Yangliuqing, a charming town with folk culture

By Zhang Dafa (JIN Magazine)
Updated: 2012-11-27

Yangliuqing, an ancient town in the west of northern China's Tianjin Municipality, is famous for its folk art.

The town district of Yangliuqing covers an area of 15 square kilometers with a population of 110 thousand. It is one of the largest towns in Tianjin and around Bohai Sea economic circle and one of the eight peripheral clusters which are planned and established with great emphasis by Tianjin city.

It was from Yangliuqing that the famous emperor Qianlong from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) started his tour to the south of the Yangtze River. When he saw the beautiful green weeping willows along the banks of the river, he named the town Yangliuqing.

Yangliuqing is famous for its Chinese New Year woodblock paintings, Shi Jia Dayuan as well as folk legend, folk songs, folk paper cut, festival ceremony. During the period of the Emperor Qianlong from Qing dynasty, there were more than a hundred workshops for Chinese New Year woodblock paintings one after another.

The artists made them very delicately, and all the paintings look bright and vivid with local color. The people in the palace regarded the paintings as national treasures and the dignitaries all stored them as a collection.

The paintings were also taken to Europe and gained high praise as artworks. A Yangliuqing Chinese New Year painting requires five main procedures, including delineation, woodcarving, overprinting, color painting and mounting, and among them color painting is the most special procedure.

The folk flower fair in Yangliuqing has a history of 443 years. During Emperor Kangxi and Qianlong from Qing dynasty there were 24 folk flower fairs in variety, and all of them reflected the customs and folk culture of Yangliuqing.