Located in the old city of Tianjin Drum Tower South is the most well-preserved and largest Qing Dynasty Hall building in Tianjin. It embodies the architectural style of Lingnan in China, but also cohesion of the Guangdong people living in Tianjin City, the hardships of entrepreneurship.
About 300 years ago, Guangdong merchants formed a merchant fleet with merchants from Fujian and Chaozhou to do business in Tianjin. Their merchant ships, with their bows oiled red and painted with big-eyed chickens, were called big-eyed chicken ships. Every spring, when the monsoon winds blow, they will be loaded with goods, vast, northward along the coast, down the Haihe River into Tianjin. Over time, these merchants formed a Jian Gang (Min Gang), Chao Gang and Guang Gang 3 major factions, in order to business, reunion convenience, they pooled their funds to build the Fujian and Guangdong Hall, 3 gangs take turns on duty to manage the Hall.
The end of the Daoguang period, just in time for the Guang Gang duty year, because of a handler owes public money caused by the contradiction, Jian Gang, Chao Gang refused to Guang Gang duty year, and do not allow the Guang Gang to check the accounts, the Guang Gang in the Fujian and Guangdong Guild Hall into a situation of being excluded.
The end of Guangxu, tianjin customs road, guangdong Tang Shaoyi, in order to develop and consolidate the power of the broad gang, the initiative to collect funds to rebuild their own hall, and take the lead in donating 4 thousand taels of silver. This initiative was warmly responded by the Guang Gang merchants, within a short period of time to collect more than 90,000 taels of silver, in the city of Tianjin Gulou South Street, the purchase of the former Salt Transportation Department of the former site of the land began to build a new guildhall. Guangxu 33 years (AD 1907) on January 14, the new hall was completed, named Guangdong Hall. The Guild Hall was like a big courtyard, most of the bricks, tiles and wood were purchased from Guangdong, the gate of the courtyard was magnificent, the Luohanshan wall was high, the halls were out of the corridors and buildings, and the interior decoration was gorgeous, very Lingnan characteristics. Hall also built around the store, housing more than 300, and in the southeast side of the Hall built South Garden, planting flowers and trees, set up a medical room for the Guangdong townspeople to rest and recuperate. In that year, there were peach blossom forests and vineyards in the South Garden, and the scenery was very beautiful.
The Guild Hall is a grand building, Lingnan style, consisting of the upper door, the main room, the room, the theater, suites, etc., covering an area of 20 acres, is the largest surviving Tianjin, the most magnificent decoration of the Qing Dynasty Guild Hall building. Cross into the main door of the Guild Hall, into a large courtyard, the south side of a brick wall, in the middle of a large square, in front of a tall gate, the eaves of the center of the Ling Hai Zhu Hui plaque. The upper end of the main gate heightened into a nine-story staircase, because there are five mountains towards the sky. And then into the interior, and is a courtyard, the main room with the room are protruding from the corridor, through the main room after the small patio, into the main building of the Hall. The east side of the Hall is the Tongxiang Hotel, a courtyard building, the south side is the South Garden, commonly known as the Peach Blossom Garden.
Theater building is the main building of the Tianjin Guangdong Association Hall, in front of a wide courtyard hanging Ling Bo Ning and huge plaque, through the mezzanine, is a wooden structure that can accommodate 7, 800 people indoor theater, upstairs audience for the box, downstairs is the loose seats. The theater stage is 10 meters deep, 11 meters wide, the top is made of fine wood members mortise and tenon spiral algal well, carving process is exquisite, acoustics are good. Front stage eyebrow carved into a lion rolling embroidered ball pattern, two corners of the carving into the lotus bud-like pendant columns, the front of the stage is inlaid with a huge "Tien Guan Zhi Fu" wood carving, Tien Guan, children, apes, pines, cypresses, clouds and bats in the corner of the 4, constituting a lively, coordinated picture. The doors and windows of the theater building are also carved with traditional motifs such as lions, phoenixes and peonies.
Tianjin Guangdong Association Hall is most famous for its theater building. The design of the theater building is unique: the grandstand is divided into two floors, and the seats are divided into three kinds of seats, teahouses and boxes. Theater and theater all for the wooden structure, the theater to the beam span is large, beautifully carved known. Stage for the outstretched type, no wooden pillars, sitting in the south, stretching out to the north, nearly square, in front of the theater building, the audience can watch the show on three sides. The layout of the theater and the stage, with the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Summer Palace of the theater, theater similar, but slightly smaller, can also accommodate seven or eight hundred people. Stage design of the hanging umbrella roof ingenious: the top of the stage with hundreds of deformed arch, constituting a chicken-cage algal well, weighing about 10 tons, the outer square and round, stacked knot tenon, butterfly spinning and up. Not only chic shape, but also play the effect of the speaker. As long as the actor sings on the roof of this umbrella, without loudspeakers can also sound to the whole scene. Stage canopy inlaid in the middle of Tianguan Zhifu wisps of colorful wood carvings. Heavenly officials, fairy boy standing on the worship platform, monkeys playing in the pine and cypress, lingzhi between the four corners of the mouth of the bat with a branch, the composition is exquisite and well-proportioned. Box railings and partition doors and windows are also carved with phoenix through peony, squirrels, grapes, seasonal flowers and other motifs, knife fine, lifelike. The upstairs of the backstage is the dressing room, and the courtyard is surrounded by flowers and trees, which is fresh and elegant. When the famous Peking Opera performers Mei Lanfang, Yang Xiaolou, etc. have performed in this theater. 1918 August, the Tianjin Museum set up an exhibition Yu Xing Department, invited the Beijing Rongqing Society to perform in Tianjin, *** acted for three days. The third day of the morning and evening of the two performances is the theater, Wen Wu with playing the "Iron Crown Figure". One of the tiger stabbing a Han Shichang acted, the last, read the holy army is read in Manchu, with running bamboo horse, very hot. 1919 Deng Yingchao had also been here to perform the play.
Entering the Guild Hall, from the main room on both sides of the east and west side of the aisle across the small patio, then came to the main building of the Guangdong Guild Hall song and dance stage, also known as the theater building. Theater building south to north, accounting for the entire building of 2 / 3. face a pair of black lacquer gold lettering hold columns joint powder and ink to identify loyalty and treachery Man dance and light song are all the world, zheng pazhapa play happiness and anger complex strings rush pipe all human feelings, pointing out the theme of the theater. Theater for the outstretched stage, the stage can accommodate four or five hundred viewers. Surprisingly, the stage does not have a pillar, three sides of the audience can watch the show from different directions, the visual is not blocked, which is different from the other ancient Chinese stage of the unique features. More magical is the stage in the middle of the hanging umbrella roof, the top with thousands of deformed arch stacking, joints uneven, like a spiral pattern, upward stacking combination, like a 6-meter-diameter bowl buckle, constituting a chicken-cage style algal well. Plus paint gold and green, the more colorful and dazzling. It is not only beautiful, exquisite craftsmanship, and scientific design, the sound of the stage can be absorbed into the dome, to play the effect of the sound, and then the clear reverberation transmitted to every corner of the theater. Therefore, without amplifiers, it has the same excellent singing effect. Looking up from the front of the stage, there is not a single pillar to support the chicken coop algal well, but hangs steadily in the air. Several tons of its own weight, is how to hang in mid-air? After examination, the original horizontal a waist beam, the bottom of the two sides of the device iron pole, on the surface of the art of wood carving means cleverly hide it. Wisdom and ingenuity of the predecessor, people are in the presence of the after all tsk tsk.
In the second year after the completion of the Canton Hall, the Shanghai theater industry began to be influenced by the new Western theater, built China's first new opera theaters in the frame, from which the old-style theaters were gradually eliminated. The building became the last vestige of the classical Chinese theater, and in 1986 it was converted into China's first theater museum.
In 1912, there were several historically significant events in the Canton Hall in Tianjin, including the celebration of the founding of the Republic of China in February, the founding of the National Donation Federation in March in response to Dr. Sun Yat-sen's call, a grand welcoming ceremony for Dr. Sun Yat-sen's visit to Tianjin in August, and the welcome ceremony for Huang Keqiang, Chen Qimei and Song Jiaoren in September. In September, a meeting was held to welcome Huang Keqiang, Chen Qimei and Song Jiaoren. Later, when Dr. Sun came back to Tianjin from Taiyuan, another meeting of 6,000 people was held.
In this theater building, which is rarely seen in the north, a new revolutionary drama was performed in 1911, and on August 24, 1912, the northern branch of the League invited Dr. Sun to give a speech here. At the time of May 4, mass rallies or performances were often held here, and famous performing artists such as Mei Lanfang and Yang Xiaolou had performed on this theater building.
1925. An Xingsheng, a member of the *** proletarian party, formed the Tianjin Federation of Trade Unions, which also used the Guangdong Guild Hall as its meeting place. At the time of the fall of Tianjin, it became a training center for police officers run by the Japanese invasion forces. Now, after the renovation of the Guangdong Hall has become a window to understand and appreciate the art of Chinese theater and display Chinese theater culture.