Jiangnan Watertown Cuisine: braised mutton, sauce-fried snail, Malantou dish, steamed white water fish, mutton noodles, three liquors, carved flowers, and steamed eggs with crucian carp.
Characteristics of Jiangnan Watertown Dwellings: The history of Jiangnan Watertown Dwellings can be traced back to Hemudu culture about 7000 years ago. The ancestors lived and multiplied in this land and inherited all the life and lifestyle. By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Jiangnan had become the most economically and culturally developed area in China, where dignitaries, landlords, wealthy businessmen and literati chose to build houses, villas and pavilions with their own characteristics. Because the buildings in the south of the Yangtze River have a large population, precious land, extremely saving space and working hard at height, their architectural art is more refined and less elegant. But through the hands of skilled craftsmen, houses placed in running water are still attractive.
Compared with "Zhouzhuang" and other deep houses, ordinary houses built near the water are more common in Jiangnan, which can best represent the characteristics of Jiangnan folk houses. Because of the dense river network in the south of the Yangtze River, most people rely on water transportation, and their houses are built by the river. Due to the large population and small land, the ground has become cramped, forming a unique residential form with small bay, deep growth and high floors. Closely arranged buildings meander along the river, forming a unique river in the south of the Yangtze River. The Yangtze River Delta and Taihu Lake water networks, where the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River are located, have mild climate, distinct seasons and abundant rainfall, forming a transportation system dominated by water transportation. The production and life of residents depend on water. This kind of natural environment and functional requirements have shaped the style and characteristics of the charming Jiangnan water town dwellings.
In Jiangnan water town, most of the houses are wooden one-story and two-story halls. In order to adapt to the climate characteristics of the south of the Yangtze River, the layout of residential buildings is mostly halls, patios and courtyards. The structure is tile roof, bucket wall, Guanyin bucket ridge or horse head wall, forming a building group style with scattered heights and deep white walls. Water lanes, bridges, revetments, treads, wharves, slate roads, water wall doors, street and lane buildings have appeared in the multi-river environment of water towns, forming a whole set of living environment of water towns.
As the water town in the south of the Yangtze River has always been one of the most developed areas in China, with abundant talents, there are many poems and books handed down from ancient times by the residents of the water town. Due to the rich products and prosperous industry and commerce, these towns have always been places where officials retire, rich villas and bachelors are scattered. Of course, educated people build houses carefully; And some wealthy gentry and businessmen are arty. They rented a place full of learning to plan, so they left many beautiful courtyards in many water towns. Secondly, most of these water-town dwellings were built in feudal society, and feudal ethics, Confucian tradition and geomantic custom all directly affected the management layout and house layout of these dwellings. Such as the primary and secondary halls, the sequence, the division of subject and object, the division of master and servant, the difference between men and women, etc. , all have unique design techniques, which are the ideological reflection of humanistic factors in Jiangnan water towns.
According to the scale of folk houses, they can be divided into three categories: big houses, medium houses and small houses:
Most luxury houses are those of wealthy businessmen and bureaucrats, and they are weighed vertically and horizontally. Luxury homes are mostly nine-in, at least four-in, at most seven-in, and at least one-in. For example, the Shenting in Zhouzhuang is the seven entrances. Some luxury houses are skillfully combined with gardens, which not only creates the product of residential buildings-private gardens, but also increases the attractiveness of the house itself. For example, the retreat garden in Tongli Town is a very exquisite garden.
In the plane layout of a mansion, there is usually a strict axis, the main entrance faces south or east, and the houses are square and orderly.
There are generally five entrances to the main entrance of a mansion, which are composed of hall (some shops or buildings along the street), sedan chair hall (for parking sedan chairs), main hall (for receiving main guests and holding wedding and funeral ceremonies), inner hall (for meeting relatives and friends and family affairs) and women's hall (also known as buildings, often used as residential rooms). There are wings or courtyard walls around the main building to form a courtyard. Generally, it does not open the door independently, and generally consists of a greenhouse (meeting regular customers, holding banquets, etc.). ), a study room (reading), a garden, a back room (living) and a kitchen (open the door along the back alley without interference, but there is no bathroom or toilet for families). The entrance of the house faces the street or the river, which is convenient for people to get in and out and transport goods. There is often a back alley between the two floors, which not only separates the traffic route of the master and servant, but also greatly enhances the privacy of the back room, which is conducive to sound insulation, fire prevention and theft prevention.
The Chinese mansion is similar to the mansion in form, but the difference is that the number of items in the Chinese mansion is less, generally less than four, which is generally endless. The combination of interior space is not as elegant as that in the mansion, but it is more flexible. Most middle-income families belong to this kind of house.
Small houses, that is, people's houses, are small in scale, with only one or two entrances, some along the street and some along the river, and the plane layout is relatively random, which is a unique alley and water lane landscape in water towns.
Ordinary small houses occupy a small area and have no strict axis. Generally speaking, they have two entrances with a width of one to three rooms. They are free in form, adapted to local conditions, reasonable in space utilization but poor in privacy. Ordinary small houses along the river are often commercial in nature. They are all rivers and have treads leading to the water surface. When water town houses are assembled in their halls, some distinctive components are created, which not only enrich the content of water town houses, but also have strong characteristics. Courtyard is a characteristic component for lighting and ventilation in residential buildings. The general quadrangles have a depth equivalent to their height and a variety of widths. For example, the width of the main room is three, subject to the width of the studio. Or the fifth bay is larger, the width of the Ming bay and the second bay shall prevail. In a mansion, the patio is mostly rectangular, the depth of the two wedges is reduced, or the gallery is used instead of the wing. The patio is a horizontal rectangle, long from east to west and well ventilated, which can reduce the exposure of the sun in summer. Permanent front and rear patios are used for ventilation, and the acquired depth is generally small, and deciduous trees are planted for shading.
Brick-carved gatehouses on the front and back waist doors are purely decorative features. The gatehouse in Ming Dynasty was relatively simple, while the carving in Qing Dynasty was more complicated. These gatehouses are engraved with plaques.
The walled residential buildings in water towns are mainly wood structures, so the walls have important fire protection functions. Generally speaking, gables are higher than roofs, and made into stepped or flat-headed high walls, which are called "parapets" or "parapets". Wall can be divided into solid brick and hollow bucket, or solid brick and hollow bottom mixed type. Wall foundations are often painted with stones and lime. When it is used as a decorative wall, it is faced with clear water grinding bricks, which is simple and shows the wealth of the owner.
The open spaces (such as patios) in quadrangles are paved with slate strips, stones, cracked stones or pebbles, and also paved with bricks. Indoor floors are all made of bricks. It's rainy in the south of the Yangtze River, and the groundwater level is shallow, so it's easy to get wet indoors. Generally, it should be tamped with lime first, covered with sand to prevent moisture, and the room should be covered with wooden floors.
Xuan is indoor smallpox, in fact, an air insulation layer is added to the roof. Some pavilions in the big house and the middle house are beautifully decorated and well carved, and there are also various practices such as canopy pavilions, crane-top pavilions and flower basket pavilions.
The roof and gable roof are paved with blue tiles, and the whole sloping roof is a slightly curved roof, which is beneficial to roof drainage. There are many ways to do the roof. Ordinary small-sized houses are built vertically with only tiles, and both ends are simply decorated. The roof of the main hall of large and medium-sized houses is decorated with dragons and chickens. Ordinary gables are hard-gable, and the gables of important buildings such as halls adopt shadow walls with roofs. With the depth of the house, the shadow walls of one mountain, three mountains and five mountains are also different.
The overall characteristics of the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River are: scattered bungalows and various gables, forming the kind of undulating landscape on the revetment of alleys and water lanes. The architectural modeling is light and concise, realistic and elegant, with elegant colors, adapting to local conditions, close to the river and soft and beautiful spatial outline. Therefore, it is often called "Fendaiwa" and "Flowing Bridge".
Costumes in Jiangnan Watertown: Rural women living in Jiaozhi, Shengpu, Weiting and Mu Chen in Wuxian County in eastern Suzhou still retain traditional folk costumes. They have been wearing traditional costumes characterized by combing their hair, wearing headscarves, sewing shirts, trousers, cambodian skirts, wrapped arms and embroidered shoes, which are quite characteristic of Jiangnan water town, so they are called "Suzhou ethnic minorities".
Women in water towns attach great importance to combing their hair and grooming their heads. They showed their intelligence, dignity and beauty with their black hair, huge hair and numerous ornaments, supplemented by exquisite Baotou interiors and costumes. Its clothing has strong local characteristics and stable inheritance, but there are obvious differences with the change of seasons, the difference of age and the need of etiquette. Generally speaking, in spring and autumn, the characteristics of spring and autumn clothing are particularly prominent. The spring and autumn clothes are mainly spliced shirts, and the fabrics are mainly printed cloth, homespun cloth and dark thin stone forest cloth. The color contrast is bright, fresh but not bright, bright but not vulgar. They are usually made by splicing fabrics of several colors, with appropriate tailoring, fine sewing and strong decoration. Its characteristics are also reflected in the decoration technology of clothing in Song Dynasty: splicing, edge rolling, new climbing, belt decoration, embroidery and so on. Pants are mostly made of blue and white printed cloth or white and blue printed cloth, and pants are made of blue or black stone forest cloth. At first, due to the limitation of fabric width and material saving, these garments were spliced. When splicing, they all pay attention to the formal beauty of neatness, balance and symmetry from the splicing of actual needs to the splicing of subjective consciousness. The skirt at the waist is also very distinctive, knee-length and extremely thin. There are floral decorations with different techniques on the shelf and skirt, and a small waistline is tied outside the skirt, which is an auxiliary part associated with the skirt. There is a big pocket sewn on the waist, and various patterns are embroidered around the waist and belt, which is an important ornament in the clothing. The design of the skirt is very practical. Get a stubborn skirt at work, so that your back won't catch cold easily, and standing can also increase your waist strength. The hem is large, which does not affect the action, is beneficial to paddy field operation, is convenient for field covering, and is practical and beautiful. But the characteristics of water shoes are also very strong. The form of shoes is quite like a boat, regardless of left and right, so they are also called boat-shaped embroidered shoes. The vamp consists of two performers. The vamp is mainly embroidered with bright colors and colorful patterns. Boat shoes are fine, durable, strong and affordable, and are traditional etiquette shoes for women in water towns.
Women in water towns have different requirements for their clothes as they grow older. Young women mainly use fancy clothes, skillfully use the limited space on clothes, and skillfully use the methods of color contrast, contrast and interlacing to achieve eye-catching and fancy artistic effects, which just highlights the physical beauty and decorative beauty of women in water towns and gives people a sense of lightness and freedom.
Middle-aged and elderly women, on the other hand, are dominated by dark tones, with solemn and steady clothes and wide elastic requirements, thus giving people a sense of simplicity and stability.
Women's wear in water towns has a long history, which has been passed down from generation to generation and has a strong inheritance. Over the years, through the screening of working people, a series of folk costumes with the characteristics of water towns have been designed. It is suitable for women in water towns, especially for productive labor in water towns. It has high practical value and is deeply loved by people. These costumes are constantly changing and updating in the long-term development, forming the aesthetic concept of traditional characteristics of national culture in water towns, which proves that human beings shape themselves and beautify themselves according to the laws of beauty. Up to now, the traditional folk costumes of women in Jiangnan water towns are still preserved in Jiaotoe area.