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Day Trip for the New Year: See the Famous New Year's Paintings of Yangliuqing

There are a lot of special things about the Spring Festival in China, and there is much more to experience than festival staples jiaozi (dumplings), baozhu (firecrackers) and yangge (popular rural folk dancing).

In nearby Tianjin Municipality, New Year’s paintings add a special touch of Spring Festival harmony. So if you are interested in traditional Chinese folk painting and you happen to have a free day during the festival, travel to Tianjin’s Yangliuqing Town and have a look. You won’t be disappointed.

Since the Chongzhen period (1628–1644) of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), peasants and folk artists of New Year’s paintings have collected sketches and carved wooden, creating a unique style of craftsmanship in their New Year’s paintings.

Yangliuqing’s New Year’s paintings represent the best in the folk arts of China. They originated in the town in the 17th century, taking the town’s name in Tianjin, one of the Four Famous Towns in China. The New Year paintings are made using a combination of wood-block printing and hand painting techniques. Ingenious and unique in composition, fresh and smooth in line, vivid and life-like in form, and strong and rich in the flavour of life, the Yangliuqing New Year’s paintings generally take ancient beauties, lovely children, folk customs or stories from classical operas, myths and legends as their inspiration.

Many of its most famous New Year’s paintings have been collected in Yangliuqing Town’s Shijia Courtyard. This 6,080-square-metre courtyard was built in 1875; it contains 12 courts and a beautiful private opera platform. The home belonged to one of the Four Big Families in Tianjin at the end of the Qing Dynasty. In addition to some famous New Year’s paintings, more than 130 pieces of fine brick sculpture are collected in the Shijia Courtyard. Brick sculpture is a decorative art and was widely used in ancient buildings in China.

The Tianjin Yangliuqing New Year Painting Building is located beside the Shijia Courtyard; tour guides can relate to you the history of Yangliuqing New Year’s paintings if you like. You can even watch artists making them and buy some at a reasonable price.

After a half-day’s visit in Yangliuqing Town, you may need to take care of your grumbling stomach. Return to Downtown Tianjin by bus (No. 824) and get off at Nanshi Food Street. You will find many famous and delicious foods here: Goubuli steamed dumplings, Erduoyan fried glutinous cakes, big bowl of millet custard, and other interesting foods, but you can also purchase snack gifts for friends, such as 18th Street fried-dough twists or Zhang’s parched-spiced peanuts with different flavours. There are so many delectable choices, you’ll have to exercise a little bit of self-control in your shopping.

Transportation:

Railway: T533 Beijing--Tianjin (9:20 a.m.--10:40 a.m.) 22 yuan

               T554 Tianjin--Beijing (7:20 p.m.--8:30 p.m.) 45 yuan

Bus: No.824, 3 yuan