Abstract: In the late Ming and the early Qing Dynasties, the city folk customs in Beijing nearly remained the same in form, but the custom undertakers and their motivations had greatly changed. The inscriptions on 585 tablets in the inner city areas in Beijing show that since the 18th century, the inner city areas in Beijing had not only witnessed a peak of tablet establishment, but also seen a change of the subjects who set up temples and tablets from the officials and eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty and the Han officials in the early Qing Dynasty to common citizens. Meanwhile, the names of guilds and firms were inscribed on the back of tablets for the first time, non-governmental organizations with autonomy cropped up, and feminist organizations started to appear, all of which reflects the fact of social transformation. Folk activities such as celebrating the birth of Guan Yu, offering incense on Mount Yaji were inherited from the Ming Dynasty, but their undertakers and motivations had been totally changed. This shows that the practice of reforming and taking advantage of folk custom resources does not merely exist in modern society. The inscriptions on tablets help us discover the inner mechanism of folk customs.

Key words: Beijing&rsquo, s inner city areas in, city folk custom, inner mechanism, inscriptions on tablets