Listen to the last batch of salt residents tell the story of "being born toward the sea" and enter the most "salty" museum in Shanghai
Sludge rakes, salt slabs, salt trucks... On the afternoon of May 18, in Caojing Town, Jinshan District, as the only museum with the theme of "salt" in Shanghai, the intangible cultural heritage exhibition hall of the Canghai Yantian Salt Culture Museum was unveiled. Exhibition tours, interactive experiences, educational lectures, parent-child activities, cultural performances and other activities allow citizens and tourists to appreciate the unique charm of salt culture and folk customs.
According to reports, the history of Jinshan's salt industry can be traced back to thousands of years. In 222 BC, the Qin Dynasty established Haiyan County, which got its name because "the seashore is widely opened and the salt fields face each other." For more than two thousand years, the ancestors of Caojing, who relied on the sea for their livelihood, not only wrote the history of the development of the salt industry, but also left behind precious spiritual wealth. In the early 1980s, Shanghai's seawater salt industry basically disappeared, and most of the salt farmers switched to other industries on the spot. Today, "Shanghai's last salt residents" still live in Haiya Village, Caojing Town.
As a folk museum, the Shanghai Canghai Yantian Salt Culture Museum opened in 2020 and has gradually formed a salt culture brand of "one book, one play, one museum, and one forum". In 2022, the living customs of the salt people in Caojing Town were also listed as a representative project of the district’s intangible cultural heritage.
This year, in order to display and inherit intangible cultural heritage and allow visitors to appreciate the unique charm of salt culture, the museum was upgraded and added a salt culture folk custom intangible cultural heritage exhibition hall, which brought together more than 300 pieces of salt culture and history from salt people across the country. The collection restores people’s true “sea salt” memories through various forms such as pictures, texts, physical objects and multimedia.
Today, the old salt people of Haiya Village and the students of Jiangzhuang Village conducted a pairing ceremony for the intangible inheritance of salt culture. The old salt people handed over the salt crystals that symbolized the spirit of the Haiya salt people to the hands of the children, and jointly pasted the salt crystals on the stage. On a hackberry tree, the short play "An Iron Pot" was performed to tell the story of the red salt culture, show the salt people's hard-working spirit and struggle spirit to live by the sea, and promote cultural inheritance.
In the on-site micro-interview, Zhang Rong, curator of the Shanghai Canghai Salt Field Salt Culture Museum, Gao Wenbin, director of the cultural relics protection department of the Jinshan District Museum, Deng Haijun, an intangible cultural heritage inheritor, and Yang Zunyao, a descendant of the salt people, shared the history of the development of the salt industry and folk customs in the Jinshan area , Salt People’s Spirit and other contents.
"It's so interesting. It turns out that salt water can be used to generate electricity!" In the salt culture interactive experience activity, 50 groups of parent-child families experienced the principle and process of using salt water to generate electricity. A salt quiz game was also held to enhance children’s understanding and interest in salt culture. It is understood that the museum has planned and launched more than 30 "salt courses", such as sea salt texture painting, the mystery of salt water, salt measurement, salt-baked shrimp, etc., allowing children and parents to increase their understanding of salt culture through interactive experiences. .
Not only that, the museum also displays a series of cultural and creative products related to salt culture, such as salt sculpture artworks, salt paintings, new bamboo salt products, etc., allowing people to get close to the salt culture and at the same time, tourists can also learn about interesting and useful salt products. Take the product home.
At present, the museum has also opened up a second phase experience area of 6,600 square meters, focusing on practical experience projects of salt field labor and cultural and creative experience courses. Director Zhang Rong said that as the only museum in Shanghai with the theme of "salt", the museum has been committed to popularizing knowledge about the development history of the salt industry, salt production technology, and healthy salt use to the public. It hopes to use the museum as a place to display and inherit salt culture. It serves as an important platform to further enhance the public’s awareness and understanding of salt culture, and also stimulates the public’s interest in cultural inheritance.
In order to provide young people with a learning experience that keeps pace with the times, the museum has also innovatively built the Yangtze River Delta "Salt Generation" cultural tourism digital platform. Currently, Shanghai Canghai Salt Field Salt Culture Museum, Zigong Salt Industry History Museum, Jiangsu Salt Tax Museum, China Sea Salt Museum, Hedong Chi Salt Museum, China Salt Jintan Salt Industry Co., Ltd. and many other institutions have settled on the platform, with a total of visits The number reached 800,000. Through the construction of a digital platform, the Salt Culture Museum hopes to provide more convenient and rich learning resources for young people, allowing them to have a deeper understanding and experience of the charm of salt culture, and promote cultural inheritance and exchanges.
