Tongli Ancient Town is open from 08:00 to 17:15 throughout the year. Tongli Ancient Town belongs to Wujiang District, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, which is located on the shore of Taihu Lake and close to the seat of the municipal government. The ancient town has won the reputation of "Little Venice of the East" with the pattern of small bridges and flowing rivers, and there are gardens and ancient buildings such as Retreating Thought Garden, Kung Le Tang, and Huan Cui Villa, etc. The town was rated as a national 5A tourist attraction by the National Tourism Administration in 2010.
Folk Customs
Walking Three Bridges
It is a prayer activity for the people to avoid disasters and pray for their children. Tongli walk three bridges in the custom of "three bridges" refers to the tripod, less than 50 meters apart, lying in the Tongli ancient town area of the three ancient stone bridges: Taiping Bridge, Jili Bridge and Changqing Bridge. It is the treasure of the bridge in the ancient town of Tongli.
In 2011, the People's Government of Wujiang City (today's Wujiang District) announced the custom of walking on three bridges in Tongli as the fourth batch of Wujiang City Intangible Cultural Heritage List items.
Playing Lotus Box
The Lotus Box is a kind of homemade instrumental music of the people in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. It is generally used one meter long, inner diameter of about two centimeters of bamboo as raw materials, artists from the ends of every 10 centimeters or so in the bamboo tube to play a hole through the hole in the hole embedded in two coins (hole slightly larger than the coins, can be shaken coins can be), and with the screws and nuts to fix, and at the same time, where the tie on the red, green and yellow ribbons. Generally three holes at each end, tie three pairs of colorful ribbons.
Playing the lotus compartment is the artists holding the lotus compartment, and music in accordance with a variety of methods with the lotus compartment beat their hands and feet, arms, shoulders and legs. When dancing, the copper coins in the lotus compartment will make a pleasant sound, and the colorful silk ribbons will fly up and down, which is very beautiful. At the beginning of the lotus box artists are generally men, wearing white clothes and white pants, in the temple fair and major events to perform. Later, women also played the lotus box. Women often wear blue printed clothes, head wrapped in blue floral headscarf, in a variety of festive places and festivals dance.