Originally Posted by
taipeipeter
And now a museum is the Italianate home of Liang Qichao, late Qing intellectual and early Republican intellectual/politician (he lived in Tianjin since he was safer from arrest or assassination there than in Beijing).
Would that happen to be the Tianjin Art Museum that used to be in the French administration building? The last time I was there the collection was small, but well worth viewing, and included a splendid scrolled landscape painting. I heard the museum had now moved.
It also used to be possible to do an interesting alley walk through the areas that were home to some of China's earliest industrial activity, visiting the Sān Tiáo Lìshǐ Bówùguǎn (museum) with its mouldering Victorian-era machinery (could sometimes be hard to wake up the caretaker to let you in), a small mosque, and places serving Tianjin's famous snacks (not just gǒubùlǐ but also ěrduǒyǎn, deep-fried rice snacks filled with sweet bean paste, eaten hot). But I dare say, from what I saw on my last rather hasty visit, much of that area has been flattened.
The Guangdong Guildhall and Theatre Museum, in the centre of the old Chinese city, with its well-preserved traditional opera theatre is well worth a view.
Best of all, though, is the Shí Jiā Dàyuán, about 16km west of the city centre, which is a multi-courtyard merchant's mansion of considerable extravagance, to rival some of the better-known examples in the Shanxi countryside around Pingyao.
If business takes you there from Taipei, this is well worth getting out to see.
Peter N-H
China