Huizhou Old Streets

Although the majority of the stores along the old street are not the same as they were first built 200 years ago, you can still find some of the original layout remains intact. For example, they were all built this way that the front end is the store and the back end is the workshop.

In old times, most merchandise sold in Laojie ranging from Huizhou specialty products to household items such as soy sauce came out of small family workshops of manual labor. Today, only Hui Mo, the brand name ink sticks are still manufactured the traditional way. According to local people, the top quality of Hui Mo has a lot to do with the manual process, plus a touch of secret recipe.

To get a crash course on Hui culture without going too far out, you can go to Wan Cui Lou, a private museum on Laojie specializing in Huizhou antiques, arts and crafts collection.

A pair of golden lions is a masterpiece of Huizhou lacquerware 鈥made by applying layers of lacquer upon layers of linen cloth. So although look mighty powerful, even a kid may lift it up.

Now let me take you just a couple blocks away from Laojie and step into one of the old-fashioned wooden gates. You will be surrounded by other bits and pieces of Huizhou culture and history that are as fascinating.

Mr. Cheng Dawei's formal residence is just one of such kind of places.

Cheng is a Hui merchant himself, and through his business experience, he realized the importance of a standard abacus calculation. And later Hui merchants spread his abacus theory to Japan and Southeast Asia.

See, we all know Chinese are good at math because we invented abacus, but do you know why Hui businessmen holds a competitive edge against businessmen from other area of China? It's because of this guy, Mr. Cheng Dawei.

Born in 16th century, Mr. Cheng made a major contribution to the then Chinese society by setting the standard format of abacus, and perfecting the abacus calculation rhymes. Of course, his accomplishments were not limited to abacus, he is also believed to be the first person ever to make and use a tape measure.