喬家大院 The Qiao Family Household

We are watching an interesting historical drama, fiction based on history, about a famous business family in Qing Dynasty 清朝 China about 170 years ago 差不多170 年以前. We were recently at their household in Shanxi Province in China 在山西省太原市附近, visiting from our residence in Beijing. Though the personal stories in the drama are those of modern China, it definitely gives the viewer a flavor of the times and places in which it takes place. I find it interesting to watch how Chinese family 家庭企業 businesses actually operated in those days and to some extent still do.

Loans between businesses and taking in shareholders were important in raising the funds necessary for business ventures. This drama also gives a view into a different world from the Chinese overseas family businesses 跟華僑家庭企業不一樣 those in the west are familiar with. The protagonist in the story Qiao Zhi Yong 喬致庸, though he was supposed to be a third generation is really the founder of the Qiao family as a major business.