Editor’s note: Most Chinese consumers put novelty on a pedestal. However, such urban renewal projects represent a plethora of similar ones led by local governments and developers in an effort to fuse the old and the new.

About the author: Rachel Ruonan Zheng is freelance writer and former editor at Vice China. Her Substack explores the intimate intersection between art and culture in China.

Few spaces in Beijing are chic by virtue of history, and the newly renovated Friendship Garden (友谊花园) is one of them.

Located near the embassy area, the backyard of the 61-year-old Friendship Store (友谊商店) has been reimagined as an open-air leisure park, with cafés and restaurants surrounding a central lawn.

Before: Beijing Friendship Store in the 70s; after: Friendship Garden at night. Image: official RedNote

When I got there on a weekday afternoon, I had a Bryant Park moment in the middle of Beijing with local flair. To my left, two middle-aged men in crisp shirts sipped whisky and puffed cigars. To my right, two teenage girls in Japanese-style school uniforms adjusted their fringes and practiced selfie angles. In front, a Western couple were stretching their legs under the autumnal sun. Somewhere by the corner, skateboards scraped the gravel, likely the same group who would later lie on the grass with convenient-store beer as night fell. The air smelled of Cantonese coconut chicken hotpot.

Friendship Garden is located near Beijing’s embassy area. Image: Beijing News

Friendship Store’s transformation is part of China’s urban renewal movement, which has also given other Beijing landmarks such as Baita Temple, Longfu Temple, and Langyuan Station a facelift. In September alone, they hosted activities including a Jianbing Festival, a BBQ fest, and an 11-day book fair.

I found myself resonating with the two gray-haired grandmas passing by, whispering in disbelief: “This is Friendship Store?” Behind them, a sign seems to have the answer: New Friendship, New Neighbors — Since 1964. Not many malls in China can say that.

Friendship Garden’s Halloween decorations. Image: Ruonan Zheng

Before: a symbol of globalization after the cultural revolution

For anyone born and raised in the capital before 2000, Friendship Store has a special place in their hearts.

It opened in 1964 as a state-owned department store near Jianguomen, catering exclusively to foreigners, diplomats, and Chinese officials with foreign exchange certificates (外汇券), a parallel currency that was inaccessible to ordinary citizens. My dad still brags that he bought his first leather jacket here, at a time when simply entering the store required a passport and an introduction letter.

Back then, Coca-Cola was sold here at US$0.4 after being the first foreign brand permitted to enter the mainland Chinese market in 1978 following the Cultural Revolution, whereas a local soda cost US$ 0.08 then. It also sold a lot of imported items that people only saw in Western movies, like Hershey bars, Marlboro and Rolex watches. The store served as a window of global consumerism for a privileged class.

A young man with a bottle of Coca-Cola in 1981, photographed near Tiananmen Square. Image: Liu Heung Shing via CNN

Unfortunately, the Friendship Store had not been able to keep pace with China’s retail scene, and sales began declining in the mid 1990s. “We have gone through several rounds of redevelopment plans over the past two decades — yet in the end, it always seems to circle back to where it started,” said Li Kai, a longtime employee reminisced to an internal publication.

The struggling business was acquired by Wangfujing Group in 2021, which loaned it 248 million RMB around those years. The mall’s workforce shrank from 2,200 employees to fewer than 70 today.

From the eye of a developer, one advantage of the site was its zoning. The entire compound of nearly 25,000 square meters was classified as commercial land, which means it didn’t face the usual tangle of property-rights disputes or land-use restrictions. Another one was the prime location and clientele, thanks to more than two dozen embassies, the Silk Street Market (known for selling fake luxuries), and an ever-growing ring of global and local restaurants.

The site kicked off its soft opening in May 2025, with a refreshed positioning of “day-café, night-bar” (日咖夜酒). “When I got here, most of the main building was empty,” said new general manager Liu Jie in an interview with Wallpaper China. “Only the first floor was open, selling a few souvenirs, cigarettes, and liquor.” The venue saw over 5,000 daily visitors on weekends and holidays during the four months, which is over 10 times higher than before the renovation.

After: old and new, side by side

The trick to pleasing Chinese shoppers is no longer selling luxury in a high-end mall like SKPs, but offering opportunities for people to linger, observe, and perform. This is true especially when the economy is in a slowdown.

It’s now become a mood board for Beijing life: A mother and son playing ping pong in front of the Italian restaurant Carbo; retired locals discussing stock prices at Metal Hands Café; a passerby buying fish balls and candied hawthorn (tanghulu) next to a high-end Cantonese restaurant; a selfie corner where a vintage machine prints China Youth Daily headlines. In the backdrop, red 1990s typography, mint-green doors, paint peeling, all remain untouched.

The old and new coexist like layers of memory. Different generations, foreign and local establishments, and highbrow and lowbrow culture coexisting side by side.

The main Chinese restaurant in the garden, A Zhao Chicken hotpot, is a kaleidoscope of cultures in itself.

A Zhao Chicken hotpot in Friendship Garden. Image: Ruonan Zheng

When you step into its adjacent tea shop, Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng’s voice drifts from the speakers beside a shelf stacked with old CDs. Keep walking and you’ll spot a wooden horse carriage on display, right across from a statue of the God of Wealth. Go a little farther in and you’ll find people speaking Cantonese through the haze of steaming chicken broth. If you happen to use the bathroom, look up, there’s a crystal chandelier hanging right beside a Taylor Swift Eras Tour poster.

Everything at Friendship Garden overlaps — Cantonese, American pop, cosmic jazz — chaotic, but somehow right. If you pay attention, there’s always some unexpected cultural clue waiting to be discovered.

The only retail shops here are the upcoming JetLag Books and lifestyle brands under Shanghai fashion group ZucZug. In the building that used to host the store, luxury resale marketplace Zhuanzhuan offers pre-owned goods where customers browse in white gloves.

Up: shoppers at Friendship Store in the 80s; Down: shoppers at Zhuanzhuan

As my favorite vlogger Jenn Im once said, “Friendship is like the four seasons, spring, summer, autumn, winter. It changes, but it stays.” I now see Friendship Garden through the same lens: a place that has aged gracefully, proof that some forms of culture can’t be bought, only tended. 🔚

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