Qibao Ancient Town and Old Street 

Qibao Old Town features Hui style architecture and a river running through its center. It’s a great escape from the modernity of Shanghai. In Qibao Old Street there are many shops selling snacks, gifts, traditional crafts, calligraphy, and paintings. Qibao Ancient Town is centered on Qibao Old Street and covers an area of about 86 acres. Qibao Central Square is its iconic facility.

The street is divided into two sections, the north and the south. The main south street is characterized by snacks and the north street is mainly composed of tourist crafts, antiques, and calligraphy. Old Street has become a bustling market integrating leisure, tourism, and shopping.

It’s touristy yes, but it is a comfortable way to see some of the old traditions, skills, wares, and snacks that you won’t see elsewhere today and preserved only by the tourism model.

 

Attractions

Qibao Winery 七宝酒坊
The ” Seven Treasures ” is well known to all. The winery gathers the traditional Daqu brewing process and makes it easy to see at a glance. It also gathers wines from all over the country.

Cotton textile hall 棉纺织馆
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Qibao was subordinated to Songjiang Prefecture and was the main distribution center for “ clothing by the world ”. The museum exhibition focuses on planting, harvesting, spinning, weaving and dyeing, and introduces the brilliant cotton textile industry of Qibao.

Zhang Chongren Memorial Hall 张充仁纪念馆
North Street in Qibao Old Street. The building is the style of the Qingjiang South Wharf Wall, which opened on March 17, 2003. Covers an area of 800 square meters. There are 6 exhibition treasures, and more than 20 sculptures by Zhang Chongren are exhibited.

Cricket culture 蟋蟀草堂
They are quite fond of crickets having cricket fights and an annual Festival of Cricket Culture.

Qibao Dangpu 七宝当铺
The pavilion recreates the scenes of traditional pawnshops, simulates pawnshop business activities, expresses the ancient Qibao business culture and style, and can participate in business activities.

Old business 老行当
Reproduce the old-fashioned demeanor that makes people feel nostalgic. Those traditional handicraft labors accounted for the history of yesterday. Blacksmith shops, bamboo shops, gardens and other shops have been closely related to our lives. Walking into the old line is like returning to the year and month that has passed away.

Zhou’s micro-carving museum 周氏微雕馆
Zhou’s father and daughter used stone carvings and micro-carvings as talents to create works of art, and micro-carved “Huaxia Treasures” series, red building stone carving series, stone pot stone carving series, Jinwen Han monument series and so on. There are thousands of pieces in the exhibition, each with different forms and unique ingenuity.

Doum Court 斗姆阁
The Doum Court is a two-story pavilion-style building whose construction date has not been verified. It was originally created for the Taoist god of Taoism.

Qibao temple 教寺
An ancient temple dating back to 907-960 and rebuilt in 2002.

 

Qibao Local specialty foods

Wine marinated meat 酒酿糟肉
There are many kinds of bad vegetables in Shanghai, but the most distinctive one is the seven treasures. It changes the traditional method of distilling the brine, using glutinous rice and sweet wine to marinate and keep the tenderness of the pork and the sweetness of the rice wine.

Qibao Cake 七宝方糕
Fan Zhongyan, a famous literati of the Song Dynasty, was a poor family when he was a child. All three meals a day were porridge. Every winter night, he ate the porridge on the plate and cut it into pieces. When he was hungry, he ate it. After knowing this, his classmate Shi Haiqing asked people to use glutinous rice flour to imitate Fan Zhongyan’s production method, made a glutinous rice cake, and sent it every day until Fan Zhongyan was in the middle. They named the cake “white soft cake”. Today’s Qibao cakes have been handed down from this, and there is a moral of wishing for one to rise.

Qibao Mutton 七宝羊肉
The traditional Chinese dish, Qibao Braised Lamb, was first distributed by the court of the Qing Dynasty. It is said to be the favorite of the Empress Dowager Cixi. Combine lamb, rock sugar, American ginseng, red dates, fine soy sauce, etc., on a small fire for 4-6 hours, and the texture is soft and tender, sweet like honey.

 

 

Chinese Name:  七宝古镇

Address: Qingnian Rd Pedestrian St, Minhang District, Shanghai

Getting There: Head to Qiabao Station on Line 9

Map

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