Beijing Dashilan
Ancient market lane of century-old shops rebuilt after a devastating nineteen-hundred fire.
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About this audio guide
This guide to Beijing's Dashilan quarter opens on the night of June 16, 1900, when a mob set fire to a foreign medicine shop and the flames tore through the district's booksellers, pearl shops and centuries of accumulated stock. You'll hear about Tongrentang, the imperial pharmacy already a century old when the fire hit, and Ruifuxiang, the silk house that once dressed Beijing's elite. It traces the lane's four-hundred-year history back to the wooden curfew gates merchants funded here in 1488.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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