Xi’an’s Forest of Stone Tablets Museum, located on Shuyuanmen Avenue, and has been called China’s largest stele archive. It contains more than 11,000 cultural articrafts such as steles, engravings and sculptures from the Han and Tang Dynasties. It also boats a notable collection of ancient Chinese calligraphy. There are nearly 100 bookstores in the area near the Forest of Stone Tablets Museum selling calligraphy, paintings, paper cuttings, shadowgraphs, “xun”, pottery, embroidery and jade. Travelers who pass along these streets can find many old cultural articrafts to dust off and take home with them.

The Gao Family Compound, located by Xi’an’s Beiyuan Gate, is a home built in the style of Ming and Qing dynasties with a history of over 400 years. Tourists come here to see the many different displays of traditional paper cuttings and performances if Shadowgraphs, which originated in Shaanxi over 2,000 years ago. In these plays, some performers sing while others operate the puppets. The puppets are painstakingly crafted in exquisite detail, using traditional dyes and materials.