In the Imperial Capital, housing was tight in the earlier years, with five or six families squeezed into a single courtyard house, each person having only a few square meters to themselves. Afterwards, when the Asian Games Village was built, many of Old Beijing's residents aspired to live in apartments, and so the government undertook busy efforts to demolish and relocate, turning many courtyard houses into apartment buildings.
Once the demolitions started, they couldn't be stopped, and the number of courtyard houses dwindled, becoming rarer and thus more valuable. In recent years, the courtyard house has caught the attention of the Ministry of Culture, and some have been preserved as cultural heritage, with their prices skyrocketing, especially those in special locations which have become nearly impossible to buy.
The Huang Family lived in a courtyard house in the Xicheng District.