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Tianjin Folklore Museum
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 TIANJIN
Folklore Museum is a specialized museum that follows the principle
of "studying and displaying the folklore of Tianjin, and collecting
and preserving historical relics of folklore that are characteristic
of Tianjin."
Located on the former site of the Palace of the Goddess of the Sea
(Tianhou Gong) in Tianjin, one of China's three largest of this kind,
(the other two being the Ma Zu Temple in Meizhou, Fujian Province
and the Chaotian Temple in Beigang, Taiwan), the Tianjin Folklore
Museum is the Ma Zu research center of northern China. As such, it
attracts attention both within and outside China. In early times,
the palace was intended for fishermen and businesspeople who would
go there to worship the Goddess of the Sea, with safety as their main
aim. Later, the common people also went there to worship, thus making
it the center of the earliest settlement in Tianjin. In 1954 and 1982,
it was twice listed as Tianjin's key protected historical and cultural
site.
 Widely
accepted as the birthplace of Tianjin's folklore, the palace was selected
as the site for the Tianjin Folklore Museum in 1985. Apart from the
main exhibit constituted by the restored palace itself, there are
also exhibits of Tianjin's folk customs and folkways. These depict
modes of grain transport, navigation, and trade, as well as customs
related to marriage and child-bearing, the daily lives of the people
and their religious beliefs, and folk art. The Stele Corridor, 69
meters long, sheltering stone tablets that describe unique local folkways,
attracts countless visitors from both home and abroad.
The museum has regular exhibitions, such as Restored Palace of the
Goddess of the Sea, Tianjin Wedding Customs, Tianjin Grain Transport
and Production Customs, and the Forest of Steles. There are also various
temporary exhibitions. More than 150 exhibitions based on a variety
of themes in different forms, emanating from ethnic groups of diverse
areas have been held at the Tianjin Folklore Museum.
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December 2001 China Today
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