From the Scent of the Silk Road to Delicate Arts & Crafts: Experience Hangzhou with Human Senses

5 min readAug 6, 2021

A week ago, China National Silk Museum held ‘Amazing Silk Road Night’ as part of the cultural event ‘Hangzhou Amazing Night’ organised by the Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, TV and Tourism.

This has opened the door to the multifaceted Hangzhou for visitors to experience the city’s historical significance, tourism resources and cultural charm.

Many museums in Hangzhou have actively taken the initiative to take part in ‘Hangzhou Amazing Night’. Among which China National Silk Museum’s ‘Amazing Silk Road Night’ is curated to evoke a shifting sense of space, bringing viewers — actually smellers — a surreal time travel to the Silk Road.

Beyond an ancient trade route for commodity exchange, the Silk Road has been a prominent cultural bridge that connects the East and the West.

Dubbed ‘the Home of Silk’, Hangzhou has been a strategic hub along the Silk Road since ancient times, as in one of the seven capitals of China with silk fabrics uncovered back in the Neolithic Liangzhu culture.

The cities’ trade activities were especially prosperous during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279 CE) when Hangzhou became an important hub and port along the growing Silk Road (UNESCO, 2021).

The cultural significance of Hangzhou has been prominent ever since. And now, with a creative twist, Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, TV and Tourism has taken it further, conceptualising cultural experience through our exhibition ‘Creation From Culture: Plants and Animals on the Silk Roads’.

Encapsulating archaeological relics, animal and plant specimens — Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, TV and Tourism has cultivated a ‘Silk Road Zoo and Botanical Garden’, reliving life scenes of the Silk Road with an artistic demonstration of its biodiversity manifested through multi-sensory experiences that appeal to our five senses.

Here is to indulge in the Silk Road and show how it has drastically impacted life back then, multifacetedly covering the necessities of life — from food, clothing and housing to transportation.

As the former nation’s capital in the Southern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou has long been a city universally known for its mesmerising natural landscape, profound history and cultural heritage.

While the Silk Road is undisputedly a magnificent culture that connects people and cultures, it is not the only representative.

Let’s delve into two of our most significant cultural heritages with a historic root, also dated to the Southern Song Dynasty:

Fans & Umbrellas

Fans were a popular gift back in ancient times, giving rise to the exquisite fan culture and craftsmanship (i.e. fan-making and fan-painting).

As one of the ‘Five Top Products of Hangzhou’, fans — from paper fans, silk fans to bamboo fans and more — are a great demonstration of traditional Chinese arts.

First emerged as a symbol of imperial power and dignitaries, an accessory for the literati and then become a cooling tool in daily life — the function and symbolisation of fans vary from context to context.

When it comes to traditional Chinese arts and crafts, we can never lose the gravity of umbrellas.

Beyond a daily tool, ‘umbrella’ is a unique cultural symbol in China.

Despite the use of materials — most quintessentially silk or oil paper, the manufacture of the traditional crafts takes around 80 stages to complete, covering five essential assembled parts: the head, the handle, the ribs, the paper shade and the embellishment. For some cases, articulated joints are required to assemble a collapsible umbrella!