九湾胡同，是用“九”来形容它拐的弯儿多。
Besides, not all hutongs are straight. Some are crooked. Jiuwan hutong winds most in Beijing. It has 13 curves. We call it Jiuwan hutong to describe how winding it is. (Jiuwan in Chinese means nine curves.)

听了“九湾胡同”的名字，你也许会想，北京胡同的名称都是怎么来的呢？胡同既是老百姓居住的地方，那么胡同的命名就很随意了。胡同中的标志性建筑、官方的机构、集贸市场、特别的植物、居住过的名人，甚至胡同附近的知名的地名等等，都可以用来为胡同的命名。
When you hear the name of Jiuwan hutong, you might wonder how hutongs in Beijing got their names. Hutong is a place where normal people live. So the naming of a hutong might be very casual. Landmark buildings, government institutions, markets, special plants and famous residents, or even nearby known place names and so on can be used in naming a hutong.

比如这个“千福胡同”，原称千佛寺胡同，因胡同中的千佛寺得名。这个“文丞相胡同”，就是以南宋丞相文天祥之名命名的。
For example, “Qianfu hutong”, Qianfu means “thousands of blessings”, was named as “Qianfosi hutong”, Qianfosi means “Temple of thousands of Buddhas hutong”, because Temple of Thousands of Buddhas is located there. “Premier Wen hutong” was named after a famous premier, Wen Tianxiang, in Nansong period.

可以说，胡同的名称是各有各的来历，各有各的讲究，各有各的传奇。不过，这里面突出的一点就是：人们善于利用汉语一音多字、一字多意的特点，为胡同赋予吉祥、美好的寓意。这便是中国文化中的“谐音文化”。
Therefore, each name has its own origin, history and legend. But there is one striking point: people are good at making uses of phonetically synonymous characters and multi-meaning characters to give hutongs beautiful and auspicious names.

采访梅兰芳故宫馆长：那个第二层画的是蝙蝠，蝠就是中国“福”的一种谐音，过去蝙蝠跟我们中国说的“福”音是一样的。汉字音是一样的，所以它是借用这种表示一种“吉祥”。
Interview with Director of Mei Lanfang Former Residence: The paintings on the second layer are bats (its Chinese pronunciation is Fu), which is phonetically synonymous with happiness in Chinese, which pronounced also as Fu. People like to adopt a character of same pronunciation to express their best wishes.