Telling history, connecting the river and the sea brings good luck | named after the canal
[Editor's note] A millennium old waterway, a century old revival. With the major layout of the national reconstruction of the "entire basin" waterway of the Beijing Hangzhou Grand Canal, the awakened river has been entrusted with new missions and placed with new hope. Recently, the online themed event "Good Transportation from the Yangtze River to the Sea" hosted by the Cyberspace Administration of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee and the Shandong Provincial Department of Transportation visited three canal cities: Zaozhuang, Jining, and Liaocheng, telling the story of the Shandong Canal and continuing the spirit of the canal era.
A corner of the Liaocheng China Canal Culture Museum. Photo by Gu Yuxue from People's Daily Online
Walking along the eastern section of the Grand Canal feels like opening up a heavy epic. The prosperity of "sails like a forest, merchants gathering together" nourishes the fireworks on both sides of the strait, traversing thousands of years of vicissitudes.
The emergence of a series of bustling cities lifted the peak of the Shandong Grand Canal.
From the convenience of transportation to the prosperity of cultural tourism, from economic development to cultural revival, cultural heritage along the route is becoming a chain of pearls.
What kind of heritage has the Millennium Grand Canal left us?
In the outstanding and beautiful "Jiangbei Water City · Canal Ancient Capital" of Liaocheng, the first themed museum with canal culture is located in China. It borders the ancient Grand Canal to the east and the beautiful Dongchang Lake to the west. It is a large-scale comprehensive museum that integrates cultural relics collection, protection, research, exhibition, publicity and education. With its rich collection, it tells the world that "the canal promotes history, and the canal changes life.".
On the first day of the Guimao New Year in 2023, the renovation and upgrading of the China Canal Culture Museum was officially completed. The permanent exhibition of the renovated and upgraded Canal Culture Museum is "Exhibition of Canal Culture in the Splendor of the Great Movement". The exhibition consists of six parts: "Historical Changes", "Hydraulic Technology", "Institutional Management", "Urban Economy", "Canal Culture", and "Modern and Contemporary Canals". The permanent exhibition area is 4000 square meters, and more than 400 cultural relics are exhibited. There are also temporary exhibition halls, cultural and creative spaces, and other supporting facilities. The exhibition is set against the background of the development history of China's canals, highlighting the characteristics and value of the Shandong Canal and the Liaocheng Canal.
For the Grand Canal, which has gone through 2500 years of trials and tribulations, it is like a story film with ups and downs and numerous allusions. How can one or two sentences describe its entirety?
At the China Canal Culture Museum, you can fully enjoy the ancient history, natural scenery, and folk customs of the canal. The basic exhibitions of the museum are "Canal Culture Exhibition" and "Liaocheng Historical Relics Exhibition". Among them, the Canal Culture Exhibition was awarded the first "Top Ten Fine Exhibitions of Shandong Provincial Museum Memorial Hall", and the Liaocheng Historical Relics Exhibition was awarded the second "Top Ten Fine Exhibitions of Shandong Provincial Museum Memorial Hall". It has become an important battlefield for showcasing and researching Canal culture in Shandong Province and even the whole country.
