China Trip Report Day 6 : Wang Family Compound, Shaunglin Temple, Pingyao Museums

Day 6, March 21, 2018, Wednesday:

The Wang Family Residential Compound:

We took off in our taxi at 7 am on our day trip. It's an hour's drive to Wang family compound which opens at 8 am.

The Wang Family Residential Compound is an example of vintage Chinese civilization handed down through the ages. Built by the Wang family one of the four prominent merchant families of Shanxi Province during the Qing (CE 1644-1911) Dynasty, the compound is an unsurpassed masterpiece of Chinese residential architecture from the Qing Dynasty period.

The Wang Family Residential Compound is built on a magnificent scale, on a series of hills. It faces a river, with a mountain as a backdrop. It is in fact a collection of compounds within an outer wall that is quite tall, its halls, towers, pavilions, etc. occupying different levels in the surrounding topography in a well-coordinated manner.

The compound's main components are the Gaoji Ya (East Compound), the Hongmen Bao (West Compound, aka Red-Gate Fort), and the Wang Ancestral Hall (aka Xiaoyi Ancestral Temple), in all covering an area of some 150,000 square meters, of which roughly 45,000 square meters is under official provincial government protection as a cultural heritage site.

Wang Family Residential Compound consists of 5 alleys, 5 forts, and 5 ancestral temples, in keeping with the notion of the 5 lucky animals, the long (dragon), the fenghuang (phoenix), the gui xian(tortoise), the qilin (unicorn) and the lao hu (tiger), where the first four represent the 4 holy animals of Chinese mythology. The number 5 is also central to Taoism, there being 5 elements: earth, fire, water, wood and metal.

 The compound comprises 231 courtyards and 2078 houses, causing some to liken the Wang Family Residential Compound to the Imperial Forbidden City, China's grandest Siheyuan compound.

The East Compound houses especially personal items belonging to the Wang family. The East Compound consists of two main courtyards with a kitchen garden, a playground for children (with classrooms where Chinese classics were taught by a private tutor), a locale for teaching the art of embroidering, a flower garden, a courtyard (and dwelling) for the resident agricultural supervisor, and a courtyard (and dwellings) for the house servants.

The West Compound houses the Wang Museum, which includes various exhibitions and a culture center profiling the Wang family history. The West Compound also contains a unique homage to the Wang family in that it has a set of criss-crossing streets which, together, form the Chinese character for "Wang" (one vertical line with three cross slashes), namely, the main "vertical" (north-south) street which is crossed by three "horizontal" (east-west) alleyways.

The Liqun Art Gallery, named in honor of the Lingshi County woodcut icon, Li Qun, born in 1912, is located in a separate fortress compound, the Chongning Bao compound (the 5 fortress compounds are: Gaoji Ya (East Compound), Hongmen Bao (West Compound), Chongning Bao, Gongji Bao and Dongnan Bao).

The Chongning Bao compound also houses the Painting and Calligraphy Hall, which displays numerous priceless artworks and examples of calligraphy, including couplets by prominent literary personages, and Treasure Hall, which displays furniture, porcelain, jade- and other carvings, various rare stones, and old coins. The artwork assembled here, including the elaborate carving that decorates much of the woodwork, has inherited much from China's ancient past, which has earned the Wang Family Residential Compound the title: the "art gallery of Chinese folk residences".

We walked to the terraces and enjoyed the views 

 and then came down to the car park via the castle entrance. 

We had had our packed lunch inside the compound. Now our driver drove us toward Pingyao ancient city as our destination is near the ancient city train station where we had arrived

Shuanglin Temple:

Founded in the 6th century, the temple is notable for its collection of more than 2,000 decorated clay statues that date to the 12th-19th centuries. 

Its original name was Zongdu but it was renamed during the Northern Song Dynasty period as Shuanglin. It is nicknamed the museum of colored sculptures. Most of them are dated to the period of the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.

Jut a couple of people around. We had the temple to ourselves!

VERY BEAUTIFUL AND SERENE EXPERIENCE!!

Pingyao ancient city again:

We were dropped at the North gate of the City wall. We continued with our visit of the attractions and managed to cover 6 of them. All were AWESOME!!

 At the Tianxijiang Museum there was a huge collection of furniture, calligraphy, paintings and embroidery

Wei Sheng Chang Museum is AMAZING

The Hui Wu Lin Museum hasthe layout of a typical house: the children slept in one area, the masters of the house in another and nearby, albeit literally on a lower level, the servants.

This is the underground vault

 God of Hell guarding the underground vault

Pingyao is STUNNING. We wished we had another day there as the museums are TOP NOTCH. 

We had an early train to Xi'an the next morning and were happy at our Pingyao experience.

VIDEO LINK:

Wang family courtyard and Shaunglin temple:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/VE5yUPDf6DnnHHKr6

Report on Xi'an starts here:

http://adventuretrav.blogspot.com/2018/04/china-trip-report-day-7-xian-big-wild.html