Inside Barkhor’s Courtyard Life: Old Objects, New Uses

Barkhor’s streets surround Jokhang, but much of the district’s life unfolds behind their edges. A July 2024 Xinhua report counted fifty-six historic courtyards in the area. These buildings hold histories of residence as well as newer uses, including cafés, lodging and cultural shops.

Gungsangzi courtyard on Barkhor South Street provides a particularly personal example. The report describes an older Tibetan-style building with a café in a ground-floor corner. Its story begins with a change of use, then becomes more specific through the objects and people who give that use a character.

The café’s operator, Tenzin Techo, grew up in the courtyard. When he furnished the business, he brought old cups, a television and other objects from his family home. They were possessions with a connection to this place, rather than a collection assembled only to suggest an old-fashioned atmosphere.

The report also records an older woman giving the café a copper basin from her home. Such objects make memory tangible without requiring a whole building to remain fixed in one period. A cup or basin is small enough to move, yet it can retain an association with a household and the life that once surrounded it.

Zedun, an English teacher interviewed for the report, sometimes taught students in the café. The business thus became a meeting place where language learning joined the ordinary activities of serving drinks and talking. Unlike the operator, he had not grown up in a courtyard, and the setting prompted him to consider writing about it.

Their different relationships to Gungsangzi help explain the courtyard’s new life. One person returns with objects from childhood; another forms an attachment through work and conversation. A building remains old while the uses and memories around it continue to accumulate. The courtyard’s importance lies in that ongoing relationship between space and people.