Guangzhou Huangpu Old Port

This guide to Guangzhou's Huangpu Old Port follows the more than 5,100 foreign ships that anchored here between 1758 and 1837, after the Qing court restricted Western trade to Canton and funneled every ship through this customs stop first. It traces the export-painting industry that grew up around all that waiting, with local workshops turning out assembly-line canvases of ships and warehouses for sailors eager to prove they had been here. Look closely at the customs house ruins and imagine painters each handling just rigging, or just faces.