Just the ticket to Tianjin
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China Daily, August 4, 2011
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European-style buildings can be found in the city's Italian concession area [Source: China Daily] |
![European-style buildings can be found in the city's Italian concession area [Source: China Daily]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20110804/000cf1a48f870fa47dc255.jpg "European-style buildings can be found in the city's Italian concession area [Source: China Daily]")
The Shi family residence in Yangliuqing, in Tianjin's western suburbs, was built originally in 1875. Yangliuqing used to be the seat of the famous Spring Festival art, which combines techniques of both applying paint and printmaking.
The prosperous Shi family amassed its collection, which is now on display in their courtyard house-turned-museum of folk art. The most intriguing piece of art in this compound, sprawled out across 10,000 square meters, is an obelisk of a jade cabbage, a totem only the super-rich were entitled to keep in the household.
Ancient Culture Street is a 21st century replica of what downtown Tianjin might have looked like about 100 years ago. The alleys are bursting at the seams with shops selling standard Chinese souvenirs - calligraphy, brown and blue tea sets, turquoise jewelry, and busts of national heroes, from Chairman Mao Zedong to Yao Ming.
The lure of striking a good bargain is quite infectious, even if you're not too sure what to do with the cartload of goodies you've picked up dirt-cheap (my colleague got a set of four dried gourd shells for 93 US cents)!
There's a lot of art in action here. Candy makers whip up luminous edibles in elaborate cobweb-like designs. People have their silhouettes scissored out of black paper in a jiffy. A herb salesman pipes up, "Awalaa hoon" ("I am a vagabond") - a song from an early 1950s movie which has since come to represent everything Indian in Chinese popular imagination - as soon as he sets his eyes on me, a conspicuous South Asian face in a highly-multicultural crowd.
I was never a huge fan of food made from dough but since visiting the Gou Bu Li Bao Zi in Tianjin, I am having second thoughts. It's a 150-year-old brand that now has outlets in the United States, Japan and South Korea. Their soup-filled dumplings melt in the mouth and slide smoothly down the gullet but do not leave the slightest trace of grease.
And do give Tianjin's generic fried dough twists a shot. Low on sugar, high on crunchiness, their perfectly braided forms appeal as much to the eye as to one's taste buds. I am planning to string some of these as Christmas decorations.
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