Not-so-great walls sprout in Beijing

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Beijing has undergone a massive construction blitz in the seven years since the city was awarded the Olympic Games.

Gleaming towers of glass and steel have been built. The streets are lined with millions of flowers.

Communist officials wanted the Olympic television audience and thousands of tourists to see Beijing as a 21st-century city.

But the games are here and some of the older, shabby neighborhoods remain.

Construction of an apartment complex in the Caochang Shitiao neighborhood has been delayed by one man.

Hu Jianjun quit his job to fight for his home. The former systems engineer has watched while all of his former neighbors in his courtyard have taken relocation money from the developer that is knocking down their homes.

Hu held out, though he knows he cannot fight the redevelopment. He just wants to get as much money as he can before he has to leave his 200-year-old home.

Last month, an 8-foot wall was built, hiding what's left of the neighborhood from passers-by. Watch what walls in Beijing are hiding »

"It's simple. They [the government] want to hide things," Hu told CNN. "They want people to see nice, pretty things. If something isn't pretty, they try to obscure it."

Hu calls the practice "a no-solution solution."

Michael Meyer, author of "The Last Days of Old Beijing," said the government is also worried about how the nation's capital will look to fellow Chinese.

The games have been portrayed to China's people as about being a good citizen, protecting the environment and being patriotic, he said.

That makes it important for the government to show its best face for the people watching in the provinces.

"It doesn't do good for Beijing to show the rest of the country that the capital looks rundown," Meyer said.

So the walls have gone up, and some buildings have been cloaked in tarps that show what they will look like once renovated.

One new wall is in the Tianqiao neighborhood, next to the Temple of Heaven. There the authorities have built a brick shield to hide several small, dilapidated shops.

The owners still conduct business each day, but the number of customers, who have to enter through a small door in the wall, is down.

"People don't come in," said a shopkeeper, who asked to not be identified.

Wang Jing, a student, said she helps her brother out with his store. She told CNN that the country's interests are more important.

"Because I think that our country is fair, after the games the government will explain themselves," she said. "We're Chinese and we support the Olympics."

Meyer, who has spent the past three years in Beijing, described what he calls a tension between old and new. The Chinese government wants to maintain its traditional culture, but it also wants the world to recognize it as a modern nation.

"And so by painting over things, or putting walls up, or by putting up pictures of what's to come, it's sort of taking care of both at once," he said.

"You can still see the old-style houses, the old-style businesses, but they have a fresh coat of paint. So it looks like it's been cared for when in fact it hasn't. They've been rotting for 50 years."

Meyer himself lives in a neighborhood that is scheduled to be redeveloped. In the past six months, the government has come in and painted all the walls gray and doors red. The streets have been cleaned up. It looks nice, he said.

But outside appearances belie the real Beijing.

"Behind these doors our homes are still quite dilapidated," Meyer said.

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