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Famous Grand Courtyards of Shanxi Merchants(I)
In addition, four tablets still hanging in the yard are quite
noticeable; they were separately bestowed from Li Hongzhang (a Chinese general
who ended several major rebellions, and a leading statesman of the late Qing
Empire), the Empress Dowager Cixi (a powerful and charismatic figure who was the
de facto ruler of the Qing Dynasty, ruling over China for most of the period
from 1861 to her death in 1908), Fu Shan, and villages in Ji County.
In
1990, this ancient mansion gained its fame home and abroad due to the movie
Raise the Red Lantern by the director Zhang
Yimou.
After the movie finished, the drama production team left behind several
hundred red lanterns.
Since then, these lanterns have been the most important decoration both in the
Qiao Family Grand Courtyard and other jin shang courtyards.
In 1986, the Qi County government rebuilt the courtyard into the Qi County
Folk Museum that features art, science, and other things of interest. It
contains 42 exhibition rooms displaying a wide range of material covering
subject areas such as years, time, season, food, clothing, shelter and
transportation, wedding and funeral ceremonies, and agriculture trade
activities. In total, approximately 2,000 pieces of exhibits reflect the
folktale custom in the Shanxi Jinzhong area.
Qu Family Grand Courtyard
The Qu family was one of the national well-known great merchants during the
Ming and Qing Dynasties. They had several grand yards and thousands of houses
covering an area of more than 30,000 square meters in Qi County.
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