Qiandeng (meaning "thousands of lamps and lanterns") County, an
ancient town located in Kunshan, Suzhou, opened China's first
lantern museum on July 21. Some 1,133 lanterns made in China and
abroad tell visitors their stories, and demonstrate Qiandeng
County's profound culture.
When visiting the town, tourists can feel its unique landscape
and customs. They usually cruise on the river, enjoying marvelous
scenery. It's also the hometown of Gu Yanwu, a patriotic thinker of
the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and the cradle of the Kunqu Opera,
one of the world's oral and intangible heritages.
The town once had several beacon towers, which are looked upon
as the earliest lanterns by locals. At the request of the local
government, the Nanjing government named the town "Qiandeng County"
in April 1966. But local people still wished to build a lantern
museum, to display its centuries-old lantern culture.
Yin Xiaolin, a lantern collector in Beijing, was a main founder
of the museum. He has collected more than 1,000 old lanterns in 20
years. Yin even built a cottage for his precious lanterns. However,
believing a museum should be a permanent home of his collections,
he started to contact officials from Qiandeng County through the
Internet, and won their support. Lanterns in Yin's cottage were
then sent to the museum in early 2006.
At present, tourists from home and abroad are fascinated by the
lantern museum, which preserves a huge array of lamps and lanterns
ranging from the Neolithic period to the 1940s, the earliest are
being made of stones 7,000 years ago.
(Chinanews.cn July 25, 2006)
