Tianjin,
although rich in natural and historical sights, is largely dwarfed by
its titanic neighbor Beijing as a tourist destination. However,
Tianjin boasts a history as long as, if not longer than Beijing.
What's more, with less tourist crowd invasion, Tianjin can still
be viewed as a traditional northern Chinese city because of both the
well kept folklore and the historical sites without too many
renovations.
Tianjin is nicest for its varied and
interesting buildings and makes an ideal long weekend trip for those
bored of the more concrete Beijing. From the thousand-year-old wooden Temple
of Solitary Joy to the beautiful Grand
Mosque, architecture lovers will relish this trip. Historically
the city also has a plentiful supply of interest, inhabited as it has
been for over 2500 years. Most interestingly for Western tourists,
parts of the town were ceded to Westerners in the Treaty of Tientsin
in 1858, and the architecture in a small area of downtown Tianjin,
south of the river and centered around Zhongxin Park still reflects
this.
The area also holds a lot of religious
interest, both Western and Asian. The mosque, as well as the imposing Notre
Dame des Victoires, are of particular beauty and active
significance. For the Chinese, although not overtly religious as such,
the Confucius
Temple is an obvious area of pilgrimage, as, for the Buddhists, Mount
Pan is.
For those who have not yet become true
heroes (Those who do not reach the Great Wall are not true heroes: Bu
dao changcheng, fei hao han), there is also a section of the Great
Wall here, that is normally quieter than its Beijing cousins. It
should be noted that another major reason for coming to Tianjin is for
the shopping here, the Antique Market (Jiuhuo shichang) is a
great place to wander, amongst old Mao badges and apparently genuine
Ming vases - worth a visit even for those not interested in purchase.
