Ancient culture street

Good morning, every one. I‘m your tour guide from china international travel service. I would like to extend our warm welcome to all of you, welcome to china, welcome to Tj. My name is cindy, I‘m very glad to accompany you as a guide during your stay here . besides me is our experienced driver—Mr.liu, he will make our trip punctual, safe, and fast. If you come across any problems during the trip, please don‘t hesitate to come to us. We will try our best to make ;you out . I sincerely hope that you will have a wonderful stay in Tj.

Today, we are going to visit Tj ancient culture street. The river we are passing by is the Haihe river. And the ancient culture street is located at the fork outlet of Haihe river. And the ―Tianhou palace‖ on the ancient culture street is faced against the river. And there‘s an old saying in Tj that ‗Tj city was founded after Tianhou place‖ . because the area of ancient culture street is the earliest gathering place of culture religion and commerce in Tj. In 2005, it was approved as one of top ten feature business streets in china and it‘s also a ―5A‖ level tourist spot. So, t think it‘s a good place for you to learn the folk custom and culture of Tj.

We are now in the ancient culture street . please take all your valuable belongings before getting off. Please remember our bus No. is Jina1230 and also our parking position as well.

Originally, the ancient culture street was called as ― palace-south‖ and ― palace-north‖. The total length of it is about 680 meters. Now, we are at the south entrande of it . please look up at the archway reads‖津门故里‖. ―津门‖ means Tj , ―故里‖ means old place, so ―津门故里‖ means this place is the ancient original cradle land of Tj city.

And there is also another archway standing at the north entrance of the street, which is written with ―沽上艺苑‖, means the artist garden besides Haihe river. They are the symbol of the ancient culture street.

Now we have arrived at the Tianhou palace. We can see that Tianhou palace faces east and takes up 536 square meters . it‘s known to us that temples in china usually face south, why Tianhou temple is an exception? Let me tell you.

In the early times, Tianhou palace was the place for the crewmen and businessmen to pray for safety of sailing. But sometimes the sailing transportation was so heavy that they had no enough time to embark and go into the temple for pray. The temple was built facing the river for the convenience that they can pray on their boats.

Ok, let‘s get into the temple and have a look . this is the main palace which was built in 1326 and renovated in Ming dynasty. And this is the statue of Tianhou. Let me tell you more about it. It‘s said that Tianhou is a real person, her family name is 林, her given name is 默. 默 in English means keeping silent. She was given this name because she couldn‘t cry for a long time after she was born. 林默was born in Fujian province, southern china in 960 –Song dynasty and died at the age of 27. she was born with goodness and she was very good at swimming and could forecast the

weather, she saved many people especially fishermen and seamen. So she was considered as the poseidon after she died. She was honored with the title of ―Tianhou‖, people built this ―Tianhou palace‖ to commemorate her and also to pray for safety. In Tj, we often call her ―Niangniang‖, which means a very genial god. Meanwhile, tianhou is also called ―Mazu‖ in south china. There are three great ―Tianhou‖ palaces in the world. The other two are the ancestry temple in Meizhou, Fujian province and Chaotian Palace in Beigang of china‘s Taiwan province. Now you can share a 30 minites tour in the palace.

Well, every body is here. It‘s time to begin our sightseeing. In the street there are more than a hundred shops dealing with commodities like antiques , sculptures, various handicrafts and four treasures of the study. And there are also products with color of Tj, they are Yangliuqing new year pictures, Nirenzhang color clay sculptures, kites made by Fengzhengwei and Brick-carving of Liu. My introduction stops here, you‘ll have two hours to look around to choose whatever you like. Hope you will enjoy it . and I‘ll wait for you at the place where we get off, take care of yourselves during the tour.

Today, we have visited the ancient culture street, which enjoy a high reputation in Tj. You can say that you are going back fruitfully. Thank you for your cooperation during the joyful tour , wish you a pleasant journey and good health. My friends, good bye.