Qingming Shanghe Yuan

Description:

• Just west of the Long Ting Gongyuan, this manufactured theme park is modeled after painter and poet Zhang Zeduan's famous 12th-century scroll painting Qingming Shanghe Yuan (Festival of Pure Brightness on the River) -- now hanging in the Forbidden City in Beijing -- that depicts Kaifeng at its height. The park contains reconstructed traditional restaurants, shops, and bridges, and hosts performances by dancers and musicians who reenact Song dynasty rituals. An exciting show for the little ones is an action-filled reenactment of a battle between two old wooden ships held at the north end of the park. The kids can also try their hand at operating traditional flour mills or take a ride on horse- or camel-drawn carriages. Young women demonstrating traditional embroidery emulate skilled artisans in the imperial workshops who embroidered the emperor's robes using silk threads that were one-fifth the thickness of today's threads, and pulled by needles as thin as human hairs.

  The highlight of the park for interested Western visitors is the Jewish Cultural Exhibit Center (Youtai Wenhua Zhanlanguan), located in the western part of the park behind the Wang Yuanwai Jia building. The history of Jews in the city is documented in four rooms, with exhibits on early Jewish life in the city, as well as photographs of Jewish graves and synagogues that once stood in Kaifeng. If you're here when the center is closed, check with the Tourist Service Center just before the park's main entrance. The eager-to-please staff will often open up the Jewish Center for inquiring Western guests. For ¥5 (65¢/35p) with a ¥20 ($2.60/£1.30) deposit, the Tourist Service Center also provides an occasionally clumsy but nevertheless helpful audio tour of the park in English.

• © Frommer's 2012

Awards:

Frommer's

•  Recommended 2010