A place for exploration

The Jiangyin Fortress, once the site of a 1949 uprising against the Kuomintang, is now the Jiangyin Military and Cultural Museum.[Photo provided to China Daily]

The county also contains Huaxi - China's wealthiest village. Residents live in posh villas and own cars. Grand statues line the street.

The Hailan Horse Culture Museum claims to be the world's only horse-culture museum. And its equine residents are well pampered - and "dressed" (many manes are braided by hairdressers).

It set a Guinness World Record as the club with the greatest diversity of horse breeds.

The 8,700-square-meter museum that opened last year hosts 48 horses of 47 breeds from around the world. It also contains artworks, interactive displays and a dressage-performance area. That's not to mention a shopping mall.

The museum and surrounding buildings are constructed according to European conventions. It has sparkling chandeliers, grand carpeted staircases and gold ceilings.

It's a far cry from the aesthetic of Changjing Road, where residents live in buildings that borrow architectural sensibilities from both the northern and southern Yangtze River Delta, since inhabitants are descendants of Anhui province and neighboring Wuxi city.

The homes that crowd against a kilometer-long canal hail to the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

The area also hosts the Dafu Silk Worm Field, the Zhang Dalie Folk Museum and the childhood home of classic film star Shangguan Yunzhu, who appeared in 30 movies decades ago. (The house has been converted into a shrine to the celebrity.)

While modernity and urbanization reconfigure the world - with particular ferocity in China - Changjing isn't likely changing much any time soon.

But the city's history is perhaps best displayed at the Jiangyin Museum.

Exhibits include China's oldest excavated medical instruments, dating to about 1410 BC, a 5,000-year-old skeleton and witches' charms - plus a cannon used to defend Jiangyin from the invading Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900.

And, of course, there are sections devoted to Xu Xiake.