Baixiang Street is an old street in Chongqing. It is about 425 meters long and less than 10 meters wide. It is located between Wanglongmen and Taipingmen. According to legend, there was originally a huge rock by the city wall that resembled an elephant and was named Baixiang. The white elephant is on the north bank, and there is Shizishan on the south bank. Thus, there is the saying ‘Blue lion and white elephant lock the great river.
‘ In fact, the river surface in that area is wide. The ‘white elephant’ is upstream and the ‘blue lion’ is downstream. They are not completely opposite each other, so it is impossible to ‘lock’ the great river. Under the ‘white elephant’ stone, there was originally a pool named Baixiang Pool. Baixiang Street connects Wanglongmen in the northeast and Taipingmen in the southwest. It is also close to the yamen. With the development of Chongqing’s water transportation, merchants and shipowners transport goods to Chongqing and have built many warehouses and commercial firms in that area. Baixiang Street is becoming increasingly prosperous. After Chongqing was opened as a port, foreign merchants cannot enter the city without permission. But foreign merchants have to handle affairs. Thus, there are compradors. Baixiang Street is inside Taipingmen, so it is used as the office location by various compradors and commercial firms. Therefore, Baixiang Street has the earlier foreign houses in Chongqing. Those houses also absorb some advantages of traditional Chinese architecture. For example, most of them adopt lattice windows and doors with carved hollow designs, which are quite exquisite.Opening hours: Open all day throughout the year. The specific business status is subject to the opening situation on that day.
