The Nanyue Zhijie alleyway connects this dense, vibrant and porous (for pedestrians; mostly inaccessible to motor vehicles) urban village to Lujing Lu. The village used to be known as Dengfeng Village. This name has apparently now gone, though the primary school to the north retains the name. The village seems to be identified now as the Baohan Zhijie Communitiy (宝汉直街小区).
Nanyue Zhjie is a classic and excellent example of a main artery through an urban village. There are more than 100 urban villages in Guangzhou, built primarily during the periods of extremely rapid economic growth in the 1980s and 1990s as migrants streamed into Guangzhou from the countryside and needed places to live. To accommodate them, formerly agricultural land was converted to super-dense housing. In the 1990s and 2000s the area became dominated by African and Middle-Eastern traders, though this has since waned.
Like all such cases, the alleyway has a large range of land uses and services operating from early morning till late at night. And despite the initial outward somewhat chaotic conditions, it is in fact well-organized and regulated. Each building has a distinct address, and the narrow laneways are kept clean and clear even during wet weather.
Putting a cache directly in such an alleyway is dificult, so this one is placed in a primarily residential side-street.