ABSTRACT
Xiangxiajiu Road was a fairly typical busy retail street in the older quarter of the bustling southern city of Guangzhou. On a hot and humid summer day in 2001, the shophouse-covered sidewalks were crowded, while cars filled its narrow two lanes. The bright and fashionable interiors of the shops stood in contrast to the older upper floors of the shophouses. This was a fairly common scene in contemporary urban China. What was different here, though, was that the building façades were less soot-laden than elsewhere in Guangzhou (Figure 7.1). New paint and brighter colours were evident. The stained glass windows were fully intact and not boarded over in parts. These clues indicated that this was probably one of the more popular shopping districts, although still in a traditional neighbourhood and a far cry from the modern shopping malls that are mostly situated toward the suburban edges of the city.
