No. 16 Skewed Tobacco Pouch Street. Beijing is a planned city, with the Forbidden Palace at the centre of a grid that aligns with true north. Major thoroughfares usually run straight from north to south or east to west. However, criss-crossing the neat grid are old and winding residential streets. Beijing used to have many streams but as population grew and the climate changed, these dried up and were paved over. The streets are called xiejie or “skewed hutongs”.