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West Lake Tour
** China's National Silk Museum
China's National Silk Museum is the first state-level museum dedicated to
silk culture and the biggest silk museum in the world. Chinese former chairman
Jiang
Zemin made an epigraphy "Opening up a New Silk
Road , Promoting Chinese Silk Culture" for celebrating the opening of the
museum in spring 1992.
Located at the foot of Yuhang (Jade
Emperor) Hill south of West Lake, the museum occupies a total construction
area of approximately 8,000 squares meters (about two acres), which includes
eight different exhibition halls: the Prelude Hall, the Relics Hall, the Folk
Custom Hall, the Silkworm Hall, the Silk Manufacturing Hall, the Weaving Hall,
the Dyeing Hall, and the Achievement Hall. The museum exhibits silk production
artifacts from the Neolithic Age to the Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing
Dynasties. In the Modern Achievement Hall, a series of refined silk products
made in modern society are on display, demonstrating the great achievements that
have been made in the silk industry with the support of Chinese government since
the founding of the People's
Republic of China in 1949.China is the birthplace of the silk industry with
approximately 5,000 years history of planting mulberry trees, doing sericulture
and filature, and twining silk. Thus, visitors here have the opportunity to see
the silk production tools and silk production lines from many eras and enjoy the
rich silk culture, local customs, folk tales about silkworms, and the silkworm
cocoon harvesting ceremony. In addition, visitors with enough curiosity can try
to weave silk themselves, an effective way for them to know how silk is
manufactured. Each year, countless silk professionals and aficionados from all
over the world meet here to appreciate those masterpieces made by ancient
laboring Chinese and celebrate the silk festival at the same time.
China's National Silk Museum all the while pays much attention to friendly
cultural exchanges about silk with any other countries. With past years'
efforts, the museum has been gradually developing to a high-standard research,
collection, and authentication of the ancient Chinese silk cloth. The museum is
a hot tourist destination, which attracts those who are really interested in the
Chinese silk.
** National Tea Museum
National Tea Museum is situated in the Longjing (Dragon Well) Tea plantation
near West Lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. The building complex in "Jiang
Nan water-town" is a perfect example of ancient Chinese civilian architecture.
The museum was first built in 1987 and opened to public in April 1991, occupying
a total construction area of 3500 square meters (less than one acre).
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