Home | Hotels | Hotels Video | China Flights | China Train Tickets | Main cities | China map | Contact us | Reservation Status  

China Travel & Tourism News


Search China Travel News:

Paying homage to historical Huizhou


18-May-2012 - Global Times
Paying homage to historical Huizhou
The Hui-style buildings in Hongcun village Photo: Wang Yuan



Ancient Huizhou, located between Jiangxi and Anhui provinces, is the birthplace of Hui merchants, one of the three largest merchants groups to emerge in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and decline in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Hui mechants traded salt, tea, mountain products and stationary treasures around China and even with Japan, accumulating large fortunes and spending them lavishly on their hometown. Pursuing close relations with bureaucratic elites, Hui merchants particularly valued education. During Ming and Qing Dynasties, ancient Huizhou exceeded many other regions in its concentration of scholars and officials, resulting in the birth of a unique Huizhou culture.

With respects and longing to see the culture of ancient Huizhou, I toured Hongcun Village in Anhui, and Wuyuan in Jiangxi - two remains of ancient Huizhou culture - in its best season, early spring. Though many of the ancient landmarks have faded, Huizhou wears a new, modern face - for better or worse.

Hongcun village

I first ventured to Hongcun. The old village is only an hour's drive away from Anhui's capital city, Hefei. Located near the famous Huangshan Mountain, Hongcun has been a popular tourist attraction for years. Tour bus lines connect the village with all its neighboring cities, making the area very convenient.

Hongcun is a small village, and it did not take much time to get at the Hui-style architecture hotel with white walls and grey tiles. The village is filled with such buildings, forming the most typical scene captured in traditional Chinese ink-washing paintings.

Unlike ancient Hui merchants, who traveled across the country for big deals, Hongcun residents conduct small business transactions with tourists on their doorstep. They still sell tea and mountain products, alongside typical cheap travel souvenirs that you can see in every Chinese tourist site. Their small stands overflow with colorful goods, set against elegant white-wall and grey-tile building.

Hiding among the colorful stands and shops are many former homes of famous Hui merchants and old ancestral halls. In traditional times, Hui merchants, who were driven by strong hometown roots and familial duties, poured their fortunes in building fine ancestral halls to honor their ancestors, and decorated their houses to reflect family wealth.

The Wang legacy

The Wang Ancestral Hall is the most important ancestral hall in Hongcun. It is located to the north of the Half-Moon Pond in the middle of the village, and consists of several sub halls. Wang remains the most popular surname in Hongcun. As ancestral hall is the most important and holiest place in China's traditional community, as all the most revered families were living around the hall.

In the middle of the walls opposite to the hall's front entrances; there are several portraits and memorial tablets of Hongcun's most famous and honored villagers in the history. As women were in humbler positions in ancient time, few women are worshiped in the hall. Hu Zhongniang is an exception, and her portrait now hangs in Lexu Hall, a sub hall of Wang Ancestral Hall.

Hu, born in 1379 and died in 1454, was the wife of Wang Siqi, the 76th Chief of Wang's community. It's said that she presided over the design and construction of Hongcun village, creating an extraordinary advanced water facility system for the residents. The main body of the water system is the Half-Moon Pond.

A tale about the Pond said the "half-moon" represents Hu and other female villagers' missing for their husbands who were doing business far away home. In China's traditional culture, a full moon means reunion of family, while a half moon suggests departure.

Today, the Half-Moon Pond is one of the most famous tourist spots in Hongcun. As a full row of Hui-style buildings are silhouetted against the waving water, the village seems quietly telling its past glory.

As the night shut in, the water hushed into peace and the village went silent. It is a good time to enjoy a tourist-free Hongcun. Children were back from school, chasing on the narrow and winding streets; a housewife, holding a spatula in her hand, stood on her doorstep and called her neighbor hostess to borrow a small handful of chives. Grey tiles turned black, and white walls turned yellow under street lamps. If you are here in the early spring, please open your window before sleep. Let the spring breeze blow in a wave of flower scents.

Don't get up late, or you'll miss the most beautiful scene: the hill beside Hongcun before sunrise. A widespread mist accumulated over night mixed the near village and distant mountains, and you'll find yourself lost in the black and white roof lines. Until the sunlight hits the buildings and birds wake up, Hongcun was busy again.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Wuyuan county, a life away

Wuyuan is a county near China's porcelain capital Jingdezhen City in Jiangxi. There is no direct bus line from Hongcun to Wuyuan. You have to take bus to Huangshan City first, and then transfer to Wuyuan. Though Wuyuan is not far away from Hongcun, the transportation is a bit tedious.

On my way to Wuyuan, the driver proudly said that there will be a high-speed railway from Beijing to Fuzhou, highlighting Wuyuan as an important tourist destination. The driver proudly proclaimed that the construction is environmental friendly.

Wuyuan is located among mountains in China's hilly Southeast, making the construction difficult and money consuming. It makes the construction more expensive as local government decided to prevent polluting the water sources in this region.

Everywhere in Wuyuan, I saw clear streams and lakes that you could see through. Though Wuyuan is no longer as rich as it was during the ancient Huizhou times, it invested in its current biggest business venture - tourism.

Tourist spots in Wuyuan are old small villages scattered distantly among mountains. Unlike Hongcun, which is famous for its typical Hui-style architecture and traditional community culture, Wuyuan village group is well-known for their beautiful natural sights - green mountains, clear rivers, and especially the golden rape flowers blossomed all over the mountains and plains in early spring.

The ticket price of Wuyuan village group is comparatively cheaper than Hongcun's - 160 yuan covers 15 villages and tourist spots in five days. Tourism service is well organized. Each area has a service center providing maps, inquiries, and hot water, and decent washrooms. Again, transportation is the only problem: in certain parts, you have to rent private cars, which cost more.

Qingyuan, an oasis

Considering there must be wavelike visitors in the 15 villages and tourist spots covered by the ticket, I chose to spend more time in a less famous village Qingyuan, which is not among the 15 places.

Qingyuan, hiding on the top of a nameless mountain and surrounded by golden flowers, pink peach blossoms and white pear flowers, is a quiet, clean and delicate place that has a history of over 1,300 years. A small stream meanders across the village, and the community's daily live is around it. The village government is located at a former house of a rich businessman doing business in Shanghai during the Republic of China (1912-1949). The elegant woodcarvings on the building represented the glory of the Hui merchants' last generation there.

Many villagers are reluctant about developing Qingyuan as a tourist attraction. A villager said, "We don't want our peace life to be bothered."

Wuyuan's local tourism developers do not think so. The famous golden rape flowers bring real gold. It attracted huge amount of tourists, photographers, and artists in every spring. Businesses are trying to double the duration of tourist season in Wuyuan. Developers rent increasing area of cultivated land from local farmers, and hire farmers to only plant rape in spring and yellow chrysanthemum in autumn. If it works, Wuyuan will have another tourist season in autumn.

The yellow chrysanthemum plan already starts operation in some villages down to the hill. The nearer the villages are from modern societies in the plain regions, the easier for them to regain "business talents." Sometimes their creative power and profit-seeking desire is beyond the boundaries of your imagination.

Moonlight, Moon Bay

Not far from downtown Wuyuan county lies the famous scenic spot, Moon Bay. This is a place where fishermen cast nets into the river to catch fishes every early morning, with rays of sunlight hitting and reflecting off the nets. As a photographer, I eagerly captured these moments.

When a number of photographers, including myself, gathered on the bank, a fisherman started. He rowed his boat right to the point where a flash of soft morning sunlight hit the water. From a distance, someone shouted in local accent, "Pay 150 yuan, and the fisherman will cast the net at your will!"

Photographers glanced questioningly at one another, but we understood quickly - this is no longer a fishing village, and these former fishermen are now role-playing fishermen. Nobody responded at first, but as the sun rose higher and the soft sunlight was about to glare, one fumbled for his wallet.

The fisherman was professional, more at assisting photographers than fishing, I thought. Other photographers like myself became freeloaders, and the cameras clicked. The "to-do" of taking a photo about fishing was finally done.

150 yuan a day is an enviable income in Wuyuan and Jiangxi Province, whose GDP per capita in 2011 ranked 27th among the 34 provincial-level administrative regions. Anhui is even poorer.

The glorious past of ancient Huizhou waves us goodbye, and many of us return to modernity.
18-May-2012 - Global Times

Main Cities in China Travel and China Hotels

Beijing Hotels China Guangzhou Hotels China Shanghai Hotels China Hongkong Hotels China Qingdao Hotels China Hangzhou Hotels China
Beijing Canton Shanghai Hong Kong Qingdao Hangzhou



Search China Hotels China Hotels:
Please Select a City:
Find Your Hotel With China Map
Check-in:
Show Calendar
Check-out:
Show Calendar
Currency Adults Child

Search China Flight Ticket China Flight:
One Way Round-Trip
Departure city:
Destination:
Departure date:
Return date:




China Hotels info

Beijing Hotels, Shanghai Hotels
Guangzhou Hotels, Shenzhen Hotels
Hangzhou Hotels, Yiwu Hotels

China Travel info

Embassies and Consulates
China Health
China Currency
China Visa

China Tourist info

China Itineraries
Traditional Holidays
What to see in China
Weather in China

China Business info

Fairs and exhibitions
Shanghai Expo.
Canton Fair, Yiwu Fair
Institutional offices
China investment guide
Doing business in China

China Vacation info

China Map
China Travel Tourism News
Harbin Ice Lantern Festival
Hotels Reservation

China Province:

Hubei, Inner Mongolia
Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Tibet

China Cities:
China Introduction
Beijing Travel Info
Changchun Travel Info
Changsha Travel Info
Chengde Travel Info
Chengdu Travel Info
Chongqing Travel Info
Dali Travel Info
Dunhuang Travel Info
Guilin Travel Info
Haikou Travel Info
Hangzhou Travel Info
Harbin Travel Info
Nanning Travel Info
Ningbo Travel Info
Qingdao Travel Info
Shanghai Travel Info
Shenyang Travel Info
Shenzhen Travel Info
Suzhou Travel Info
Taian Travel Info
Tianjin Travel Info
Weihai Travel Info
Wuyishan Travel Info
Xiamen Travel Info
Xian Travel Info
Yangzhou Travel Info
Zhuhai Travel Info


 
| Home | Hotels | Hotels Video | China Flights | Flights Schedule | Pickup Service | Travel Packages | Affiliate | Add your hotels | Interprete Italiano-Cinese | Contact | Site Map | Link | FAQ | About Us
Copyright © 2001-2024 China Hotels Reservation - All Rights Reserved
Europe Office: ChinaHotelsReservation- Via Gerolamo Forni 64 - 20161 Milano - Fax 0291390522
China Office: China Travel(Hualv) Business co.,Ltd. - Tel 0086-577-88555070 Fax 0086-577-88522570
Xishan Donglu Xicen Gongyu 7 Zhuang 802 - 325005 Wenzhou China