Jianchuan Museums

Jianchuan Museums were founded by a successful entrepreneur Fan Jianchuan. It is located at Anren Old Town in at Dayi in Chengdu, home to the Liu’s House and after the built-up the museums, this place is also called Town of Museums. Jianchuan Museums is composed of several different themed museums of historical events and collections. It has over 8 millions collections in total and it is by far the largest private museum in China. Its motto is “for peace we collect war, for future we collect lessons, for good life we collect disaster, for inheriting we collect traditions”. The four themes include WW2, Folk-Customs, Communist Time and Earthquake, having up to 25 exhibitions in total.

How to Get There

Using public bus you can start from Chadianzi Bus Station for about 1.5 hours and 16 yuan to arrive in Anren. The Bus schedules from 7:00 to 18:00 every 30 minutes one departure.

What to see at Jianchuan Museums

WW2 Museum

There are in total 5 exhibition halls and 3 squares for this theme. Exhibition hall of Zhongliudizhu, is the largest hall of all and usually the first one to be toured. It has pictures, papers and other items to show the fight led by Communist army during WW2 when Japanese army was invading China. Exhibition hall of Zhengmian Zhanchang, located next to the first one, is featuring the republic army defending China during WW2. This hall has rich items and information about the history during WW2. The exhibition hall of unsurrended captured people, is a rich collection of the former Chinese army who devoted their lives to the country even after captured. The Exhibition hall of Chinese air force, tells the details of the Chinese air force during WW2. The Exhibition hall of Chuanjun, is a gallery of showing the army enrolled from Sichuan and their performance during WW2. There were in total 3 million people enrolled to join the army in Sichuan. The three themed squares are, the Square of Veterans where lots of the veterans handprints were collected, the Square of statue of soldiers and a Red Square.

Museum of Communist Time

It is also called the Red Times. It has Exhibition Hall of Pottery during Red Times, daily life of the red times, Exhibition Hall of stamps and watches, Exhibition hall of communist posters that has about half billion in posters, Exhibition Hall of tickets and money during red times, Hall of music products of the red times.

Museum of Folk Customs

It includes Old Mansion Furniture Hall, Old Photo Galley, Xi Tradition (Traditional Wedding) Display Hal, Pen Holder Hall, Smoking and Gambling Items Hall, Sancunjinlian Collection Hall, 72 walks of Live Hall.

The Xi Tradition Hall

It is a display of traditional Chinese wedding mainly the wedding traditions of Sichuan. It has rich collections and very educative items toshow how a traditional Chinese wedding is preceded. In China there is professional study about the traditional wedding. This place also opens to the public if any couples want to have a wedding ceremony here.

The Old Mansion Furniture Hall

It is located in the house of General Liu Yuanzhang, whose house is well protected among all the houses here. It is now used by manyTV companies to shoot shows. It has retrieved a set of beautiful furniture, displayed as one of the most precious items in the hall.

Pen Container Display Hall

Featured with pen containers of old and modern, this hall is truly a tour back to the old Chinese culture. Most of the containers displayedher are made of pottery. This hall shows the elegancy of Chinese culture.

Sancun Jinlian Collection Hall

Sancun Jinlian means the small size women forced to make their feet to be. It tells the history of how the feet-bonding tradition started and ended. It is a very good place to explain women rights.

The Old 72 Walks of Life Display Hall

In China we usually say there are 360 walks of life. But actually the number 72 is more persuasive. This hall includes lives and facts of different traditional walks of life in China in the recent 100 years of time.

The Smoking and Gambling Collection Hall

Over hundred of smoking items made of different materials include ivory, copper, bamboo, bones and jade. And there are pipes for different uses: regular pipes and the pipes for smoking opium, etc. It recorded the items people used to gamble and to smoke from the last 100 years’ of time.

2008 Wenchuan Earthquake Museum

It is in memory of the earthquake happed on 12th of May, 2008 in Wenchuan. Wenchuan Earthquake is a devastating natural disaster hitting Sichuan in the last few centuries. These museum records things happened from 12th May to 12th June in Sichuan. There are in total over 1 thousand pictures, 40 thousand of pieces collected from the quake. .

Best Time to Go

Climate in Anren is close to the climate in Chengdu. The average temperature is about 16C with the average temperature in January at 6C and the average temperature in July at 26C.

Other information

Opening hours: 09:00 to 17:30 every day.

Recommended length of visiting: half day