Qingdao's liyuan courtyards, where the old quarter still hangs out its laundry

Qingdao is usually sold on its beer and its red roofs above the sea. A few streets back from Zhongshan Lu, in the old quarter called Dabaodao (大鲍岛), the city has kept a kind of housing found mostly here: the liyuan (里院). Each is a two- or three-storey block built around a shared courtyard, with wooden galleries facing in.

What a liyuan is

Most were built between the 1900s and the 1930s, when the port was growing fast. Shops faced the street on the ground floor. Families lived upstairs, reached by open stairs and wooden balconies, and shared a yard and often a single tap. The name is set above the arched gateway and usually ends in li or yuan.

The restored block and the ones beside it

Guangxingli (广兴里) has been restored and now holds cafés and exhibition rooms. It is a fair first look at how the buildings are laid out. The courtyards that tell you more are on the streets around it, along Haibo Lu (海泊路), Zhifu Lu (芝罘路) and Boshan Lu (博山路). Some are under scaffolding and some are still lived in. If a gate is open and laundry hangs from the gallery rail, it is someone's home, and the polite thing is to stop at the threshold.

Mornings on Huangdao Lu

Huangdao Lu (黄岛路) holds a street market from early morning, with clams in shallow basins, flatfish on ice and steamed buns stacked by the crate. By late morning most of the stalls have packed up. Corner shops nearby sell draught Tsingtao by weight, poured into plastic bags that people knot and carry home. The local saying is hā píjiǔ, chī gǎla (哈啤酒，吃嘎啦), dialect for drinking beer and eating clams.

在青岛，啤酒装在塑料袋里，从街角的酒铺一路拎回家。

Qingdao railway station is a short walk to the south, so the quarter fits a first afternoon or a last morning in the city. Late spring and September are mild. July and August bring most of the crowds.