Traveling by High-Speed Rail to Langfang: Experience Intangible Cultural Heritage and Taste Local Delicacies!

Langfang, for me, is both familiar and unfamiliar. Situated between the two direct-administered municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin, it enjoys reputations such as the 'Pearl of the Beijing-Tianjin Corridor' and 'The Corridor Linking Beijing and Tianjin, the Fang of the Bohai Rim'.

Langfang has a long history, with human settlement dating back over 6,000 years. 4,000 years ago, 'the Yellow Emperor established the realm and founded all states, beginning from Anxu,' where 'Anxu' refers to today's Anci District of Langfang.

Our group departed from Beijing South Station, and in just 20 minutes by high-speed rail, we arrived at our destination—Langfang. We began our journey to seek out delicious food and explore the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage in Anci.

The Yibai Theater Cultural Complex is a cultural and social center that integrates a city's public cultural center, cultural life center, and cultural creativity center. It consists of four parts: the Yibai Theater, the Yibai Cultural and Creative Building, the Yibai Cultural Commercial Street, and the Yibai Park.

The Yibai Art Museum is located on the first floor of the Yibai Theater, with a total building area of 700 square meters. The interior space is square and grand. The museum features a multifunctional exhibition hall and an art gallery, allowing it to host various art forms such as calligraphy, painting, photography, and sculpture. It also has its own exhibition brand, 'One Painting, One Calligraphy, One World,' which is the museum's own exhibition brand.

Here, we viewed ceramics from different periods and appreciated the beauty of ceramics up close. As the saying goes, 'A thousand years of Jingdezhen, eight hundred years of blue-and-white history.' Blue-and-white porcelain holds endless charm not only domestically but also in the eyes of foreigners.

Gu's Incense Art is located inside the Yibai Art Museum on the first floor of the Yibai Theater. Gu Junming was born into a family of incense-making and is the thirteenth-generation inheritor of the Gu family's traditional incense-making technique. He is a master of traditional Chinese incense-making, a recognized 'Incense Master Instructor' by the Incense Culture Research Institute of the China Academy of Management Science, and a representative inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of traditional Chinese incense-making. He upholds traditional incense-making techniques and strives to restore traditional incense-making methods. While inheriting and promoting the traditional 'Five Elements Health Incense' technique, he also excavates and organizes ancient traditional incense formulas, which hold significant value for the study of ancient science and pharmacology.

On the fifth floor of the Yibai Cultural and Creative Building is the Anci District Library. It covers an area of 2,200 square meters, with a collection of 42,000 books, 110 periodicals, and 117 local documents from Anci. There are 230 reading seats and 140 network nodes. The library features a comprehensive borrowing room, a book collection area, a digital reading area, a Braille reading area, a newspaper and senior reading area, a lecture area, a 'Five Innovations and One Entrepreneurship' activity area, and a parent-child reading area. The library offers one-stop service and one-card management, integrating collection, borrowing, reading, research, inquiry, and learning. It is open year-round, with free access for 12 hours a day.

On the sixth floor is the Anci District Cultural Center, which includes an e-reading room, a multifunctional screening hall, a rehearsal hall, a dance studio, a recording studio, a calligraphy and painting exchange center, a folk heritage classroom, and an intangible cultural heritage classroom. The Cultural Center adheres to the principle of 'year-round service and free access,' serving the public with at least 54 hours of opening per week. In November 2019, the 'List of Protection Units for National Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative Projects' was announced, and the Anci District Cultural Center was granted protection unit status for the following projects: 'Wind and Percussion Music of Central Hebei (Dongzhangwu Concert),' 'Wind and Percussion Music of Central Hebei (Junlucun Concert),' 'Wind and Percussion Music of Central Hebei (Nanxiangkou Fanbai Concert),' and 'Stilt Walking (Ge Yucheng Chongge Fair).'

Watching the uncles and aunties earnestly learning calligraphy, painting, and musical instruments, I truly admire them. 'Live and learn' is best exemplified in them.

The Jiutian Leisure Valley is located on Xichang Road in Anci District, covering an area of 120,000 square meters. It is a one-stop indoor ecological leisure complex themed around ecological sightseeing, leisure entertainment, healthy cuisine, and trendy consumption.

Seeing the parking lot full of cars at the entrance plaza, we knew this place is quite popular among locals. With its elegant environment and no admission fee, you can freely explore the leisure valley surrounded by greenery.

The entire building of Jiutian Leisure Valley is a steel structure with a double-layer solar panel roof that provides both insulation and heat retention, ensuring the plants grow well, visitors feel comfortable, and the environment remains spring-like all year round.

Walking along the winding stone paths, watching children frolic everywhere and elders admire the scenery and take photos, we unconsciously blended in and enjoyed the spring scenery within the winter.

Anci is not only home to modern theaters, art museums, and leisure venues; it is also a rural revitalization demonstration zone for modern agricultural sightseeing.

Located in Qiuzhuang Township, Anci District, the planned area is 30,000 mu. Focused on specialty food processing and specialty breeding as the main directions of characteristic agriculture, it accelerates the agglomeration of advantageous characteristic agricultural industries, promotes the integrated development of the sixth industry (combining primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in agriculture), and builds a modular, divisible 'one zone with multiple parks' modern agricultural comprehensive park.

The Songwangwu Premium Fruit and Vegetable Base has been built over 1,600 mu, with a planned construction area of 2,000 mu. Upon full completion, it is expected to achieve an annual output value of 200 million yuan. The base consists of seven modern agricultural parks, covering high-standard facility agriculture, modern seedling cultivation, leisure sightseeing, tourism picking, and other agricultural elements.

The Yalüwan Sightseeing and Picking Garden covers an area of over 400 mu. It is a large-scale fruit and vegetable picking garden that integrates garden sightseeing, science and culture, leisure tasting, and farming experience.

Zhaofeng Agricultural Technology Development Co., Ltd. covers an area of 160 mu with a registered capital of 10 million yuan. Located in Qiannanzhuang Village, Yangshuiwu Township, Anci District, the company focuses on strawberry cultivation, supplemented by ecological fruit and vegetable cultivation, creating a model demonstration park for a sightseeing and recreational agricultural economy.

Entering the warm greenhouse, we saw the lush and vibrant strawberry plants. We couldn't resist picking one and tasting it—its sweet and sour flavor was really quite delicious.

The Haitangju (Crabapple Residence) is located in Xilizhuang Village, Matou Town, Langfang. I never expected such an elegant dwelling hidden in a quiet, unremarkable village. With a spacious comfortable area of 800 square meters, eight quality guest rooms, a whole-house fresh air system, constant temperature devices, branded furniture, comfortable bathrooms, entertainment facilities, and ample public space, it is very suitable for parent-child activities, family outings, leisure vacations, team building, and collective creation.

Convenient transportation makes it an ideal travel stop. Nearby attractions like the Dishili Kite Town and Children's Water Park are great places to visit.

At Haitangju, we enjoyed beautiful pastoral scenery and tasted green, delicious food, appreciating the joy of life. The life we desire is actually not far away; we just haven't discovered it yet.

Speaking of food, I should share the delicious meals we savored in Anci.

Our first big meal was at Guwa Yiguo Xian (Ancient Hollow One-Pot Fresh), the most established old-brand restaurant in Langfang, with many branches. They specialize in various fish hot pots, generous in portion and delicious in taste. If you're in a small group, ordering one fish pot you like plus a few side dishes is enough to leave you full and satisfied.

Lvkang Erba Xi (Green Health 28 Dishes) follows the characteristics of most northern 'Erba Xi' (28-dish set meal) and is very affordable. Particularly, the braised tofu ranked sixth among the top ten famous dishes of the 2020 Anci District Food Competition, and the vegetable dumplings achieved second place among the top ten famous snacks of the 2020 Anci District Food Competition.

Tong Family Restaurant, compared to the previous two restaurants with Northeastern flavors, offers more fusion cuisine. The restaurant's signature dishes—mutton meatballs in clay pot, boiled beef fillet, wood-fired chicken, fragrant tea shrimp, and 'Golden Mane Lion Head' fish—all had excellent presentation and taste!

In addition to the dishes from restaurants and taverns in Anci, snack foods passed down through generations, such as Zhonghui Huang Shifu's Small Sesame Twist and Laoniang Smoked Chicken, should be known by more people.

Zhonghui Huang Shifu's Small Sesame Twist originated during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty. It has a unique homemade recipe, with a fragrant, crispy, and non-greasy texture. This twist has been passed down through four generations, and its traditional handmade technique is a municipal-level intangible cultural heritage project in Langfang.

Laoniang Smoked Chicken continues to be prepared using traditional methods, inheriting secret recipes, using long-aged stock, and following 16 meticulous steps with 18 selected ingredients, ensuring the chicken retains its original flavor while avoiding the common problem of most smoked chickens having fragrant skin but dry meat. In May 2016, Laoniang Smoked Chicken was awarded the title of Advanced Individual at the Dishili Scenic Area, and in October of the same year, it received the Anci Tourism Product title. In 2017, it was interviewed and reported on by CCTV. In 2018, it was awarded the title of the Second Langfang City Best-Tasting Special Folk Enterprise.

Dishili: In the old days, the county town of Anci was exactly ten li (about 5 km) from this small village. Coincidentally, when Emperor Yongle (Zhu Di) of the Ming Dynasty passed through on his way to the capital, he saw the honest and filial nature of the local people. He added a single vertical stroke to the character 'shi' in the middle, turning 'shi' (十) into 'shi' (什), emphasizing the human spirit here. This confuses many later generations, who mistakenly think 'Dishili' is a transliterated name.

'China's kites come from two fangs (Weifang and Langfang).' In 2009, the Dishili kites of Anci District were included in Hebei Province's intangible cultural heritage. In 2015, Zhao Yanqiang was recognized by the Hebei Provincial Department of Culture as a representative inheritor of the fourth batch of provincial-level intangible cultural heritage projects.

At Mr. Zhao Yanqiang's home in Dishili, we saw kites of various shapes, sizes, and designs. Listening to his explanation of the kite-making process and how traditional Chinese culture is embodied in kites, we truly gained a lot. At the same time, we developed the idea of making a kite ourselves.

Gourd pyrography—in the works of inheritor Zhao Guangyu, we saw a blend of Chinese and Western techniques, especially the three-dimensional effect of the figures. Knowing that these images were created with a soldering iron, we couldn't help but feel deep admiration for Mr. Zhao.

Over two days, we wandered around Anci and visited many places, feeling Langfang's progress with the times and joyfully discovering the vibrant life of intangible cultural heritage on this land. Although the outdoor scenery in northern winter has no highlights, the numerous greenhouses allow the cultivation of fruits and vegetables and, like Jiutian Leisure Valley, bring greenery indoors, keeping it constant all year round.

On a leisurely weekend, visiting Langfang is a good choice, don't you think?!