The great museums in the Shinan district of Qingdao city – located in East China's Shandong province – are mostly to be found in the Qingdao Western Old Town, which is lobbying to be included on UNESCO's World Heritage List. It is widely viewed they will play a significant part in any successful bid.

Let's check some of them out:

Museum of the Rickshaw Boy

The Museum of the Rickshaw Boy, at No 12 Huangxian Road in Shinan, is China's first professional museum named after a famous literary work. [Photo/WeChat account: qdweishinan]

It is also the former residence of its author, the famous Chinese writer Lao She, who lived there in the 1930s when he was a teacher at the Chinese Department of the National Shandong University. At that time, Lao She wrote the enduring novel the Rickshaw Boy and other works such as Dr Wen and My Whole Life.

In 2008, the Qingdao municipal government and the Shinan district government jointly spent over 14 million yuan ($2.04 million) on the renovation of Lao She's former residence and turned it into the current museum. The museum – which has no entrance charge – opened to the public on May 24, 2010 and has to date received over 560,000 visitors from home and abroad.

"I have studied Lao She's works for more than ten years, but I never knew much about him as a litterateur. Today, by chance, I came to the museum and had the honor to learn about the writing process and the environment of his masterpiece," said a visitor to the museum.

Qingdao Post & Telecommunications Museum

The museum's premise, built more than a hundred years ago in 1901, is located at No 5 Anhui Road, Shinan district. The building was previously the location of the Jiao'ao German Empire Post Office. Jiao'ao is Qingdao's ancient name. [Photo/WeChat account: qdweishinan]

Visitors are able to visit all three levels of the building. On the first floor is a reception hall and souvenir shops. The second floor is the main exhibition hall, which displays 1,000 historical exhibits and more than 2,000 pictures. The top floor, dubbed "tower 1901", is home to the only wooden tower that is more than a century old in the city.