Book Shanghai Tours to See Shikumen

Shanghai Traditional HousesEvery China tours Saturday, visitors can visit this museum to experience the typical local life. A high fig tree stands in the patio to provide shade on hot summer days. Passing through the patio, you will find the living room, which displays a western and oriental combination style. An old gramophone plays the Blue Danube melody. Then sitting on the sofa, you can look around and experience the locals’ life. “Ting Zi Jian” of the residence is used as a study, where there are “the scholar's four jewels” (writing brush, ink stick, ink slab and paper) and some paintings and calligraphy works created and collected over four generations by the residence owners. On the bamboo shelf is a mini character museum, on which you can find oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, cursive scripts and others.

Shikumen Buildings Shanghai is a Chinese and Western style house hybrid of the early 20th century particular to Shanghai. The 30,000-square-meter trendy entertainment complex is nestled in the very center of the city, close Yangtze River cruises to the bustling Huaihai Road C., the Huangpi Road S. Station of the Metro Line and the conjunction of the north-south and east-west elevated roads.

Shikumen (literally meaning "stone-framed door") houses are unique to Shanghai, and sadly disappearing all too fast in the face of rampant development. Developed in the early 1900s to meet the housing demands of booming old Shanghai, they are urban Western adaptations of traditional Chinese courtyards - a writer once described Shanghai tour package them as Chinese houses with a Parisian sensibility. Behind the stone-frame front door of a shikumen house lies a small courtyard, which is itself enclosed on the other sides by the building of the house. Xintiandi (literally meaning "new heaven and earth") is an area south of Huaihai Zhong Lu where two blocks of old shikumen houses have been restored and renovated to house upscale bars, restaurants and shops.

It is now a firm favourite hang-out place among visitors and locals alike. One of these shikumen houses has been preserved as a museum, the Shikumen Open House. You can wander through the re-created rooms of a typical shikumen house, and there are anecdotal explanations in English and Chinese of life in old Shanghai. There is also a small exhibition of the development of Xintiandi. Entry China tour fee is somewhat steep at RMB20. Open daily 1000-2200.

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