Pearl of the Pearl River
the Tang Dynasty (618-907) through the Republic of China period (191249).
The roughly 30,000 daily visitors, who stroll along the pedestrian street that intersects with Zhongshan No 4 Road, can see bricks from these ancient thoroughfares through glass panels in the ground. Red lanterns bejewel green trees. The street leads to an ancient city gate and a replica of an ancient clepsydra featuring dragonhead spouts.
Other relics are nestled along the thoroughfare.
It has maintained its ancient function as a shopping area, and hosts what the Guinness Book of World Records recognizes as the world’s oldest pharmacy.
Today, it’s also home to the likes of McDonald’s, Goelia and Rolex.
The superlatively flamboyant Chen clan’s compound would make a peacock blush.
The visually resplendent Chen Clan Ancestral Hall showcases CanOlive-pit tonese craftsmanship at and most hyperactive.
The 15,000-square-meter complex completed in the 1870s is the province’s largest constructed in the regional Lingnan style.
Its 11 shrines and exhibition halls house local deities, totems of filial piety and such artifacts as folding fans, local pith-paper watercolors and shell carvings.
Rooftop statues, tiles and engraved wooden screens feature such local totems of good fortune as banana trees or groups of eight chickens, 18 lobsters and 48 crabs. (The numbers also have auspicious meanings.)
Locals joke that the hall was the world’s first “crowdfunding” project. It was built with contributions from over 1,700 people with the surname Chen — the most common in Guangdong — although not all were blood relatives.
Those who presented receipts for their donations were able to stay overnight for free in olden days.
Today, it’s a major ticketed destination for people with all surnames — including some whose happen to be Chen. its best —
The Nanyue king’s mausoleum could be the setting of an Indiana Jones film.
Visitors descend 20 meters into the tomb of the Nanyue’s second ruler, Zhao Mo, bored into an artificial hill. They can explore the burial passages, where the monarch was interred with 15 human sacrifices, 200 fowl and abundant seafood.
A concubine’s skeleton can be viewed through glass. And the ruler’s teeth and cranium are displayed outside.
Guests can also see the burial suit created with over 2,000 small jade tiles sewn together with silk in addition to over 1,000 other relics discovered when this underground afterworld was unearthed.
Visitors to Guangzhou will find much of the city’s cultural appeals are, like its ruins, under the surface — and it’s worth digging deeply to uncover its layers.