The fourth Hanshang Qingping national-style culture week runs from 31 October to 7 November at Qingping Guxu, a film and culture park in Xinqiao, Bao’an District, Shenzhen. Entry is free, no booking is needed, and anyone arriving in Hanfu can walk into the parade rather than watch it.
| Dates | 31 October to 7 November 2026 |
| Venue | Qingping Guxu Film and Culture Park, Xinqiao, Bao’an District, Shenzhen |
| What it is | Fourth edition: Hanfu parade, three-dynasty wedding show, garden games, market and craft workshops |
| Scale | Dozens of wearers in the opening parade; six costumed hosts at stamp points; ten places per silk-pouch workshop session |
| Tickets | Free, open site, no reservation |
| Getting there | Metro Line 11 to Shajing station, exit D, then five to ten minutes on foot |
| Timings | Parade 15:30 to 16:00 on 31 October and 1 November; runway 16:30 to 17:30; music night 19:20 to 21:00 |
The Granary, the Pawnshop and the Stone Bridge
Opening day leaned on wire work rather than fabric. In front of the old granary, dancers rose above the crowd on cables while a drum ensemble played below, and the organisers billed the segment as a walk through the site’s own history. The effect depends on the setting: an open brick forecourt, a full grey-brick facade behind it, and no modern building inside the frame once a performer is lifted clear of the ground.
Then the parade took over the lanes. Dozens of wearers moved through the old town in Ming, Tang and Song styles, with Qixiong Ruqun, Quju and Beizi all appearing in the line, some carrying round fans, others lanterns. At the granary stage, three wedding ensembles followed in sequence: a Tang set built on saturated colour, a Song set on plain silk, and a Ming set with the phoenix crown and embroidered stole. Couples also married inside the site’s own programme, with sedan chairs on land and a decorated boat on the water.
Participation is spread across the same ground. Six costumed hosts run a stamp route through archery, riddles, tea whisking, incense and paper-cutting, and a filled card can be traded for a souvenir. A silk-pouch workshop at the granary square opens with a short talk on Song brocade before participants sew a clasp frame, which is the closest the week comes to turning textile knowledge into a two-hour bench session. After dark, the market street along the old bridge takes over.
Costume Notes That Outlast the Catwalk
The hosts’ own costumes carry more detail than the runway. The figure guarding the archery pitch wears a Ming Feiyu robe with a leather belt and a black gauze winged cap, holding an arrow for the pot. In the Ming bestowal system the Feiyu robe was granted by rank, with pattern and badge matched to the wearer, so the outfit is a staged but sourced one rather than an invented fantasy. The winged cap belongs to the same formal register, worn with a round-collar robe and upward-folded gauze wings.
For a visitor, that is the useful part: a checkable sample of Ming dynasty clothing rather than the word “ancient” used as an adjective. The rest of the programme is older still and simpler. Pitch-pot still depends on the relationship between the mouth of the vessel and the weight of the arrow, and tea whisking still depends on the temperature of the water and the rhythm of the brush.
Why a Qing River Port Suits Dressed Visitors
Qingping Guxu is one of Shenzhen’s four old market towns and the only surviving Qing-era river port in the Guangfu region, laid out in the Jiaqing reign and now more than three centuries old. It was once a trading stop busy enough to be called the Qingming scroll of western Shenzhen. The scale today is modest, but the fabric is intact: the Yongxing bridge is the city’s only Qing three-arch stone bridge, the Guangan pawnshop is its largest surviving Qing pawnshop, and the granary has been rebuilt as a round theatre.
Three things make the site work for dress-up. First, scale: lanes are narrow and roofs low, so a phone camera rarely catches anything modern behind the subject. Second, material: grey brick, granite and slab stone run cool, which lets Tang saturation and Song restraint sit in the same frame without fighting. Third, the functions switch quickly. A granary interior, a bridge exterior, an exhibition room opposite the pawnshop and a line of market stalls all sit within a hundred metres, so nobody spends the day in transit between sets.
The week also leaves a tail behind it. A short-film contest opened for entries on 24 October and closes on 25 November, judged online. Its purpose is less to find a good film than to stretch the content life of a seven-day event across a month, which is the only way a site like this converts scenery into footage that keeps circulating.
