Walking the full 1.44 km stretch of Zhuhai Road's qilou arcade street: first built in 1821, it grew into the commercial backbone of southwest China after Beihai opened as a treaty port in 1876
Standing at the site of the Beihai Customs House and the old dock, one can understand the sequence of cause and effect: the harbor came before the streets, and commerce built this city
Learn a "three-layer reading method" for facades that blend Chinese and Western styles, reading from the arcade's arched columns and arched-window balconies all the way to the parapet where Chinese cloud patterns and Western volutes appear in the same frame