The Shi Family Residence in Yangliuqing town, in Tianjin, is one of the most historically and architecturally interesting architectural complexes in all of Northern China.

Built in 1875, the residence is over 7200 square meters large, with 15 yards and 278 separate buildings. They include living rooms, guest rooms, and studies in the complex’s eastern end, and an opera building that seats over 200 people, ancestral halls, and classrooms used for tutors to teach kids in the western part of the residence.

The original builder of the residence, Shizhong, moved to West Tianjin’s Yangliuqing Town from East China’s Shandong province in the early Qing dynasty to sell agricultural products. His son Shi Wancheng was good at doing businesses. He helped hide a waitress who had been sentenced to death for stealing precious jewels from her boss, Heshen, the richest official at that time. To thank him, she gave him some of the jewels, which made Shizhong very rich and started the Shi family fortune.

Shizhong’s most famous descendant was Shi Yuanshi, whose business skills made the Shi name even more famous and wealthy. After his death in 1919, the Shi saw a steady descent in its fortunes, as it was forced to move out of its grand residence in 1923. The residence was heavily damaged during the war that consumed China over the next several decades.

The local government invested 5.6 million yuan to renovating the residence in 1987, and in 1991, it was renamed the Tianjin Yangliuqing Museum by the Tianjin municipal government.

By Xie Fang