Dragon and bamboo horse dances are a regular feature at Longgmen festivals.	An old street, newly renovated.	Gateway structure dating back to the Ming Dynasty.

The ancient town of Longmen is 50 kilometers southwest of Zhejiang provincial capital Hangzhou. It is a typical example of the so-called water towns on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, but is rare in having so far eluded overt commercialization.

Longmen is a small town of a total area of just 1.8 square kilometers. Its few thousand houses are rectangular in shape, of similar dimensions, and painted the same color. The town consequently appears as a maze where visitors easily lose their way. All the bricks in which walls, alleyways and pavilions are built look the same, giving the impression of having been baked in the same kiln.

Small Town -- Big Maze

Longmen’s residential courtyards, or siheyuan, are also of a uniform structure. They consist of a central hall with living quarters on all four sides that are connected by corridors and cobbled narrow paths. Each courtyard is enclosed in high walls but linked to its neighbors by means of a network of corridors and winding paths. Local people proudly say that on rainy days they can make a tour of village residences without wetting their shoes. Upon entering the village, tourists are confronted with an architectural spectrum of gates that encompasses tall household doors, small courtyard gates and side doors, and doors embedded in household walls that link neighboring family mansions. Visitors are well advised to explore this small town with the help of a village tour guide; they are otherwise guaranteed to get hopelessly lost.

Ancestral Home of Sun Yatsen

Longmen has a history of nearly 2,000 years. The mountains that surround it are on higher terrain to its south than to its north. The town got its name from the famous 1,067.6-m high Longmen Mountain, tallest of all in the vicinity.

Longmen Town is well known to the Chinese people as the hometown of the historically celebrated Sun clan. The famous military strategist Sun Wu, author of the world renowned Arts of War, was a third generation Sun descendent. Centuries later another descendent, Sun Quan, became emperor of the Kingdom of Wu during the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280). The famous Chinese literary classic, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, is based on the power struggles between the Wu and the other two kingdoms of Wei and Shu. A folk tale explains why Sun Quan failed to unite the three kingdoms:

An immortal told an ancient ancestor of Sun Quan that if he took a hundred paces and planted a melon, one of his future descendants would be emperor of a united country. The ancestor, however, was too impatient to take the full 100 paces, and planted the melon after only 30 steps. This is why Sun Quan became emperor of just one of the three kingdoms that coexisted for a period of Chinese history.

Later, a branch of the Sun clan moved to the southern province of Guangdong. It was there that another great man of China, and of the Sun family, Sun Yatsen, founder of the Republic of China, was born. By the 1940s, 65 generations of the Sun family had lived in Longmen.

The town was originally the site of some 60 ancient halls and other works of architecture. After years of war, however, only two ancestral temples, 30 family halls, three brick archways, an ancient pagoda and a Buddhist temple remain. Most of the conserved works of architecture were built in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

A Peaceful Life

Longmen is inhabited by a total 7,000 people in 1,200 households. None of them is particularly wealthy. The town’s women are frequently seen washing vegetables or doing their laundry by the river that runs through the town. Many residents live in houses that have been handed down for generations, on whose eaves can be seen the traces of exquisite woodcarvings.

The main business in the town is badminton racquet production, which gives local residents the chance to earn pocket money. Locals generally enjoy their quiet, undemanding way of life. Elderly men sit on benches by the stream, enjoying the sunshine as they drink tea and chat. Family members usually gather at lunchtime around the big courtyard table to eat and exchange the day’s news. Few natives of Longmen leave it to find work elsewhere.

The town’s most animated area is that on either side of the 400-meter-long cobbled road. It is lined with old houses that have shops at the front well that are stocked with daily necessities. Many still display their original signboards and banners.

Longmen Town is currently developing a few tourism projects. It is hoped that they will enable the town to maintain old traditions and allow its people to continue living their relaxed life style. No-one in Longmen wants their town to become a bustling commercial concern.

Longmen Gourmet Treats

At important festivals, the people of Longmen generally invite neighbors and visitors to eat at their homes, as this invites prosperity to the household in the coming year.

Immortal Chicken is a traditional Sun family dish. The fowl is scalded, plucked and boiled together with traditional Chinese medicinal herbs. Thick pork stock is then added. In a restaurant, this nutritious dish is normally priced at a modest RMB 40.

Dried bean curd skin with rape is another Longmen specialty. Thick, golden sheets of dried bean curd from Fuyang City cooked with rape until it is tender produce a fresh, piquant flavor.

Hilsa herring swim in the Fuchun River, and can live in both rivers and oceans. It has very tender flesh. As their numbers have drastically reduced in recent years, hilsa herring regarded as a rare dish. The fish is usually steamed with mushrooms, shredded onions and ham, and spiced with ginger and cooking wine.

Braised chewy beef from Fuyang cattle is another traditional Sun family dish. After marinating, the beef is braised in a casserole with various sauces and spices that give it its unique flavor.