Anchang Folk Custom Museum

Anchang Folk Custom Museum

With a long history and rich folk traditions, Anchang boasts a Folk Custom Museum housed in the "Zouma Lou" style Baoshu Hall, featuring fifteen exhibition rooms. The "Nansha Hujī" room displays twelve vividly illustrated imperial cotton-weaving charts from the 30th year of Emperor Qianlong’s reign, along with ancient textile tools. The "Blessing" scene and clay figurines from the grandest deity-welcoming festival in Shanyin and Kuaiji counties—the Anchang Chenghuang Temple Fair—are also showcased. Forgotten customs related to production, daily life, rituals, seasonal events, and society are all vividly presented here. The museum offers a glimpse into the traces of bygone days, with authentic, diverse, and colorful traditional customs providing visitors with a taste of historical life and culture.

Anchang Chenghuang Temple

Located at the eastern end of the old street, the Chenghuang Temple was first built during the Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty (1522–1566), making it the largest Chenghuang temple in the suburban area.

According to the "Ming History – Treatise on Rivers and Canals," "In the 7th year of the Chenghua era (1471), the Qiantang River bank collapsed, affecting Shanyin, Kuaiji, Xiaoshan, Shangyu, Zhapu, Lihai, Qianqing, and other areas. The emperor ordered Vice Minister Li Xian to oversee repairs." Due to Li Xian’s achievements in building seawalls, preventing tidal disasters, and ensuring water management, he had a profound impact on protecting the people and developing the economy in Xiaoshan, Shanyin, and Kuaiji. His prestige was immense, and his legacy benefited the people. After his death, the public commemorated him, and Emperor Zhengde of the Ming Dynasty posthumously honored him as the "Marquis of Eternal Suppression." To forever honor Li Xian’s contributions, the people revered him as a bodhisattva, ensuring his eternal worship. At that time, with imperial approval, the Patrol Inspection Office was established in Baiyang City within the region, leading to the construction of the Chenghuang Temple for worship, praying for favorable weather and abundant harvests in the areas protected by the seawall. The temple has three courtyards, with spacious halls, cloud-dragon ridges, and upturned eaves, exuding grandeur. The mountain gate has five bays, with square stone pillars inscribed with couplets: "Snow rides the wind, white dominance over fields lasts mere days; clouds ride the rain, dark deception of heaven and earth won’t last long." On either side are stone gateways connected to corridors under the wing rooms. Inside the mountain gate lies a Wannian Platform, supported by four rectangular stone pillars, with a stage covered by a "chicken coop roof" and hung with a Qing Yongzheng Yisi-era plaque reading "Mirror of Ancient and Modern." A covered corridor connects the stage to the main hall, flanked by wing rooms serving as viewing stands, with shrines such as the "Zheng Gong Shrine" and "Lu Filial Son Shrine" below.

The main hall is three bays wide, about eight meters high and over ten meters deep. The roof ridge is uniquely decorated, featuring a bronze mirror and the inscription "Peace Under Heaven" in the center, with chi dragons on either side. The hall corridor is covered with rolled awnings, with brick archways on either side. The hall door has fourteen panels, intricately carved with floral patterns, and hangs a blue plaque with gold characters and a double-dragon catching-pearl border, inscribed "Imperial Decree Marquis of Eternal Suppression Li." Couplets on the front and rear pillars read: "For those who are deceitful, a thousand bows and prostrations are useless; for those who are kind-hearted, not bowing before me is no issue," and "Though the rain may be plentiful, it does not nourish rootless grass; though the gods see all, they cannot protect the unrighteous." The large pillars inside the hall are exquisitely carved, with wooden pillars on either side featuring dragons with fierce scales, claws dancing and coiling, playfully hovering in mid-air.

In the center of the hall sits a stone relief-decorated altar table, upon which resides the robed Chenghuang "Marquis of Eternal Suppression Li," with his son’s seated statue nearby, serene in demeanor and radiating righteousness. Wooden railings along the walls house statues of attendants, with overlapping plaques hanging overhead.

The rear hall consists of three bays. According to the early Republican-era "Yue Duo Daily," "Built during the Qing Dynasty by the late gentry Zhu Xiangjiang, the temple was grand in appearance and quite bustling with incense offerings." The hall is lofty, with a tower in the front section, housing numerous shrines and plaques. One plaque inscribed with "Under the Gaze of Ten Eyes" quotes Zengzi: "Under the gaze of ten eyes and the pointing of ten fingers, how solemn it is," in vigorous, aged calligraphy.

Couplets on the corridor stone pillars read: "Renovated magnificently, the temple’s appearance is renewed; timely rains bless us with divine grace," "Through the ages, the western land reveres the divine spirits; the North Star once left behind righteousness," and "Through the ages, spring altars rejoice in offerings; the people sing praises under grand roofs." Flanking the hall are fifteen-bay buildings on either side, with brick flower walls on both sides of the courtyard, featuring two stone flower stands planted with native plane trees.

The wing rooms on either side of the hall served as guildhalls for the flower, cloth, and rice industries, as well as the Shengsheng Flower Firm during the early Republican era. The east wing room was used as the schoolhouse for the Tenth Bao National Elementary School in the 11th year of the Republic of China.

To the east of the mountain gate are the Yong’an Bridge and waterside pavilion, rebuilt in the 14th year of the Kangxi era of the Qing Dynasty (1675) by Monk Wuchuo through fundraising. The bridge features a corridor and wooden railings, with the "Zhuge Wuhou Shrine" and "Tang Ma Er Gong Shrine" located inside the pavilion.

In 1958, the temple’s earthen blast furnaces were used for iron smelting, leading to the disappearance of the Buddha statues and damage to the halls, leaving only the rear hall and side wings intact.

Address: Anchang Town, Keqiao District, Shaoxing City

Type: Museum

Recommended Visiting Time: 0.5 hours

Ticket Information:

No admission fee. Included in the Anchang Ancient Town ticket.