Hi Ted,
My wife's aunt has a place like this in Beijing. Well it would be if it wasn't for the piles of accumulated junk stored all over the place! and the "temporary" kitchen they seem to have set up outside! oh yes and the lack of any plants. Now I come to think about it ,it's nothing like your grandpas house but it might have been once!
I love these old places, I talked to my wife about them and she tells me you can buy an old courtyard house in Inner Mongolia where she was grew up for about 50,000rmb. I really want to buy one and move out of the city but shes not too keen on the idea. She says they get a lot of snow in the winter and when I mentioned that I would quite like to keep some chickens, she just fell about laughing. Still, where going up there in a few weeks so I haven't given up hope!
