The Qingxi Old House faces south. There are three courtyards in total. The third courtyard is in a pattern of three visible rooms and four hidden rooms. Before liberation, at the west end of the front hall was a small and exquisite garden, and there was a square pavilion study where the owner of the house studied classics and wrote books. After liberation, it was separated and used by neighbors to build houses. Only a long and narrow alley remains in the garden. The loquat trees and precious fruits planted there are full of greenery in the chilly spring. The entire old house covers a small area. The furnishings and halls inside are ordinary and simple. It does not have the deep, extravagant, and exquisite features of the adjacent luxurious salt merchant’s mansions. However, four great scholars of classics studies once emerged from this ordinary courtyard. The first courtyard at the entrance is the main hall. There was once a plaque hanging above it with the three characters ‘Guangzhao Hall’. At the west side of the hall, there was once a calligraphy piece written by Bao Shichen, a scholar and calligrapher in the Qing Dynasty, with the words ‘Shuo de Mao Nian’. Both were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. To the southwest of the main hall is a small pavilion. The original plaque was ‘Yi Xie’, which was Liu Shipei’s study for reading and writing. The flower windows and wooden lattice doors of the study have sheltered several generations of the Liu family from wind and rain for a hundred years.
Opening hours: Open all day throughout the year. The exterior is open all day.Liu’s Residence at Qingxi Old House
The Qingxi Old House faces south. There are three courtyards in total. The third courtyard is in a p[...]
