Liulichang is a street of specialist shops in south-western Xicheng, a few minutes from Hepingmen, and it is one of the few historic commercial streets in Beijing that still sells what it was built to sell. Its name comes from the glazed tiles that were fired here in the Ming dynasty for the imperial palaces, which is why it sits just outside what was then the city wall. When the kilns went, the street did not: it became the quarter where scholars and officials bought books, ink, brushes and paper, and it has been that ever since.
The shops
The trade here is fine and specialised. There are shops selling Chinese brushes in every size and hair type, ink sticks and bottled ink, inkstones, seal stones and seals cut to order, xuan paper and silk-bound albums, pigments for painting. There are second-hand bookshops where the stock runs from the twentieth century back to the Qing, in the traditional stitched bindings with the pages folded rather than cut; there are mounters who take a painting or a scroll and back it properly for hanging; and there are dealers in bronzes, jade, snuff bottles and prints, some of it antique and some of it modern work sold honestly as such. The leading state-owned houses here are among the oldest retail businesses in the capital.
Buying and browsing
A visitor does not need to spend much to enjoy the street. A brush, an inkstone, a set of seal paste or a bundle of paper is cheap, light and genuinely useful, and a seal cut with your own name in Chinese characters is one of the best small souvenirs in the city. If you are buying anything described as antique, treat it as a collector's market: prices are negotiable, provenance should be documented, and Chinese export rules on cultural property apply. The shops are used to foreign customers and will help, but they will not volunteer a discount.
Practical notes
The street runs in two parallel sections, an east and a west part divided by a road junction, and the west side is slightly the calmer of the two. Shops keep normal retail hours and most open seven days a week. It is a fifteen-minute walk from Tiananmen Square through the Dashilan quarter, which makes it a natural extension of a day in the old city, and it combines well with the Qianmen Street and medicine hall area to the east. There is very little English signage, so bring the name of the street and the shops you want in Chinese.
