As symbols of shops and trades, signboards and flags have their own peculiar Chinese flavor and are part of a long-standing and welt-established tradition.

With paintings and photographs of scenes of business premises, workshops and fairs, this book presents nearly a hundred types of signboards prevalent in Chinese commercial districts at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The purpose of this collection is to resurrect the market setting and street scenes of bygone days. The descriptions in the book will give readers a glimpse of the emergence and evolution of Chinese signboards and the folk culture imbued in them, as well as the personage, events and business conditions in those earlier days.