Liangping District 梁平区

History

Known in the past as Liangshan (梁山), the area became a county in 553, took the name Liangping in 1952 and was turned into a district in December 2016. It was long a chokepoint on the land routes of eastern Sichuan, where the ancient Lychee Road (荔枝古蜀道) and the northern and southern routes of the Wanzhou–Liangping road (万梁古道) met. The scholar Lai Zhide (来知德) wrote a commentary on the Book of Changes that entered the imperial Siku Quanshu (四库全书) collection, and the astronaut Yang Liwei (杨利伟) spent four years in flight training at Liangping airfield.

What to see

Shuanggui Hall (双桂堂) is a Chan Buddhist monastery founded in 1653 by the monk Poshan Haiming (破山海明) and named after two osmanthus trees in its grounds. It faces west, with seven buildings on its central axis, and has been a national key cultural relics protection unit since 2013.

Liangping calls itself the home of longevity bamboo; the Hundred-li Bamboo Sea (百里竹海) holds 350,000 mu of continuous bamboo forest. The Three Gorges Bamboo Museum (三峡竹博物馆), which the district describes as Chongqing's first museum on bamboo, covers the local bamboo landscape, species and crafts. The district counts four 4A scenic areas.

Food and crafts

Liangping duck is braised first and then roasted, a method that Zhang Xinghai (张兴海) developed from older roast-meat techniques in 1921. Twelve registered businesses now sell duck under family names; Zhang's Duck (张鸭子), in its third generation, holds the China Time-honored Brand title.

Bamboo runs through the local kitchen: bacon and sausage are smoked over bamboo twigs and leaves, sticky-rice zongzi are wrapped in bamboo sheaths, and bamboo tubes serve as vessels for shoots with pork, for tofu pudding and for yellow rice wine. The Bamboo Sea has shoots in every season.

Liangping woodblock New Year prints (梁平木版年画), about 300 years old, joined the first national intangible-heritage list in 2006. They show door gods, legends and opera scenes, and museums in the Soviet Union, the United States and France collected them in the 1930s and 1940s. With bamboo blinds and lantern opera they form Liangping's "three wonders" (三绝).

Highlights

• Shuanggui Hall 双桂堂: Chan monastery founded in 1653 by Poshan Haiming; national key protected site since 2013.
• Hundred-li Bamboo Sea 百里竹海: 350,000 mu of continuous bamboo forest.
• Zhang's Duck 张鸭子: Braise-then-roast duck first made by Zhang Xinghai in 1921.
• Liangping woodblock New Year prints 梁平木版年画: On the first national intangible-heritage list, 2006.