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Tunxi Ancient Street lies in
the center of Tunxi district, where the
municipality of Huangshan is seated. Starting
in the west from Zhenhai Bridge, a stone
arch bridge crossing the river which was
built in Ming dynasty, and ending up in
the east with the tablet of memorial archways,
it added up to 1273 meters long. Being well
preserved, there are shops row upon row,
with buildings simple and elegant. It is
a commercial street only for pedestrians,
with the building style of Ming and Qing
dynasties, having the reputation of "The
moving picture by the river on Pure Brightness".
Set up in Song dynasty, Tunxi Ancient Street,
became a distribution center for goods and
materials to Huizhou during Ming and Qing
dynasties. With shops, it looks densely
and compactly. The shops, workshops and
residences form an organic whole, keeping
the characteristic and operation layout
of ancient store such as "front shop
and back workshop" or "front shop
and back house". The building is only
3-story-high, usually of tenon structure,
stones based, bricks laid, wall built like
a horse's head, small green tiles, wood
carvings of Hui style, ancient shop signs,
red-lacquered building with double-eaved
roofs. They are simple and elegant, magnificent
and clean. The pavement is 5 to 8 meters
wide, laid by redflag stones of large size.
With clear grain after a rain, it is as
clean as a picture. Walking on this street,
there is no noise and no disturbance, free
and natural far, far away. It seems to be
back in the ancient times, triggering off
fantastic reveries...
The shop name in the ancient
street, has a lot of culture meanings, embodying
the specialty of that the merchants in Huizhou
are scholar-merchants. Among which, there
are shops with more than a hundred years
history, such as "Tongderen" Medicine
Shop, "Tonghe" Steelyard Store,
"Chengdexin" Sauce and Pickle
Shop, the production and display as well
as its operation are still with ancient
customs by now.
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