Li Linqiu Former Residence

Traveler highlights

Li Linqiu’s Former Residence is a typical Dadaocheng shophouse and the home where the lyricist spent his middle and later years and wrote songs. The building began as a street house in 1887 and was rebuilt in 1932 as a two-story brick shophouse. Li bought it in 1953 and reportedly wrote lyrics at a small desk upstairs, facing the window. He died here in 1979, linking the house closely with his creative life. Inside, look for the brick floor, plaster walls and cedar partitions; details such as the bamboo-jointed drainpipe and the stair cover used for security preserve the character of an early Dadaocheng shophouse. During repairs in 2009, his family found an autobiographical manuscript in a bedroom drawer. The residence later became a city-designated historic site and reopened with restored displays in 2024. Its façade, room layout and domestic traces offer a way to picture how the songwriter lived and worked within Dadaocheng’s commercial neighborhood.