Jinxi Ancient Town: Jiangnan culture has a stronger charm

Walking into the teahouse, no one hears it before seeing it. "Good water with good tea, lake light and moon color, yellow wine on the hairy crab ..." Opposite the lakeside of the Lotus Pond Zen Temple, the lantern of the smoke and rain corridor bridge is hung high, and the tea house owner Xiao Bing interprets the tea roasting steps to the camera, which is an hour of live broadcast he will carry out every night. The smoke and rain are endless, drinking tea with the sound of rain, and slowly the heart is quiet.

"The number of people watching is not the most important, every night you have to drink tea and chat, live broadcast is by the way." Creep said. From all kinds of quaint handmade lampshades, to small pendants that can be seen everywhere, all kinds of handicrafts made of tiles, clay and paddles, the owner's intentions can be seen everywhere. His hometown is a small soldier in Yunnan, attracted by the life here, a corner of peace, and has been rooted in Jinxi Town for twenty years. With teahouses, handmade workshops, bars, and inns, Xiao Bing and his shop seem to be part of Jinxi Town.

The owner of Zhuyin Inn is a friend of Xiaobing, who came to Jinxi from Yunnan and opened a homestay inn. Xiao Bing has attracted five or six friends to Jinxi to start a business, and the cultural heritage is deep, and the quiet and quiet life of the ancient town has attracted them. In their view, this is the real "tranquil place in Gangnam, the resting place of the soul".

Jinxi Town, one of the best-preserved ancient towns, is located 28 kilometers south of Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province, which is an ancient water town in Jiangnan that has not yet been fully commercialized.

No entrance fee is required in Jinxi Ancient Town.

Looking out the window in the Bibo Building, different from the small bridge flowing water in the public's impression, what you see is the open lake surface, the slender ancient lotus bridge, the atmosphere of the lake and the delicacy of the small river, which are integrated together to form a unique Jinxi with a unique temperament. Walking in the stone paved alley in the drizzle, I met a girl with an oilcloth umbrella, which was like Shu Ting's "Rain Alley", showing the charm of Jiangnan culture.

The ancient town of rivers and lakes, ancient bridges, bridges dotted around, Jinxi, a Jiangnan water town born of water, known as "thirty-six bridges, seventy-two kilns" said. More than 2,000 years of history and culture have accumulated the charm of the water town, forming a beautiful picture. White walls and black tiles, bluestone slab roads, the morning fog of the river, people greeting each other, everything retains the most original jiangnan taste.

"For the development of tourism in Jinxi Town, we are more about protection and inheritance." Chen Bin, chairman of Suzhou Water Town Jinxi Tourism Development Co., Ltd., said. Jinxi Town has gone all out to do a good job in the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage, opened the Jinxi Primary School RollIng Class, and established Wang Lijuan Propaganda Volume Studio. The representative inheritors of "ancient brick and tile making skills" and "Jinxi Xuanhuan" were promoted to provincial and Suzhou municipal inheritors respectively.

In the ancient town, stop and go, the stone walls are covered with moss, and every brick and tile is silently telling the baptism of the years experienced. Along the way, there are museums almost everywhere, brick and tile museum, antique museum, kettle museum, Cultural Revolution museum, and hear the hearty laughter of tourists taking pictures.

In recent years, the ancient Jinxi has suddenly become foreign, and some modern culture is being integrated into the ancient town. During last year's National Day, Jinxi residents and tourists enjoyed an international art feast, and they watched 42 classic films from 11 countries for free, including "The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace", "Doll's House", "The King and the Little Bird" and so on.

This is the 2020 Jinxi Ancient Town Art Festival jointly organized by the Jinxi Town Government and the 18th Swiss Fantoche International Animation Film Festival, the French Le Fresnoy National Contemporary Art Studio, the Consulate General of France in Shanghai, and the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio.

Modern classical art has promoted the diversified development of the cultural industry in the ancient town. The platform carriers of activities such as the Guzhen Art Festival and "Jinxi Sound" have further broadened the channels for the collision of traditional and modern cultural exchanges.

Yuan Furong, the operator of Jinxi "Three Rooms" Homestay, is a native of Jinxi, and in 2016, he returned to his hometown to rent an old house and used 8 months to build it into the appearance of Jiangnan Ancient Town Homestay in his heart. Yuan Furong said, "I walked out of here, and I went back to Jinxi, and I felt that I could still find myself." ”

According to incomplete statistics, there are currently more than 100 homestays in Jinxi Town. Among them, 30% of the homestays where young people come to start a business, 30% of the aborigines transform their own houses into homestays, and the remaining 40% are farmhouses.

"I think that to do a homestay must have a sense of supporting roles, because the bridges and houses left by the ancient town, brick by brick, are all valuable assets left by our ancestors, so in the process of making homestays, it must not be easily destroyed, and the survival of a homestay must rely on local cultural resources and natural resources."

Chen Bin said that Jinxi has increased the protection of historical and cultural heritage, carefully cultivated new formats for the integration of cultural tourism, and introduced high-quality culture and art into the ancient town is a new exploration of the cultural tourism path of the ancient town. The integration of traditional classical culture and modern classic art has integrated the ancient town into social development, integrated art into the lives of the people, further enhanced the soft power of culture and the attractiveness of the ancient town, and injected new and strong impetus into the development of Jinxi.

Song Qi, secretary of the Party Committee of Jinxi Town, said, "In recent years, Jinxi has solidly promoted the branding of Jiangnan culture, more actively integrated into the new development pattern, actively undertakes the spillover benefits of Shanghai' direction, accurately grasps consumer demand, gives birth to more new cultural tourism formats with distinctive characteristics, rich content and outstanding benefits, and promotes the integration and development of cultural tourism with agriculture, health care, sports and other industries." ”

Source: China Youth Daily