Abstract: Guozhuang (trade posts) were a key organization on the ancient trade trail of the Tea Horse Road between Sichuan and Tibet. Guozhuang are "a-skya-kha-pa" in Tibetan, meaning "respectable hosts". In the existing research, scholars tend to regard Guozhuang as merely a specialized economic organization or trade brokers, and neglect the embedded social dimension beyond its market function. Guozhuang were always named after distinctive Tibetan family clans to symbolize identity, status and prestige. The inheritance rule of Guozhuang also reflected that the Guozhuang system had transcended the contrasting relations between patrilineal and matrilineal, marriage and succession, descent and selection. The Tibetan name for Guozhuang ("a-skya-kha-pa") testified that the original trade-posts and merchants relation was more like the customary relations between hosts and guests, not just trade partnership. Recognizing these attributes helps to clarify two major misunderstandings of Guozhuang. First, the emergence of female hostesses of Guozhuang was not a product of matrilineal institution or gender consciousness, but the result of marriage and succession under the rules of house. Second, the "authoritative middlemen" status of a Guozhuang was not due to its commercial success, but brought by the reputation of its original hosts. However, the political fragmentation and economic turbulence during Late Qing and Republic of China destroyed the traditional social fabrics, and Guozhuang trade posts eventually became pure commercial broker houses.

Key words: Kangding Guozhuang, khang-meng, house, hospitality