[2025 Jiaxing Attraction] Travel Guide for Zongzi Culture Museum (Updated Feb)

⛱️Must-see attractions: Yuehe Ancient Town Jiaxing Zongzi Culture Museum 🌄Travel tips: No 🎫 required Take your kids to Jiaxing. 🏨Accommodation tips: You can stay at the nearby Lvxihui Kaiyuan Mingdu Hotel There are many rooms and a wide variety of breakfast options. Transportation: 1.5 hours by car from Shanghai You can ride a shared bike outside the ancient town for free for the first hour. It's great! There are even shared bikes with child seats, which is a great experience! 👍🏻 💗Other tips: There is a children's play area that hotel guests can use for free. The breakfast is also good, with many Chinese and Western options.

Jiaxing is known as the "hometown of zongzi" in China, with a long history of zongzi culture. For thousands of years, the people of Jiaxing have been growing rice and eating rice, paying attention to fine farming and fine food. As a typical representative of "Jiahu fine snacks", Jiaxing zongzi is exquisite both inside and outside. Making and eating zongzi is a childhood memory for every Jiaxing person. The small zongzi is also a bond that connects family and friendship. In addition to the original display methods of utensils, photos, calligraphy and paintings, and sculptures, the exhibition area also specially invited a wax sculpture artist from Hangzhou to create a series of lifelike wax figures, which vividly restore the bustling scenes of the ancient street Zhangjia Lane Heji, Qingji, Rongji, and Wufangzhai zongzi shops. The historical context of the origin and inheritance of Jiaxing zongzi, the bustling scenes of the ancient street Zhangjia Lane Heji, Qingji, Rongji, and Wufangzhai zongzi shops, outline the changes of zongzi brands such as Wufangzhai, Zhenzhen Laolao, and Changji.

Zhejiang people are indeed good at business. Seeing that Jiangsu had created a Yangcheng Lake model at a highway service area, they set up a Zongzi Museum at the Jiaxing service area. This is not just an exhibition hall but a journey through a thousand years of culinary culture. From ancient bamboo slip records to modern production techniques, every exhibit in the museum is eye-catching. The various types of zongzi each seem to tell a story of culinary history. With some lifelike sculptures, you get a sense of traveling through time. In the museum, zongzi evolves from simple ingredients to a rich variety, with Jiaxing people using their effort and wisdom to interpret the charm of 'food.' Moreover, the museum offers a glimpse into the essence and history of Jiaxing zongzi making. The century-old secret recipes, techniques, and emotions gradually become a delicious painting in the long river of history. Whether you are here to explore history or seek the ultimate taste experience, this place has become an unmissable treasure on the highway. Every zongzi here conveys the culinary charm of Jiangnan, attracting tourists from all over the country and even the world. In Jiaxing's Zongzi Museum, we savor the past and embrace the future.

Jiaxing, formerly known as Zauli and Hecheng, is famous for its production of zongzi, especially the fresh meat zongzi, which is renowned throughout the world. The Majiabang culture of Jiaxing, which dates back 7,000 years, is the birthplace of the culture in the south of the Yangtze River and one of the origins of rice cultivation in China. Originally, zongzi was used for offering sacrifices to ancestors and deities for good fortune. During the Spring and Autumn period, ancient people wrapped millet in calamus leaves (Zizania leaves) to form a horn shape, called 'Jiaoshu'. Rice was sealed in bamboo tubes and cooked, known as 'Tongzong'. During the Han Dynasty, the fifth day of the fifth lunar month was commemorated as the death anniversary of Wu Zixu. By the Six Dynasties period, it gradually became the anniversary of Qu Yuan. The customs of eating zongzi and dragon boat racing on Dragon Boat Festival also originated from the Six Dynasties. Han Dynasty zongzi was 'reed leaves wrapped around rice', and the rice soaked in ash water was called 'alkaline water zongzi'. In the Jin Dynasty, zongzi was officially designated as a Dragon Boat Festival food, mostly in the shape of a bull's horn, and added the Chinese medicinal herb Yi Zhi Ren, called 'Yi Zhi Zongzi'. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, zongzi was made with calamus leaves wrapping sticky rice, mixed with meat from birds and beasts, chestnuts, red dates, and adzuki beans, called 'Mixed Zongzi'. Starting from the Song Dynasty, zongzi began to be piled into pavilions, towers, wooden carts, oxen, and horses, and other objects. In the Yuan Dynasty, zongzi was wrapped with bamboo leaves, breaking the seasonal production limitation of calamus leaves. In the Qing Dynasty, ham zongzi appeared. Eating zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival symbolizes 'honoring ancestors' and 'success in one go', and people exchange 'Nine Sons Zongzi' as a wish for offspring. At the beginning of the 20th century, Feng Changnian, the 'Father of Zongzi' in Jiaxing, founded the first zongzi shop in Jiaxing, 'Zhenzhen Laolao Heji Wufangzhai', in Zhangjia Alley. It was highly esteemed for its exquisite ingredients and authentic taste, and later Zhangjia Alley was known as the cradle of Jiaxing zongzi.