ABSTRACT
Taking Canton (Guangzhou) as an example, this chapter demonstrates how a carefully designed walking tour may enhance historians’ documentation skills. It shows how one may trace the contours, axis, and shape of an imperial walled city by walking along modern roads. By comparing old maps with present scenes one understands how space might have been historically redefined, and why some spatial arrangement remains little changed. Relics and cultural deposits from the Qin to the modern era illustrate how time is compressed within space in this old city. Despite its rapid transformation, walking the city’s West End today gives us a sense of how prosperous the international marketplaces once were. The walk ends with a visit to a few remaining sites on Honam Island concerning Chinese Hong merchants of the pre-Opium War era. The tour serves as an exercise to train Chinese history students to establish a link between mind and feet, past and the present.
