Where to Have Fun in Dongguan for a Day Trip

Dongguan, aside from being known as the “Capital of Sex” and the “World Factory”, is also home to countless small factories and workshops that produce various goods sold all over the world. It has become the largest light industrial base in Southern China. Here’s a guide to the fun places you can visit in Dongguan for a one-day trip.

There are actually a lot of fun places to visit in Dongguan. The factory area is quite impressive, the various high-end shopping malls are also popular, and there are also many beautiful parks to visit. Let me show you some fun places in Dongguan.

What is your impression of Dongguan? Is it the “world factory”?

Is it the epic Tiger Gate smoke? Are there five-star hotels all over the city?

Hong Kong cultural celebrity Liang Wendao once described his impression of Dongguan in a simple and vivid way: “In my impression, Dongguan is a city composed of hotels and factories.”

In fact, when you jump out of this box and initial impression, slowly approach it, understand it, you will find that these statements are still biased and inaccurate.

As Khalil Gibran said, “A man has two selves: one that he shows the world, and another that he keeps hidden.” The same can be said of a city. Have you ever seen the other side of Dongguan?

Daxi Road: Lingnan arcade architecture is everywhere

This Daxi Road, formed during the Qing Dynasty, has arcade-style buildings on both sides of the street that are used for both commercial and residential purposes. Among them, there are many buildings with well-preserved historical features. The three-section façade style of blending Chinese and Western styles is typical of Lingnan arcade buildings. The first floor of the arcade is a long corridor and shops for free walking, and the second floor is a residence above the shops. This is a typical Lingnan arcade building.

In each door of each building on each floor, there is a memory and story about old Dongguan. Walking through time, you can seem to smell the old days.

Among the arcades all over the country, Guangzhou’s arcades are diverse in form and well-preserved, representing the Cantonese style of arcades. As a historical and cultural city, Daxi Road’s arcades have achieved a perfect combination of commercial and residential environments, and are also of great historical significance.

The Dongfanghong Photo Studio on Daxi Road is located at the intersection. At a glance, the three big characters Dongfanghong immediately remind people of the Shanbei folk song “Dongfanghong, the sun rises, Mao Zedong emerges in the east”,
as if you were on Doraemon’s time machine going back decades.

But then again, look at the advertising signs on both sides of the door, and you will be dragged to the modern age. In this way, even though the Dongfanghong Photo Studio is now operating with the times, it does not prevent it from becoming a well-known landmark in North Corner, even in Guancheng and Dongguan, on this old street of time.

Dongfanghong Photo Studio

Unlike the busy figures of the world factory in Dongguan, the residents here seem to be more peaceful and indifferent.

In the old Dongguan restaurant, in the shops along the Daxi Road arcade, Dongguan people are not in a hurry, sitting around in the old restaurant listening to Cantonese opera, drinking tea, and eating, busy with their small businesses in front of the shop, and will not let the fast pace of work disrupt their lives. This is the real down-to-earth life of ordinary people.

Cantonese people are famous for their ability to make soup. There are endless varieties of soup ingredients. I’ve never seen the kind of ingredients drying out on the street, like longan peels, longan pits, and winter melon seeds. They are not something I would even think of. When you see how other people live, you have to ask yourself if you’re being wasteful. You don’t even know how to make use of good things.

Every day, you compete with time, you compete with your own yesterday, sometimes you struggle hard but end up exhausted. Why not flow through life like water, focus on the present with all your heart, and turn ordinary days into a poem with details.

Old Guancheng Restaurant: Full of a sense of the times

Old Guancheng Restaurant

When people reach a certain age, they like to start reminiscing, they like to find things that symbolize their value to reminisce about the past. As soon as you walk into the Old Guancheng Restaurant in Dongguan, a deep sense of the times hits you. You suddenly feel the passage of time and are reminded of the memories of the years.

When you walk into the Old Guancheng Restaurant, the first thing you see is a very conspicuous and large display on the right side of the restaurant, displaying Dongguan’s local products produced by the Old Guancheng Restaurant – the Three Treasures of Dongguan: Chenpi, Xianlan, and Heguancao. It costs 15 yuan per bag and is said to be a non-material cultural heritage protection project.

The restaurant has two large rooms in the front and back, with seemingly unrenovated mottled walls, a portrait of Sun Yat-sen, plaques and couplets, old ceiling fans, old clocks, bird cages, birds, and wall paintings.

Old and with stories to tell. There are not many old houses left. As time goes by and life becomes more modern, it’s really hard to find places like this with such an authentic architecture and style. The business here is very good. I think it’s special that the restaurant can retain such a sense of the times.

The restaurant plays Cantonese opera on television. I don’t usually listen to it, so I don’t understand it very well. But Cantonese opera is also known as “Guangdong Grand Opera” or “Grand Opera”, one of the traditional operas of Guangdong. There are many theaters in Guangdong and Hong Kong that perform Cantonese opera. Probably older people like it better. The famous Hong Kong Cantonese opera performers, Wang Mingquan and Luo Jiaying, got together because of Cantonese opera.

Classic Cantonese dishes, crispy roast goose, blanched fish skin with lettuce, 10 yuan a pot of coconut juice and chicken soup, steamed meat balls, dishes are given away for consumption over 100 yuan, braised fish with fermented black beans, all delicious and affordable. The restaurant also sells Dongguan specialties. Great. There are mostly locals eating here, it feels like a clan hall gathering to eat.

The Old Guancheng Restaurant uses rooster bowls, also known as “starting a family bowls”, which symbolizes starting a family, getting rich, and becoming prosperous. It is said to be a unique bowl found only in Guangdong and Fujian’s Minnan region. It is a prop used by Stephen Chow and TVB in filming.

Keyuan Garden: One of the Four Great Gardens of Lingnan

Keyuan Garden, one of the four great gardens of Lingnan, was built by Zhang Jingxiu, a native of Guancheng. It has pavilions, terraces, towers, leaky windows, carved flowers, small bridges and flowing water, moonlight on the lotus pond, and carp and swans.

The scenery is divided into two parts: the ancient building area and the Keyuan Museum. The museum is free, and the building area costs 8 yuan for admission. Having seen the dozens or even hundreds of yuan entrance fees at domestic scenic spots, I can’t help but feel that this admission fee is really a conscience price.

Walking into Keyuan Garden, you immediately find peace in the hustle and bustle, and a piece of pure land in the redundancy. If it weren’t for the heat, it would be even more tranquil and leisurely to walk around this blue-stone garden with three lakes.

As one of the four great gardens of Lingnan, Keyuan Garden is as famous as Qinghuayuan Garden in Shunde, Liangyuan Garden in Foshan, and Yumo Shanfang in Panyu. I have not been to the other gardens. Just talking about Keyuan Garden, I think that apart from the leisurely and carefree garden scenery, the garden owner Zhang Jingxiu’s cultivation is perhaps even more admirable.

As a native of Dongguan, Zhang Jingxiu spent more than a decade building this famous Lingnan garden – Keyuan Garden; at the same time, as a military general, he rose and fell three times in the officialdom, and once risked his life to resist the British invaders;

As a scholar, he also dabbled in goldstone calligraphy and painting, music, chess, calligraphy and painting, and invited many literati and artists to Keyuan Garden to play the qin, recite poetry, and even supported Ju Chao and Ju Lian to paint in Keyuan Garden for a long time, laying the foundation for the painting style of the Lingnan School. One person can do so much, it really makes me admire him.

The tallest building in Keyuan Garden – Kelou, is 17.5 meters high. You can climb the stone steps along the side of the building to reach the Yaoshan Pavilion at the top of the building. There are bright windows on all four sides, and the flying eaves spread their wings. From a distance, it looks like a watchtower. In ancient times, it was a watchtower for military purposes. When you go up high, you can look out the window and see the scenery of Guancheng.

The buildings in Keyuan Garden are basically made of blue brick and stone walls. The top floor of the Yaoyue Pavilion has nearly 30 special windows – “oyster shell windows”.

This kind of window must be made with large, high-quality oyster shells that are polished into uniform thin sheets in order to make oyster shell windows. They have certain light transmission, decorative, and private features.

However, if you are not careful, you will miss these special and rare oyster shell windows when you are touring.

Flying eaves above and ancient wells below. Although many places have been renovated, if you don’t rush, you can still smell the scent of the old days by touching and feeling it slowly.

From ancient times to the present, courtyards have always been a residential complex that Chinese people are reluctant to give up. The courtyard is deep and deep, how deep is it? Willow trees are piled with smoke, and the curtains are countless.

Look at the green dripping from the bamboo tips, listen, the fragrance of the green grass whispers softly. Let the world be noisy, I will just “chant and walk slowly”.

Small garden with endless scenery, a different heaven within a pot. Couplets are everywhere, extending and expanding the scenes of Keyuan Garden.

The moon gate, cave gate, leaky window, and colored window panels of Keyuan Garden are matched in a refined and elegant way, showing the architectural beauty of a private garden everywhere.

In the garden, the trees are lush and the grass is green. As you raise your eyes, large jackfruit hangs full of branches.

Admire the flowers blooming and falling in front of the courtyard, watch the clouds gathering and dispersing in the sky, blue bricks and white walls, front and back yards, a garden courtyard with warmth and dignity, allowing you to stroll leisurely and turn time.

A collection of essays on Lingnan classical garden culture – “Raining on Banana Leaves Falling in the Idle Courtyard: Lingnan Painting Boat Records”, records the history, structure, artistic conception, and characteristics of Keyuan Garden from various perspectives.

Quiet streets and deep alleys, ancient trees and high walls, magnificent gates, a courtyard is a world. Strolling around, it seems to return to the beautiful moment when the garden owner was playing the qin, reciting poetry, and painting.

In Keyuan Garden, all you see is green, and you encounter scenery everywhere. A flourishing green water, sparkling waves, and graceful reflections. Festive schools of fish and swans swim freely, adding a touch of vitality to the tranquil Keyuan Garden.

The stone sculpture exhibition area of Keyuan Garden displays various old doorheads, pillars, tie-horse stakes, and twelve zodiac animal decorative stone sculpture works. For people who don’t know much about stone sculpture, just walk around and take a look.

Going through the winding path of the East Lake, passing through the bamboo forest path, you will reach the museum area of Keyuan Garden.

Here, there are exquisite (high-imitation) paintings and calligraphy of the Eight Eccentrics of Jiangxi on display. Here, there is an exhibition of traditional Lingnan gardens and folk houses. On the second floor, there is also a Ju Chao and Ju Lian exhibition hall, but it was closed when I went there. If you are interested in painting and calligraphy, if you are interested in ancient architecture, you will truly receive good inspiration and knowledge here.

Many buildings in Lingnan use oyster shells to make walls. Oyster shells are stacked layer by layer and arranged tightly. They not only have sound insulation effects, but are also cool in summer and warm in winter, strong and durable. You can’t easily pull out an oyster shell from an oyster shell wall. The large oyster shells I saw in the Keyuan Garden Museum were unlike any I had ever seen before, they were as long as two palms.

Ancient buildings are material evidence of historical sedimentation, but also a kind of frozen music. Its structure, its materials, its planning and distribution, its spatial changes, its colors, are all the accumulation of wisdom and experience of those ancients of that era, but also the inheritance of civilization.

I agree with what some people say, that geography needs to be combined with history to be more meaningful and substantive. Every ancient building has traces of history and cultural connotations, and deserves our admiration and awe.

Xiaba Fang: A little fresh for Dongguan

Xiaba Fang is known as Dongguan’s Gulangyu Island. When night falls, with lights flickering, there is a feeling of crossing over to Dali, Lijiang, and Xiamen. However, there seem to be too many bars, it is more suitable for young people.

In the evening, the gentle sun casts mottled shadows in the narrow alleys of Xiaba Fang. Many people come here to take pictures. This place has become a battleground for wedding photography and videography.

This place is like Beijing’s 798, Shanghai’s Tianzifang, and Xiamen’s Gulangyu Island, full of creative design and artistic atmosphere. Many buildings are tastefully decorated and creative, and just a casual shot is very “little fresh”.

There are rows of snack stalls and snacks along the river. It’s also great to sit and have afternoon tea in a cafe, and then find some snacks at a stall in the evening. It’s great to just stroll and chat.

However, Xiaba Fang seems to belong more to the night. After nightfall, red lanterns and colorful lights light up all over the street, and people are bustling and busy. Xiaba Fang seems to have transformed from a quiet girl in the day to a rock and roll girl, hot and wild.

Xiaba Fang is a historical and cultural village in Dongguan and also one of the villages with the best preserved Lingnan culture. At the head of the village, there is a wooden and gold plaque from the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty that says “Imperial Edict Chongyi Famous Minister”. The buildings in the village are all ancient and elegant, and are well preserved.

At night, the heat gradually subsides. Walking in the night, thoughts spread in the night, thinking freely, moving with the scene, walking and stopping, calmly and peacefully, finding a bit of lighthearted joy in the noise.

Give Dongguan and yourself a day, wander between the classical and the modern. There are no great surprises, no great disappointments.