The new Qianmen Street, from the north to the south, is decorated with imperial-style lights, birdcage-shaped lights and other materials to show Beijing's traditional flavor. "We have saved and restored 76 percent of all the buildings here," revealed Wang Shiren, an expert on ancient architecture.

The designers wanted to restore the architecture of Qianmen according to Ming and Qing dynasty style, but in 1900 it was totally destroyed by foreign invaders and there were no records left.

Because of this they were forced to rely on old photographs of the avenue that was rebuilt in the early part of last century. The north part of the new Qianmen is mainly restored old buildings, while the southern part is more modern.

Old shops and foreign brands

In old times, people could find everything they needed on Qianmen Street. They went to Ruifuxiang for cloth, to Neiliansheng for shoes, to Majuyuan for hats, or to Quanjude for roast duck. Ruifuxiang Cloth Shop has a history of more than 110 years and provided cloth for the first national flag raised at Tiananmen Square.

Although many of the shops along the street now have branches throughout Beijing, local people still prefer to come to Qianmen, the headquarters of the shops.

"Many time-honored shops that originated from Qianmen have decided to come back," said Tian Yun, Board Chairman of Tianjie Real Estate Development Co., Ltd. "When we first made the commercial plan for Qianmen Street, we had already decided to leave 20 percent of space for time-honored shops."

The government of Chongwen District launched an investment-invitation project, targeted at attracting Chinese and international brands. Now, many world famous brands, including Starbucks, Rolex and Nike, have settled on the street. The exterior decoration of these shops is required to show a "Chinese face."

"After the renovation, all the residents here moved to other places, so we will lose some of the most faithful customers. At the same time, since the rent for the shops is higher, the price will go up as well, so it is hard to say whether we can make a stable profit," said Feng Fusheng, the boss of a famous snack restaurant. "Now the customers are mostly domestic and foreign tourists."

Many of the time-honored brands in Qianmen area are snack restaurants of relatively small scale. "Considering this, we have constructed a snack building, which occupies 6,000 square meters, on the southern end of the avenue, to gather together these snack restaurants," said Tian.

Last year, the government of Chongwen District launched a preferential policy to support the time-honored shops: allocating 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) every year to help the old shops return.

However, some people who are familiar with the old Qianmen area have concerns about how much the restoration work will help to keep the original flavor of old Beijing. Jiang Liming, Vice General Manager of B.A. Consulting Co., said that it would be very difficult for Qianmen to rely on the restoration of old buildings to recover its cultural and commercial atmosphere. "The original culture of Qianmen cannot simply grow up in the new pseudo-classic buildings and commercialized shops," he said.