An Old Place

Xingping is located some 25 km northeast of the seat of Yangshuo County. It has been long cherished as one of the most beautiful old towns along the Lijiang River, with its simple, unadorned buildings and flagstone alleyways. It enjoys a history that stretches back even further than Yangshuo’s, going back some 1,700 years. As a lover of old towns and their timeless atmosphere, I put this town at the top of my itinerary for my trip to Yangshuo County.

When we arrived in Xingping, it was lunchtime. To my surprise, at the entrance there was an elaborate gate emblazoned with the couplet “a town of antiquity and a life of chastity.”

We disembarked and found a little restaurant decorated with Peking Opera masks and hung all around with paintings for sale. It turned out that the owners were two young artists who made ends meet by serving food on the side. We ordered some chicken soup and several other piping hot dishes. After devouring the food, I felt regenerated.

Wandering around the town, I came across very few tourists. I slowed my pace to appreciate the flagstones along the street that have witnessed centuries of history and been treaded by millions over the dynasties. Some are worn smooth from so many feet passing over their surfaces. The rain gave them a slick, shiny gleam in the daylight.

With so few people around, the shops along the street seemed to be standing idle. Looking into the open door of one shop, I saw an old man wearing a checker hat dozing. A couplet on the door proclaimed, “Everyday getting by on humble fare, reading and painting in twilight years.” From what I could see, that may well have been a description of his daily life. This room, too, was full of paintings, but it seemed that the painter wasn’t concerned about selling or showing his pieces. Next door, there were four senior citizens playing cards. They frowned when I took a photo of them and so interrupted their game.

The buildings of Xingping have black tile roofs and mottled peeling white walls. Every detail of the houses, from their carved window frames and timeworn wooden doors to the lush grass sprouting on their roofs, spoke to me of ancient days. The unadorned alleys, the welcoming environment, the splashes of greenery in every corner and the locals’ unhurried way of life would have filled me with envy if I had not felt so at ease. This was what I had been searching for.

Down the street I came across a bar called “Old Place.” Its English menu displayed outside, sofa and chairs inside, and the wall scrawled with messages from past travelers were all modern and in stark contrast to the surrounding environment. The Old Place is an obvious indication that the couplet at the village’s entrance doesn’t ring entirely true: Xingping is a mix of the ancient and the modern.

The only customer inside was an elderly Japanese man. He asked me in broken English: “Are you Japanese?” I replied: “No, I’m Chinese.” Then he was filled with patriotic pride as he caught sight of my Canon camera, and we took a picture together.

Wind and Water on the Yulong River

My final jaunt on the water took me upstream along the Yulong (“Meeting Dragon”) River from Jinlong (“Golden Dragon”) Bridge to Jiuxian Village. What attracted me most were the nine dams along the route. The Yulong River starts from Guli River in Lingui County, and most of it runs through Yangshuo. It flows through several towns and villages and eventually meets with the Lijiang River. The Yulong River used to be known as “Anle Shui,” meaning water of permanent happiness. Later it took the present name after the Yulong Bridge that crosses it.

When I embarked, it was still overcast but the rain had stopped. I much preferred the manpowered raft I found, with less fumes and noise, to the engine driven ones. The young boatman was full of information about local customs and culture. He told us proudly how many Chinese and foreign celebrities had been his passengers, and how he had even been mentioned in tourist magazines.

As the only raft on the river, all we could hear was the sound of the wind and the water. Whenever the wind fell, the surface of the river calmed and became like an enormous mirror holding the reflections of the mountains, bamboo and trees. But as soon as the wind resumed, the reflections were twisted and distorted and disappeared almost instantaneously, leaving nothing but spindrift and waves.

As we approached a stone bridge the boatman told me it was the river’s eponymous Yulong Bridge, built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Looking up at it I felt I was paying my respects to a venerable scholar. Dotted with weeds sprouting from cracks in the stonework, the bridge has stood there for hundreds of years and is likely to be there for many years to come. The Yulong Bridge is just one of many that attracts photographers to this stretch of river. I could understand what draws them there, but could only imagine how more beautiful still it will be in a few months time, when the surrounding willow trees are green and the peach trees blossom.