You are here: Home > Travel > Highlights

Adjust font size:

St. Michael's Church peers out from behind convenience stores on a busy Taijichang Street. [Photo:CRIENGLISH.com]

The former American embassy is now home to high-end restaurant Maison Boulud. [Photo:CRIENGLISH.com]

On the south side of Dongjiaomin Alley across from St. Michael's Church is the original Belgian embassy. "The embassy is an imitation of a villa belonging to King Leopold II, the king of Belgium from 1865 to 1909," Tong says.

For an in-depth tour, take a stroll up Taijichang Street, where the Italian Embassy and the Customs office were situated. The next two streets intersecting with Dongjiaomin Alley are also lined with old foreign legation buildings. The Beijing Municipal Government occupies the old Italian Embassy on Taijichang Street, while the British Embassy is now home to the Administration of Public Security.

Continuing west on Dongjiaomin Alley reveals the old Japanese, German, Russian, and Dutch embassy buildings, along with essentials to foreign life including the old site of the Standard Chartered Bank and other international financial centers. The center of social life in Beijing was the 6 Nations Hotel, now the Dongjiaominxiang Hotel. Foreign visitors chose this hotel for its location in the center of the foreign legation quarter and the restaurant was one of the swankiest in the city. "If a rich man wanted to woo a woman, he would take her here," Tong jokes about the hotel restaurant.

The stroll down Dongjiaomin Alley ends at the back entrance to the former American Embassy complex at Chi'enmen 23, where there's a plaque detailing the street's history. The stately buildings at Chi'enmen 23 are now home to two of the city's best restaurants, Maison Boulud and Ristorante Sadler. Tong noted that the United States was more lenient on the Qing government after the Boxer Rebellion, forgiving some of the war restitution costs and even inviting some Chinese students to study at American universities for free. "So, at that time, Chinese people learned a lot from Western countries," Tong says. "They went abroad and learned the techniques to build new railways and water power stations; so although this was a painful period for the Chinese, it facilitated the Xinhai revolution in China."

Print E-mail

Go to Forum >>0 Comments

Add your comments...

• User Name Required
• Your Comment
• Racist, abusive and off-topic comments may be removed by the moderator.