[2025 Shangrao Attraction] Travel Guide for Shangrao Museum (Updated Apr)

Shangrao Museum is a national first-class museum and a comprehensive city museum. Formerly known as the Shangrao Cultural Relics Management Office, it was renamed Shangrao Museum in 2005.
Shangrao Museum covers an area of over 14,000 square meters, with a building area of over 10,000 square meters and an exhibition area of approximately 3,000 square meters. It consists of exhibition areas, collection areas, cultural and creative product areas, and office areas. The exhibition area includes permanent exhibition halls and temporary exhibition halls, while the collection area comprises cultural relic storage rooms, restoration rooms, and photography rooms. The museum features several permanent exhibitions, including "Monument of Hot Blood," "Spiritual Beauty," "Cultural Heritage," "Treasures of Nature," and "Folk Customs," making it an important place for citizens and tourists to comprehensively understand and vividly experience the history and culture of Shangrao. As of the end of 2022, the museum had a collection of 15,086 pieces/sets, including 1,155 precious cultural relics, and received a total of 260,218 visitors annually. A visit takes about two and a half hours.

Explore Shangrao: A Cultural Treasure Trove Forgotten by Time 🌟A brief glimpse of Shangrao left me deeply fascinated. This underrated city is full of unknown stories and treasures. 🏺Walking into the Shangrao Museum is like traveling back to the Song Dynasty. The luster of Jian ware remains, and the weight of history is overwhelming. Each piece of Jian ware is a unique work of art, witnessing the glory of tea culture, but now it can only be seen in overseas museums. 🖌️The exhibits on the third floor gave me a new understanding of the Huizhou style of Wuyuan. It turns out that Wuyuan used to belong to Anhui, which explains its architectural style and cultural habits. Shangrao's specialties—Lead Mountain paper and Wanyuan cloth—made me admire the cultural heritage of this land. 🌿Wuyuan's ink and inkstone, Lead Mountain's paper, and Wanyuan's cloth are all unique cultural symbols of Shangrao. Lead Mountain papermaking has a history of thousands of years, and Si paper is an intangible cultural heritage. The cloth produced in Wanyuan County, due to its unique texture, was once used as mosquito nets and is now exported to Europe and the United States. 🏰Hekou Town, a thousand-year-old town, is known as one of the four famous towns in Jiangxi, along with Jingdezhen, Zhangshu Town, and Wucheng Town. The confluence of the Xinjiang River and the Yanshan River made it a prosperous commercial town in history. 🍵Lu Yu, the Sage of Tea, stayed in Xizhou for many years, growing tea, making tea, and making friends with tea. Lu Yu Spring, a well named in memory of Lu Yu, witnessed the inheritance of tea culture. 📚The walls on the third floor are full of books, free for people to read, allowing people to learn more about Jiangxi and Shangrao. The thoughtfulness of this museum is touching. 👮‍♂️Special thanks to the security guard on the third floor, whose enthusiasm and knowledge made my visit more enriching. I hope every museum can have such staff to make cultural heritage more vivid.

Shangrao has a profound historical and cultural heritage, with 355 representative items of intangible cultural heritage. Each heritage item carries the weight of cultural accumulation and embodies the essence of national traditional culture, serving as an enduring symbol of life and cultural gene. Wuyuan's 'Three Carvings' refer to the collective term for the folk carving arts of brick, stone, and wood used in ancient Wuyuan architecture. Originating in the Tang Dynasty, they reached their peak during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Wuyuan green tea, 'hailed as a supreme product during the Song Dynasty and contributed as a tribute in the Ming and Qing Dynasties,' is known for its clear and thick leaves. She inkstones, which began in the Tang Dynasty and flourished in the Song, are mainly made from stone sourced from Longwei Mountain in Wuyuan, also known as Longwei inkstones, and are one of China's four famous inkstones. Because Wuyuan was historically part of Shezhou, the inkstones are named after the region and are praised as 'the crown of stones' and 'the famous pearl of inkstones.' Lianshan paper from Qianshan originated in the Eastern Han Dynasty and was quite renowned during the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Made primarily from tender bamboo, it is known as 'thousand-year paper.' In the past, it was commonly used for valuable books, steles, contracts, calligraphy, paintings, and fan surfaces. Wannian is the birthplace of human rice cultivation culture and has been listed as a pilot site for global agricultural cultural heritage. Yiyang high-pitched opera, which emerged at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, is known as the ancestor of Chinese opera high-pitched tones. Along with Kunshan tone from Jiangsu, Yuyao tone and Haiyan tone from Zhejiang, it is one of the four major tones of the Ming Dynasty. Poyang lacquerware stripping and decoration techniques, along with Jingdezhen porcelain and Beijing cloisonné, are collectively known as the 'Three Treasures of China.' They are famous for their warm and shiny lacquer surfaces and lightweight texture. Xinzhou summer cloth is a plain weave fabric made from ramie and handwoven, known for its breathability. Wuyuan paper umbrellas, especially famous in Jialu Village, are renowned as 'the best in the world,' due to the strong ink absorption of the umbrella paper, allowing artists to inscribe poetry and paint on them. Guangfeng wood carving is based on Jiangxi wood carving culture and integrates the flat carving of Zhejiang Dongyang and the round carving of Fujian, with delicate knife work and form-following craftsmanship. The Ming and Qing architectural complexes of Guancun Wenchang Pavilion, Songfeng Shidu House, and Longxi Zhu Family Ancestral Hall are all acclaimed as 'unparalleled in the world' for their exquisite wood carving craftsmanship. Yushan Zhangcun lanterns, which originated during the Kangxi period, are local celebrations for good harvests and auspiciousness. The Zhangcun lanterns are lit from the thirteenth day of the first lunar month and continue for three nights until the Lantern Festival. The Guangxin 'Turning Nine Floors' custom includes 'turning nine floors,' 'climbing the knife mountain,' 'descending into the sea of fire,' and 'rolling in the oil pot,' which are part of a folk performance project centered around 'Lady's Teaching' and later evolved into a Taoist sacrificial ritual. Guangxin paper-cutting has created a unique multi-layered, colorful, three-dimensional paper-cutting technique, characterized by full composition and vivid three-dimensionality. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, Dong Shen settled in Haikou, Dexing, with his clan. His descendants were diligent in farming and reading, valued righteousness over profit, and gradually formed a culture of harmonious farming and reading, a culture of merchants valuing integrity, and a continuous culture of officialdom. The Dong family rules have also been included in Jiangxi's intangible cultural heritage.

The Shangrao Museum is located next to Guangxin Avenue in Xinzhou District, Shangrao City, Jiangxi Province. It is a comprehensive museum that is open to the public for free. It officially opened in October 1989. The exhibits mainly include introductions to 13 national, provincial, and municipal cultural relics protection units in the city. The main exhibits are pottery, porcelain, metal, jade, ancient coins, ancient calligraphy and paintings, and stone carvings, totaling more than 200 items. In 1983, it was announced by the Shangrao Municipal People's Government as a municipal cultural relics protection unit. It is also a great place for Shangrao citizens to relax and entertain on weekends. Friends who like it must come and have a look when they come to Shangrao.