Liulichang

This guide to Liulichang in Beijing follows a young scholar arriving for the imperial civil service exam and heading straight to this street for supplies, tracing how a lane once known for glazing palace roof tiles became the capital's hub for booksellers, ink stones and rare texts. You'll hear about Rongbaozhai, a shop founded in 1672 whose woodblock printing technique was precise enough to reproduce a brushstroke's every fade of ink, and its work for the writer Lu Xun in 1933. Browse the shopfronts as you listen for what these students needed most before their exam.