During the Spring Festival, I came to Daokou Ancient City Street again.

The streets at Daokou have a strong New Year atmosphere, and the red lanterns on both sides of the streets are dazzling.

The ancient city street is even more prosperous.

Every road leading to the ancient city streets is extremely congested, with vehicles of all sizes crawling like snails, and tourists everywhere.

It took a lot of effort to find a parking space, but I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The rows of ancient buildings on the streets of the ancient city are quaint, as if traveling several years ago.

In fact, there are Gucheng Streets in other places, such as Banjia Town in Puyang, but as a Huaxian native, the Gucheng Streets in my hometown are more familiar.

So many tourists come to the ancient city street, so what is her highlight?

World Cultural Heritage: Grand Canal On June 22, 2014, after review at the 38th World Heritage Committee meeting of UNESCO, the China Grand Canal project was successfully selected into the World Cultural Heritage List, becoming my country's 46th World Heritage project.

The Grand Canal of China is the collective name for the Eastern Zhejiang Canal, the Sui-Tang Grand Canal, and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

The Huaxian section of the Grand Canal belongs to the Yongji Canal of the Grand Canal in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. It has been continuously navigable for more than 1,800 years and is an important channel connecting the north and south of the river on the North China Plain.

The Huaxian section of the Grand Canal has a relatively complete artificial river channel and embankment system, occupying an important position in the Grand Canal.

The Huaxian section of the Grand Canal has a total length of 8,240 meters and a width of 33 to 50 meters. It is one of the best-preserved and richest sections of the Yongji Canal of the Grand Canal.

The Grand Canal was successfully applied for World Heritage status, and its Huaxian section also attracted the attention of people in the ancient city. Upon learning of this news, the Daokou Ancient Town of Huaxian County, which was born because of the canal, became excited.

In 2016, the People's Government of Huaxian County issued the "Notice on the Implementation of Protection of the Huaxian Section of the Grand Canal and Daokou Ancient Town", and regularly carried out dredging of the river and environmental management around the river, reshaped, widened and beautified the river banks, and diverted the Yellow River

The water enters the canal, and the canal becomes clear and green.

Against the backdrop of the ancient piers, ancient city walls, newly built heritage trails, and antique street lamps along the coast, a unique and thought-provoking scenery winds up.

The Huaxian section of the Grand Canal is also known as the Weihe River. Historically, the docks at the entrance of the Weihe River were busy for several kilometers. Merchants gathered here and there were many shops. They made a lot of money every day, so it was known as "Little Tianjin".

Today's Huaxian section of the Grand Canal has a "five-in-one" complete cultural relics and historic site including river channels, docks, city walls, villages and towns, sacrifices, and temples. It has become the most complete ancient canal site in northern Henan and one of the few relatively complete large canals in the country.

One of the important relics of the canal.

At present, the remaining cultural relics and historic sites in Daokou Town alone include three ancient streets, Shunnan and Shunbei, which are about 3,000 meters long, as well as hundreds of old houses, old banks, old banknotes, and many old docks and old sluices.

For thousands of years, the Grand Canal has given birth to a rich and unique canal culture. Huaxian Daping Diao, Daxian Opera, Erjia Xian, etc. have been included in the national intangible cultural heritage protection list. Daokou Roast Chicken Technology, Daokou Ancient Temple Fair, etc. have been included in the provincial list.

The unique characteristics of the Huaxian section of the Grand Canal provide valuable physical examples for the study of canal culture.

? Excellent traditional culture. There are many shops on the ancient streets. Woodblock New Year pictures, root carvings, cloth paintings, clay sculptures... the craftsmanship of folk artists is amazing.

Various exhibition halls are open to tourists free of charge, and every piece of art is valuable.

We deliberately stayed in the root carving exhibition hall for a while. The lifelike eagle, the peaceful Bodhisattva, and an ordinary tree root can change endlessly like magic.

Our traditional culture is truly a treasure.

Gucheng Street is actually also a food street. No one can refuse delicious food.

There are all kinds of delicious food on the streets of the ancient city.

Stinky tofu that smells stinky and tastes delicious can be found on every street, as well as grilled quail eggs, egg ham sausage, and fried pig blood enema. I really don’t know how the merchants came up with the idea.

All kinds of barbecues are also hard to get started. Chinese food has distinctive characteristics and is delicious in color, flavor and taste. This is absolutely true.

Falling in love with the ancient city street, how many people don’t love the food on the ancient street?

Gucheng Street: A paradise for children. It is the nature of children to love to play. Not only children, many adults also have childlike innocence.

You see, there are so many cute little bunny headdresses on the heads of adults, and they don’t forget to take selfies with expressions as cute as children.

All kinds of small toys satisfy the children's eyes. How could you not take away one or two?

It’s amazing for my Huaxian County, and it’s amazing for us Huaxian people.

Huaxian County uses the Grand Canal as a carrier to build a cultural inheritance and innovation demonstration zone integrating the Grand Canal, intangible cultural heritage protection, tourism, entertainment, leisure, catering and other cultural industries.

Further integrate the cultural resources of the canal and build exhibition halls, art galleries, creative studios, etc. based on rich heritage resources.

By realizing innovation on the basis of inheritance, Huaxian Gucheng Street will become a comprehensive ecological and cultural corridor integrating cultural heritage display, leisure and entertainment, and public fitness.