Taiyuan Culture

Taiyuan, as an ancient capital city, Taiyuan formed kinds of featured culture based on the profound history. The following are some representative festivals and customs.

Dough Figurines
Shanxi Dough Figurine is a kind of decorated food made of steamed flour. Historically it was neither recorded nor bequeathed to posterity. While in the latest years, it has become an art parade.

Dough Figurine is called “Mian Hua” in locals. It is the present on holidays, the offering on sacrificial events, the authenticating object on ceremonies, and the representative local culture accumulated along the history.

Today, people see dough figurines as a kind of art. With its abundant heritage by generations’ culture and the passion and excellence of the creators, it became a popular and simple native culture.

Thanks to the little attention for generations and its development among the common people, dough figurine has the freedom to follow its own rule to exist and develop. With country characteristics less contaminated, dough figurine shows its unique and complete image of beauty among today’s popular folk art collection.

Dough figurines could be used as not only tokens of the marriage, but also birthday gifts on celebration.

The First Drum
The First Drum the history of Shanxi percussion instrument is glorious. It is heard that as early as in the Yao and Shun times, the native used to express sentiment of the jubilation by beating drums.

With plain forms the drums are performed in various ways. The leading person, equipped with many drums on the head, feet and shoulders, could still give a skillful performance.  

The most spectacular and grand scenes in Shanxi Drum is horse-driven car drums: the number of horses driving the car from four, eight to hundreds. The happy atmosphere and acoustic shock completely display the confidence and pioneering spirit of the local people.

Jin Opera
Jin Opera (Shanxi Opera) is one of the Four Bangzi in Shanxi province. It is also called Zhonglu Bangzi, as its activity area is in the middle of Shanxi, especially near Taiyuan and Jinzhong, and it has been popular among the people living there for many years.

Jin Opera is characterized by tactful melody, affluent rhythm, graceful tune and amiable lines with a strong local flavor and its own unique style.

Developed from Puzhou Bangzi which has been popular since late Qing Dynasty, Jin Opera absorbs many advantages from Puzhou Bangzi. After many years’ development and enrichment by some artists, Jin Opera has gradually formed its special style. It can be said that Jin Opera is a breakthrough and innovation based on Puzhou Bangzi. With its rising influence in the society, Jin Opera becomes the representative of all Shanxi operas.

Vinegar Culture
Shanxi is the hometown of vinegar. It is said that its history can be traced back to 2700 years ago. Perhaps just because they often eat noodle, the vinegar became essential on the table of Shanxi people. The wide range of needs for the vinegar pushes the prosperity of vinegar manufacturing, and then the production quantity and quality of vinegar are known all over the country.

To popularize the cultural of Shanxi vinegar, Shanxi Vinegar Cultural Museum was built at Qingxu County of Taiyuan at the year of 2001 with the Vinegar City Square completed at the same time.

As the landmark of Qingxu County, Shanxi Vinegar Cultural Museum (also known as Wen Yuan Building) is located in the beautiful bank of East Lake. The building is 49.88 meters high with nine floors. The development of Shanxi vinegar is shown systematically in the museum, with the materials of developing history and 200 more series products from Qing Dynasty displayed. Besides, there are some modern vinegar products, which describe the situation of Shanxi vinegar at present.