The Shanghai Town God's Temple is adjacent to the Yu garden and also goes by the name of Old Town God's Temple. It is one of the orthodox Taoist temples in Shanghai and located in the middle Fangbin Road, it reaches the Anren Street in the east and the Fuyou Road in the north and ends in the Old Jiao Chang Road. The Town God's Temple was built in the regime of Yongle period(A.D.1403~1424) of Ming dynasty(1368AD~1644). In the temple, the town gods, Qin yu-bo (he was apotheosized as the town god of Shanghai county by the Yongle emperor) and Huoguang [an imperator of Xihan(West Han)Dynasty(B.C.206~A.D.8) are sacrificed. The temple had attracted thousands of pilgrims in Qing Dynasty, and it is known to every one regardless of men, women, old and young in Shanghai. Since the city became an open sea port, the temple and its surrounding regions have tempted a myriad of businessmen come together here, and it became a market gradually. Since the market is brisk, the consumers can choose their favorite living necessities, especially the small articles of daily use. Compare with the other places, the streets are narrower in this market. Here, most of the constructions were built in before 1911(namely the last years of the Qing Dynasty.).They are endowed with deep style and features of ancient Chinese constructions .There are the serried and row upon row of thousands of small stores in the market. The stores are filled with the abundant and dazzling goods with different features, and customers hustling and bustling. The style and features of the ancient Chinese towns and streets still kept here. The sight-seers would hang around in the Old Town God's Temple no matter where they are from, the Old Town God's Temple have pooled many local refection, such as the distinctive desserts in Lu Bo Lang Restaurant, the steamed buns with vegetable stuffing in Song Yue Lou Restaurant, the pigeon-egg-like dumplings in Osmanthus Hall Confectionery Store, the Babaofan (Eight-Treasure Rice Pudding) in Song Yun Lou Restaurant, the Nanxiang Xiaolongbao( small steamed meat bun) and the dumplings with the wine stuffing. The Old Town God's Temple is really well called "the kingdom of snacks". (info provided: Chinaodysseytours.com) |
