Guangxi Ethnic Cultural Park

Guangxi Ethnic Cultural Park

Located next to the Guangxi Museum, the Guangxi Ethnic Cultural Park is an extension and expansion of the museum’s ethnic and folk cultural relics exhibition area, serving as an open-air exhibition space with strong local characteristics.

The Guangxi Ethnic Cultural Park displays the folk customs of Guangxi’s four major ethnic minorities—the Zhuang, Dong, Yao, and Miao—and includes a giant bronze drum sculpture, border-defense cannons, and a variety of residential buildings.

Guangxi is known as the "hometown of bronze drums." Bronze drums have a history of over 2,700 years in China, and more than one-third of all bronze drums unearthed in the country come from Guangxi. Among them is the largest bronze drum in Guangxi—and even the world—the Cloud-Thunder Pattern Large Bronze Drum, which is housed here.

Within its 24,000-square-meter grounds, the Guangxi Ethnic Cultural Park displays distinctive residences of the Zhuang, Yao, Miao, and Maonan ethnic groups, the wind-and-rain bridges and drum towers of the Dong people, as well as village gates, stages, ethnic handicraft workshops, group sculptures of bronze drums, and statues of bronze horses and bronze totems. The surrounding area is complemented by stone forests, ponds, and exotic flowers and trees. Inside the residential buildings, production tools, daily utensils, and original displays of ethnic handicrafts are exhibited, while the handicraft workshops offer live demonstrations of pottery-making, papermaking, and oil pressing. During festivals, ethnic songs and dances are performed on the Zhuang stage, love songs are sung in the bamboo groves, and ethnic snacks can be sampled in the Miao houses. Stepping into the Guangxi Ethnic Cultural Park, visitors can explore and even stay in reconstructed Zhuang villages, Yao hamlets, and Miao stockades, immersing themselves in vivid, colorful, fragrant, and flavorful ethnic history and culture. Since its opening on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in 1988, the park has become a must-visit destination for both domestic and international tourists to the regional capital, thanks to its novel concept, rich ethnic flavor, and unique exhibition content. Over its 11-year operation, the park introduced visitors to the various ethnic groups of Guangxi in an intuitive way, reflecting not only the research achievements of its creators and the intended exhibition goals but also earning public recognition. It helped shape and interpret a new vision of ethnic culture, influencing the development of similar attractions in the future. This article mainly reviews the construction process, exhibition content, and related issues of the Guangxi Ethnic Cultural Park.

The idea for constructing the Guangxi Ethnic Cultural Park originated in 1980. Prior to that, the new building of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Museum was completed in 1978. At that time, the head of the Cultural Relics Division of the Department of Culture and relevant museum staff, considering the display of ethnic cultural relics, proposed using this vacant land to build a “Guangxi Ethnic Village” or a so-called “Open-Air Exhibition Area for Ethnic Cultural Relics at the Guangxi Museum.” It was thought that, as an ethnic region, Guangxi had preserved a wealth of ethnic cultural heritage throughout its long history. In addition to the famous bronze drums and rock paintings, there were also ethnic architecture, production tools, daily utensils, handicrafts, food, and a rich array of ethnic customs. The aim was to highlight the unique styles and traditional cultures of the ethnic minorities. The concept envisioned combining a “village” (ethnic village) with a “museum” (museum), allowing visitors to gain a comprehensive view of some of Guangxi’s most representative ethnic and historical relics, as well as ethnic customs, within a short period without traveling across the entire region, and to sample ethnic foods and purchase ethnic handicrafts. Based on this understanding, the museum drafted a construction plan for the “ethnic village.” In August 1980, the then Deputy Director of the Autonomous Region’s Department of Culture and Secretary-General of the Regional Political Consultative Conference gathered relevant personnel at the CPPCC to solicit opinions, which were generally positive. However, by 1986, relevant departments proposed using the land to build an Ethnic Culture Palace.