Preface: Qianmen street lies on Beijing's historic central axis just south of the Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City, the imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) to the end of the Qing Dynasty. The commercial street took shape about 570 years ago and reached its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s, garlanded with restaurants, theaters, silk stores and tea houses. It is still a famous shopping area today.