Xuanmiao Temple is a famous Taoist temple in the country and a traditional market with a long history. Feng Menglong's "Jingshi Tongyan" said in the preface of Wu Zhi Jushi: "I heard about "Three Kingdoms" from Xuanmiao Temple." This shows that Xuanmiao Temple had an open-air bookstore during the Qi years of tomorrow. In the Qing Dynasty, more and more stalls were set up, and it evolved into a lively market in the center of the ancient city. There were stalls selling snacks, daily necessities, stationery and toys, couplets, calligraphy and painting, flowers, birds, fish and insects, as well as medical divination, astrology, acrobatics, etc. There are many kinds of them. Here is a brief list of the conditions of the Xuanmiaoguan Market around the 1930s as reported in newspapers in the past, to give you an overview.
Snack characteristics
Xuanmiaoguan’s snacks have many names, such as millet candy, gray soup rice dumplings, squid, smoked fish, jelly, lotus root starch, Qianzhangbaiye, fermented dumplings, Tofu curd, sugar porridge, plum blossom cake, crab apple cake, roasted beans, spiced tea eggs, chicken and duck blood soup, and the rest such as noodles, steamed buns, pot stickers, siomai, wontons, glutinous rice balls, etc., are all available. Famous stalls include Wenkui Zhai, which specializes in selling pear candy, Guan Zhenxing Noodle Shop, Wang Yuanxing Jiuniang Soybean Milk Shop, Xiaoyoutian Lotus Root Noodle Shop, Wu Fang Zhai, Liu Fang Zhai, Qifang Zhai, etc., and they have a history of more than a hundred years. There are two teahouses, Sanwansi and Pinfang. It can be said that Xuanmiao Temple is the place with the highest concentration of snacks in Suzhou.
Features of New Year pictures
The Sanqing Hall is a traditional New Year picture market, selling various pictures published by Taohuawu, such as sacred scrolls, kitchen gods, door gods, hundred-year-old pictures, and pictures of sending children. , Phoenix Wearing Peonies, Fish Jumping over the Dragon Gate, Three Friends in the Winter, Plum Blossoms with Five Blessings, Yue Fei's Fight against Gold, Guan Yu Reading the Spring and Autumn Festival at Night, Twenty-Four Filial Piety, etc. After the Republic of China, Shanghai's color-printed pictures of beautiful women and landscape paintings entered the temple and were welcomed by the public. There are also couplets and vertical scrolls, and famous writers can be invited to write them on the spot. The most famous one, Wang Huanwen (Du), who calls himself "Deng Wei Shannong", has been writing couplets in Sanqing Hall for decades.
Various acrobatics are often performed in the open space inside the temple, including juggling, puppet shows, monkey shows, peep shows, singing Xiaorehun, selling fists, talking about open-air books, etc. Where the gongs and drums were sounding, there was a crowd of people, bustling and lively.
Medical horoscope updates
Medical horoscopes are a major feature of Xuanmiao Temple. There are ancestral secret recipes that specialize in treating asthma, tuberculosis, and muscle aches. There are dentists and trauma departments specializing in treating bruises and injuries, etc. The well-known Ge Yunbin and Xie Mingde have set up stalls here. Fortune-telling, fortune-telling, fortune-telling, and fortune-telling are all concentrated along the road from Dongjiaomen to Niujiabang. Some have tables and chairs on the street, and some have set up pavilions. They are collectively called "jinxing". Seventy-two towels can be said to be complete. If you have a measuring hand, it's called "Measuring the scarf"; if you place a sign with a bird's title, it's called "Bird Scarf"; if you play the huqin, it's said of "clipping the silk scarf"; if you hit the small gong on the board, it's called "ringing the scarf"; when you're looking at each other, it's said of "cutting the plate and grabbing the scarf", and criticizing the eight characters It is called "Eight Blacks", the shaking class is called "Yuantou", the broken characters are called "Xiaohei", the blind man touches the cards and is called "Guanmei". There are several types of physiognomy, including palmistry and bone palpation, among which Yi Jianming (real name Zhang Zifang) and Zhu Shaoqing are the most famous. Those who are good at fortune-telling and fortune-telling include Simingshanren, Wang Yizhou, etc. Among those who are fortune tellers and fortune tellers (feng shui, geography, transit, and marriage), Yang Fengchao, Jiang Tongtian, Lingyunshan, Yang Shoucheng, Zou Muhong, etc. are the main ones. Those who split characters include Tan Huchen, Zhang Tianliang, etc. The classes that started were Wenwang's class and Liuren's class, which were famous for being as bright as a mirror. There is also the turtle test by Hong Yunlai (real name Bo Liang). He put a note written in advance with glue in a turtle shell with cuttlefish bone meal, and shook it a few times to reveal the handwriting, thus attracting curious people. They may be nicknamed "Sai Zhuge" or "Little Immortal", or claim to be "able to know the past and the future, and good at judging good and bad fortunes." Their calculations include everything from male and female marriages, family disputes, birth, old age, illness and death, to official fortune and wealth. As the saying goes, "Don't tell your wife a secret, otherwise you won't get anything to eat!" However, it was obviously a superstitious scam, but countless people came to them for solace. It was not until after liberation that they were arranged by the government to change jobs. The above description shows that due to the historical and geographical conditions of Xuanmiao Temple, it has become a lively place with local characteristics of Suzhou that is as famous as Beijing Tianqiao, Nanjing Confucius Temple, and Shanghai Old City God Temple. Suzhou people often say "White Phase Xuanmiao Temple", and outsiders must visit Xuanmiao Temple when they come to Suzhou. This has become people's common knowledge. With the development of the times, Xuanmiao Temple is constantly changing, but its basic nature and characteristics of being both a historical site and a traditional market have never changed. In 1956, the vendors in Xuanmiao Temple were sorted out and the snacks were maintained. Mainly traditional characteristics. During the "Cultural Revolution", the Xuanmiaoguan Market was cancelled. In December 1979, a candy evaluation exhibition in 12 cities and counties in Jiangsu Province was held in Xuanmiao Temple. Later, food stalls, clothing stalls, grocery stalls and sewing stalls crowded the temple and became the restored market in Suzhou. After years of organization and planning, kiosks with unified specifications were built. There are more than 20 traditional snack kiosks in the southern section of the Xijiaomen Corridor, and more than 10 sewing stalls in the northern section; clothing kiosks are located in the southern section of Dongjiaomen, and there are clothing kiosks in the northern section. Duan was a cobbler's stall; a fishing net and fishing gear market was established behind the Sanqing Palace. In 1985, there were 157 stalls in Xuanmiao Temple.