Royals’ time-honored brands to be exhibited at Spring Festival fair
HEFEI/BEIJING — More than 140 time-honored Chinese brands will be exhibitors at a fair inside the Palace Museum during the Spring Festival holiday, which takes place in February.
The museum, known as the Forbidden City, is the former imperial palace in downtown Beijing.
The histories of many of the classic Chinese time-honored brands, ranging from local delicacies, liquors and health products to silk and handicrafts, can be traced back to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) when their products were exclusively purchased by the royal family.
The 145 brands selected from 10 Chinese provinces and municipalities will be exhibited at the Palace Museum from Jan 28 to Feb 12, showing visitors the royal traditions of celebrating Spring Festival during the Qing Dynasty, according to the museum.
The fair is a part of the largest exhibition held by the museum. As the 2019 Chinese Lunar New Year (Feb 4-10) draws near, the entire Forbidden City will be adorned with palace lanterns, new year paintings and spring couplets. A total of 885 cultural relics are to be arranged in palaces to create lively scenes, according to the museum.
“We are very excited to be selected as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage,” said Yu Liang, the manager of the marketing department of China Xuan Paper, which is among the exhibitors. “The Xuan paper deserves to be shown at the fair, in its promotion to the world.”
The company’s fair booth will offer visitors a look at its best quality paper and introduce those visitors to the production process, Yu said.
The company has preserved the traditional process of making the Xuan paper, which involves more than 100 steps.
The handmade paper from eastern China’s Anhui province was pursued not only by the royals but also by famous Chinese writers, painters and poets for making Chinese calligraphy and paintings.
Among 13 selected historical brands from Anhui province are inkstone and ink. The Shexian inkstone from Anhui is one of China’s top four inkstands.
The fair featuring the historical brands will be held in front of the Cining Palace in the Forbidden City, which was the residence of empresses in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
The fair is jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Palace Museum.