Yandai Xiejie

The diagonal passage runs from the tower with drums to the lakes of Shichahai. On both sides of its bend, former commercial premises have given way to handicraft shops, clothing stores, cafés, and bars. When the northern quarters were occupied by families of the Eight Banners, military men and officials supported by the Qing dynasty came here, keen on dry and water pipes. Later, family paintings, porcelain, and antiques were bought and resold in these shops, and the street acquired the nickname little Liulichang.

In seventeen fifty-nine, Meng Tingshu, the owner of hereditary commercial premises at the eastern entrance to this street, was short of ready cash. He sold one of four shop rooms for two hundred liang—units of weight in silver by which prices were then calculated. The room brought in two liang in rent per month. The buyer paid at once, and Meng gave up part of his ancestral home and a steady income.

In the deed of sale, the street is still called the Diagonal Street before Drum Tower (Gulou)—today's Yandai Xiejie. The sold premises housed Tiancheng Pipe Shop. It had been founded by the merchant Hu Tiancheng before Meng's transaction; he turned his own name into a sign.

By eighteen thirty, the premises had been resold four more times. The owners changed, but each continued to sell pipes under the name Tiancheng. Customers bought both ready-made pipes and separate parts: wooden or lacquered stems, copper bowls, and mouthpieces of porcelain and decorative stone. They selected and assembled them to the customer's taste. Along with the room, each new owner acquired the sign familiar to customers, so changing the merchandise was unprofitable.

The customers lived nearby. The northern quarters of imperial Beijing were occupied by families of the Eight Banners—military men and officials supported by the Qing dynasty. Many of them enjoyed dry and water pipes. At the trading hub near Drum Tower (Gulou), one pipe shop stood beside another, and huge wooden pipes above the entrances served as signs.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the city directory included the name Yandai Xiejie—the Diagonal Street of Tobacco Pipes. A popular legend also explains it by the shape of the passage: the eastern entrance supposedly resembles a mouthpiece, the long part of the street a pipe stem, and the turn toward the lakes a bowl. But the street had been called diagonal long before that. Documents more reliably connect the word "yandai" with the goods in its shops.

After the last emperor's abdication, the former customers found themselves on the other side of the counter. Banner families lost their stipends and, to cover everyday expenses, sold inherited paintings, porcelain, and antiques. Merchants opened antique shops here, bought up family property, and resold it. Yandai Xiejie acquired the nickname "little Liulichang," after Beijing's well-known market for books and antiquities. The street, which had once served well-to-do officials and military men, became an affordable city market.

Now handicrafts, clothing, cafés, and bars predominate among the shops. Of the former specialization, the word "yandai" has been preserved most precisely in the name—the commodity that five successive owners continued to sell under one sign.