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Chewang Village, Dongyang Town, Yuci District, Jinzhong, Shanxi Province
One of the most famous private residences in China
Chang Family's Manor is located in the Chewang Village in Dongyang Town, Shanxi Province. Chang Family developed a school of its own of confucian businessman culture, both had Jinshi, Juren, Xiucai, and no lack of famous painting and calligraphy family member. So in their mansion building, they also had their own special original place, which was too far behind to catch up with by the mansion of Jin-merchants.
This manor is too grand to imagine. Go across the arched bridge, through the castle door, you can see a more than 650 meters long ancient street of Qing Dynasty. This street has no horizontal channels, covering an area of more than 0.6 million square meters, housing more than 4000 rooms, more than 50 buildings and 13 gardens.
Each compound had built a wooden architecture archway with brick tracery wall on each side, making the northern courtyard add some feeling of southern gardens. It has the garden, vegetable farm, wicket interlinked with each courtyard. Get into the garden and go through the paved path, you can find ambulatory, pavilions, small bridges and flowing water, or grass stone farmhouse, odd flowers; all these have great originality and are like the southern garden.
In each compound, there are coloured drawing on the rick carvings, wood carvings, stone carvings and timber compoment. The stone carving art in this compound has guardrail, door beast, curtain wall, etc..., mostly made of fine sand stone carving, and engraved with all sorts of design. They have unique style with rough dinas, fine and smooth carver, ever-changing patterns, varied modelling technique, making tourists dazzle the eyes.
Among the houses of Shanxi merchants, Chang’s Manor is the largest private residence, and it also has the largest folk ancestral temple, the largest family academy, the largest private garden of the northern China, the most typical coloured painting of Han brocade, the largest folk partition wall, the most spacious house building, the largest family embroidery building, the richest private treasures of calligraphy and painting, the most exquisite bricks, stones and wood carvings, etc
Guihe Hall is the largest and most complete existing halls in private residences in China. The brick carvings, wood carvings, stone carvings and coloured paintings are well-preserved with high artistic taste. The screen wall in the Chang’s Manor is the largest in the private residences in Shanxi Province. Jin-style Ming and Qing furniture at the Chang’s Manor has the most complete. There are more than 1,000 sets of daily necessities, furnishings, decorations, utensils and furniture, which show daily life of Chang's family.
There are many lion statues at Chang’s Manor, big and small, standing or lying, still or moving. The reason why lion statues is so popular is not only its mighty image and lively personality, but also its rich meanings of luckiness. The Lion Garden in the Chang’s Manor not only shows the development and evolution of lion sculpture in the history of Chinese sculpture, but also reflects Chinese folk customs. This kind of exhibition hall-style lion carving display is rare in China.
Ancestral Temple is an important manifestation of China's traditional thought of respecting ancestors. The Ancestral Temple was built in Qing Dynasty(1879). It is one of the largest and best-preserved buildings in family ancestral temple among the existing Chinese folk houses.
Shiyunxuan Academy is located in the middle of Long Street, which is named after the Shi Yunxuan calligraphy copybook in the academy. The Shi Yunxyan Stone Inscription is very famous in China. It is a large-scale inscription, which is rare in the world. And the calligraphy skills are exquisite and beautiful. People use Shi Yunxuan to name the academy, which shows the importance attached to this inscription.
It is the earliest garden built by Chang's family. When the apricot flowers bloom, the Apricot Garden is full of the fragrance of the apricot flowers and the whole garden is very beautiful and elegant.
Jingyuan Garden is known as the largest private garden in northern China. The Jing Garden covers an area of more than 80,000 square meters, including the main garden, the Apricot Garden, the Lion Garden, the Keyuan Garden and the Xia Garden. The garden is characterized by quietness everywhere, which is quiet and dynamic. There are pavilions, gardens, streams, screen walls, brick carvings, flower and tree carvings in the Jingyuan Garden.
The reason why the Chang family of Shanxi merchants was able to build such a large-scale manor was due to the huge wealth accumulated by the Chang family in tea trade from generation to generation. From Wuyi Mountain of Fujian and tea-producing areas of Hunan, after tea picking and tea production, the products were sold to Siberia, Moscow and other places in Europe by Chang’s Family, forming a tea road across Asia and Europe. Chang’s Family is a pioneer and builder of tea selling road. In its heyday, Chang’s Family also provided financial services such as banks. There are many outstanding commercial talents from generation to generation in Chang’s family, and they became a famous family of Shanxi merchants in the Qing Dynasty. Also, They left this profound and rich manor of Shanxi merchants, which witnessed the glorious history of Shanxi merchants.
The gatehouse, window lattice, colored paintings and sculptures in Changjia Manor are exquisite and beautiful. There are 143 kinds of door types in the Chang’s Manor. And brick carving, stone carving and woodcarving are countless. There are more than 120 kinds of window patterns and more than 600 pictures, and 81 screen walls in the Chang’s Manor. The contents, patterns, elements and stories of the architectures in the Chang’s Manor contain the cultural connotations of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism.
To get to the Chang’s Manor from Taiyuan or Pingyao Ancient City, you can take the high-speed train to the Taigu East or West Railway Station, then take the taxi or bus to the Chang’s Manor.
From $ 395
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