Beijing Postcards is a small, history-focused company in Beijing. We conduct archival research and oral history projects, and share our work through themed walks, talks, events and historical souvenirs.
Founded in 2005, Beijing Postcards began by collecting and selling old photos and maps of Beijing. In the process, we realised that our real passion was to gain an understanding of how Beijing became the city it is today.
Welcome to our Public History Space
Beijing Postcards is located in the Dashilar neighbourhood of Beijing, an old melting pot where migrants used to settle. Here we organise community events, showcase our latest research and oral history projects, and every Saturday we have a public walk-and-talk starting from our space. We also utilise our own collection of maps and photos to create unique souvenirs related to our research projects, such as framed Beijing map prints and photographs, cushions, tote bags, jigsaws, and more.
Beijing Postcards Public History Space
No. 97 Yangmeizhu Byway, Dashilar, Beijing
12pm-6pm, Wednesday-Sunday
+86 130 1107 8680
info@beijing-postcards.com
Everything we do starts with research
Beijing Postcards is a company dedicated to Chinese history. All of our projects are based on original research using archival materials, books, out of print periodicals and oral histories. The results are often surprising and will challenge what you think you know.
The latest Beijing Postcards news:
In 1929 Chiang Kai-shek tried to abolish Chinese New Year. It sounds like something out of a fairy tale, because who other than the most terrible monstrous villain would ever think about cancelling the most important family gathering of the year.
Even after the last emperor abdicated, the young republic could not ignore the importance the Temple of Heaven
Father Hyacinth Bichurin led the Russian Orthodox Mission to Beijing from 1807 to 1821. During his time in China he learned fluent Manchu, Mongolian and Chinese and made some of the most accurate Qing dynasty maps of Beijing.
In and around the end of the last dynasty in 1912, Beijing became a breeding ground for liars and cheats. Decadent and corrupt government structures combined with poverty and desperation created the perfect atmosphere for such people to emerge. We have chosen three thrifty liars that all have the one thing in common, that it is still discussed to this day to what extent the accounts they have left us with can be trusted.
When Kublai Khan decided to place his capital in Beijing 800 years ago, the first thing he did was to determine the city’s central axis
Beijing is built around a 7.8 km long central axis. The famous city planner Liang Sicheng called it the spine of the city. All of the most important pieces of architecture were placed either directly upon the axis or along it in a perfectly balanced symmetry.
People biding their time in the hutong alleyways playing chess on the ground or attending to their birds and other hobbies is almost a caricature of life in old Beijing.
In 1950, the great socialist leader Mao Zedong put all his political weight behind a new marriage law. Women’s rights were for the first time recognized as being equal to the rights of men.
Strict Ming and Qing dynasty societal norms confined Han Chinese women to the innermost of courtyard dwellings for most of the year, but at the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations - on the sixteenth day of the first lunar month - it was different.
We have dug into the history behind Beijing’s revolutionary road and created a unique scarf out of an originally confidential map we have recently collected.
We recently stumble upon the fascinating forest of Qing dynasty shop signs, that originally dangled outside shop fronts in the dusty streets of Beijing.
After the Qing dynasty collapsed, the republican Peiyang Government felt the need to unify the major ethnic groups as one nation, the Five Colour Flag was thus created as the national flag, representing the concept of Five Races Under One Union.
During the Great Qing, highly placed Imperial officials travelled with an impressive entourage.
We have recently discovered Sidelights on Peking Life from 1927, a book that easily qualifies as one of the best books on Hutong life in the capital that we have ever come across.
From Poul Hartling to panda diplomacy — Beijing Postcards team were so honored to be asked to create a display showcasing the history of Danish-Chinese relations to celebrate their 70th Anniversary of diplomatic relations!
In 1912, the last emperor of China abdicated. One of the first things the new Republic did was to address the problem of creating a national language in China. The country’s multiple so-called “dialects” were so strong that they were in fact independent languages, with their own grammar and pronunciation.
Not long ago Beijing Opera was the most popular kind of entertainment in China. Even the communists could not ignore its immense popularity, but how is it that a tradition with such widespread appeal has almost disappeared today?
In 1950, a documentary was made about the closing down of the notorious brothels district Bada Hutong in Beijing. Calling the film a “documentary” is maybe a bit of a stretch, because everything in the fifty-two minute-long film is scripted and pre-arranged. Nobody is acting naturally. The main actresses, however, are actually all former prostitutes of Bada Hutong.
The Boxer incident is one of the most fascinating, decisive and utterly contradictory events in Beijing’s modern history. Preston’s book is based on source material produced by the foreigners that were besieged inside Beijing’s diplomatic quarter for 55 days in the year 1900.
It was at the end of March that I discovered that foreigners had now become the main health concern in Beijing. Standing outside the checkpoint to Yangmeizhuxiejie…
Our friend Tom had just written the ultimate guide book on Beijing, but then the city he knew ceased to exist…
Undertaking a police investigation is also a kind of historical research. In the files attention will be directed at small details, habits and routines that are often difficult to connect with through other sources. The Pamela Werner murder case from 1937 is no exception.
A little fat guy in an illfitting uniform. You have probably seen pictures of Yuan Shikai: The president of China who wanted to be emperor. Within a few years of his appointment as the first official president of the Republic of China in 1912, Yuan Shikai had lost his belief in the republican project and wanted to go back to the time of the dynasties.
Michael Meyer lived for two years in the Dashilar area. He interviewed residents and conducted research in many ways related to the Beijing Postcards project of today. “The Last Days of Old Beijing” is an extremely interesting peek into the world of the Hutongs around Dashilar around the times of the Olympics.
We need Your Stories for Beijing Postcards Oral History Project
We at Beijing Postcards think that fear and anxiety has already had its fair share of documentation. We know that there is a high degree of control and confinement, even a lack of empathy with the people whose businesses have been shot down, but there is also light coming in.