A city of cultural and historical significance, Tianjin is an important birthplace of north China culture. Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was the heyday of Tianjin's literature. With a long history of calligraphy and fine arts, Tianjin has produced a lot of artists of distinction. The well known "Four Unique Techniques" of folk art nature in Tianjin are: Yangliuqing's Spring Festival Pictures, Zhang's Clay Figures, Wei's Kites and Liu's Brick Carvings.

The area of Tianjin began to be inhabited when the Grand Canal was completed in Sui Dynasty (581-618). In 1404, Emperor Yongle of Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) ordered the construction of city walls and the setting up of defenses. Thus was born a city that served as a stronghold for Beijing.

A famous local folk custom is ¡°8 December Porridge Festival¡± of the lunar year. Today's canned "Eight Treasures Porridge" is just inspired by this festival. How the festival originated is a quite controversial issue. The most influential argument is about the first emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), who used porridge to recall his past sufferings and contrast them with his happy life when he was already the emperor. Zhu Yuanzhang was born into a poor family. Legend has it that when he was quite small, on 8 December of a lunar year, he and his playmates found a field mouse hole. From it, they took out some corns, beans and rice that mice were feeding on for winter. These hungry children used these cereals to make some porridge. In Zhu's memory, this was the most delicious food he had ever tasted. When he was grown up, Zhu led these poor people in an uprising, overthrew the emperor and made himself the first emperor of Ming Dynasty. To remind himself that he was from a poor family, on 8 December of each year, Zhu would summon together his family and his comrades-in-arms (now dignitaries, of course) for a banquet of porridge made with coarse cereals. The imperial tradition gradually got embedded among ordinary people and became a festival that we see today.

There are also other local folk customs in Tianjin, and behind each one is an interesting story.