Located aroundDashilancommercial road, just to the west of the disastrous "historical" refurbishment that isQianmenmain road, lies Qianshi Hutong, a quiet, shabby lane ignored by the traffic around it. It wasn't always like this.

Long beforeWangfujingbecame the swaggering parade of luxury it is today, Qianshi wasthe placeto go for moneychangers during the Qing Dynasty. All manner of social backgrounds gathered in the lane to barter currency, mainly copper, although the feudal government of the time had restricted tax payments to just silver.

Qianshi was the financial center of monetary exchange, and also home to 26 mints producing coin for almost every bank in the city. During the 1900 Boxer Revolution against the Western Powers, a fire swept the area, reducing these banks and mints to ashes. As a result, most of the current housing here dates back to the late Qing period at most.

Copper factories were built here, with workshops located in the jewelry market busy turning the raw product into valuables. It was only after the establishment of the Republic in 1949 that the lane lost its function due to the reformation of the monetary system.

As paper money replaced the old-style currency, the previous high demand for precious metals shrank.

Banks such as Da Tong or Wan Feng expanded their buildings towards the hutong's center in the late Qing turn-of-the-century period, and the lane became the narrowest in Beijing.

Qianshi is currently 55 meters long but just 70 centimeter wide for the most part, with the lane squeezing in the middle to just 40 centimeters. Should two people meet while walking, one has to stand to the side to let the other through. At the very end of the hutong is a big house with many smaller ones inside, where up to 10 families squeeze in.

Source: CCTV