Guangzhou's Dongshan red-brick villas, walked early before the café crowd arrives

Most people now know Guangzhou's Dongshankou (东山口) for its weekend cafés. What first drew people to the area is still there, behind iron gates: a few streets of red-brick villas built in the 1920s and 1930s. If you come early and keep your voice down, these streets still feel like a place where people live, not a photo backdrop.

Who built the red-brick streets

Locals call these houses yanglou (洋楼), which means 'foreign buildings'. Most were paid for with money that Cantonese families earned in the Americas and Southeast Asia. They are two or three storeys of red brick, with deep verandahs and patterned cement tiles in the entrance halls. An old Cantonese saying pairs Dongshan shaoye with Xiguan xiaojie, the young masters of Dongshan and the young ladies of Xiguan.

东山少爷，西关小姐。

Where to walk

Start at Dongshankou station on Metro Lines 1 and 6. Walk past the café blocks of Miaoqian Xijie (庙前西街) to Xinhepu Lu (新河浦路), which runs beside a narrow creek. The side streets around Peizheng Lu are quieter still, with bougainvillea over the walls and laundry hung on bamboo poles. Many houses carry a plaque marking them as protected historic buildings. Most are still private homes, so you see the courtyards from the pavement.

The hours that work

The best time is a weekday morning before nine, when residents are out walking their dogs and schoolchildren are heading to Peizheng. On weekend afternoons, photographers come for the brick and the light, and the lanes fill up. Allow an hour on foot. Eat on the main road afterwards, not in the residential lanes.