The Urban Edit
Opened in March by Liu Feng, a designer associated with the UCCA Gallery next door, Liang Shi is more than just another artfully designed coffee stop for gallery hoppers (although it fulfils that role nicely). It’s a fully-fledged Cantonese restaurant, offering sweet and savoury dim sum, roasted, braised and stewed meats, soups, wok-fried vegetables and house specials including sautéed shrimp balls with scallops and chilli, and pan-fried foie gras, Chinese style.
Another month, another A-list superstar! On April 1 Johnny Depp dropped into Beijing to promote his new movie, sci-fi thriller Transcendence. A keen artist and musician, JD was eager to check out Beijing’s famous 798 Art District… and that’s where Bespoke Beijing came in.
We used our Beijing expertise to help set up a series of meetings with local artists in a handful of the area’s most interesting spaces so that Johnny could get involved in the local culture. Here he is hanging out with Marx, boss of Li-Pi Records, a store stacked with vintage vinyl as well as a cute bar and café.
Duung…Duung…Duung…Duung. That, readers, is the sound of the mighty Drum and Bell Towers, Beijing’s bastions of time-keeping, sounding out the nightly curfew in the Qing dynasty. These twin towers of power are at the heart of our latest Limited Edition Public Walking Tour with Beijing Postcards, The Nightwatch.These incredible structures have survived waves of upheaval over the centuries, but how much do you really know about them? Test your knowledge with our 5, little-known facts below.
1. The Bell Tower used to be a cinema
The team of historians at Beijing Postcards has been researching for months to uncover new facts and original material for our brand new Nightwatch Limited Edition Public Walking Tour.
By piecing together clues from old newspaper archives, academic books in Chinese and other languages, diaries, and interviews with local experts – even ordinary citizens with long memories – they have built up a fascinating picture of nighttime Beijing during the late Qing Dynasty. At a time when a strict nightly curfew was in place, former soldiers of the Eight Banner Army (otherwise known as The Nightwatch), would patrol the streets to the beat of the Drum and Bell Towers.
Bespoke is bursting with excitement about our latest Limited Edition Public Tour in collaboration with the amazing, fascinating history peeps at Beijing Postcards, which will take place on six evenings only from late April to May. We’ll tell you more in the next Urban Edit but for now, here’s a teaser…
We’re busy bees at the moment, and are on the hunt for new people to join our team. So if you’re fun, smart, ambitious and love helping others make the most of Beijing, then you could be perfect for Bespoke.
