Red Lanterns

An overnight train from Emi to Panzhihua plus an eight-hour bus ride took us to Lijiang, an old town known for its uniquely traditional architecture and Naxi culture.

Due to its cultural importance, the "old town" (as it's called) has been chosen as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The old traditional buildings withstood a major earthquake in 1996. Most of the damage in Lijiang occurred among the newly developed buildings, while the old houses stood almost indifferently. The officials were so impressed with the stability of the old building that they are now rebuilding the collapsed parts of "new town" using the same traditional methods.

Over half of the Yunnan population is a collection of minority tribes, Naxi and Bai among them. China's cultural wealth is well preserved in this city. Women proudly wear their traditional dress in their daily life and the younger generations create designs using the traditional pictographic Naxi language.

Looking down upon the town from the hillside takes you back a few hundred years as the view is filled with classic Chinese style rooftops made from slate tiles. The skyline is a series of black lines all sweeping upwards at their ends.

The town reminds me of an area of Kyoto called Kiyamachi because of the clean, clear flowing canals that line the cobblestone streets. At night, a warm glow comes over old Lijiang. Red lanterns cast their rosy colored light in the running waters of the canals. Everywhere you look you have the sense of being in old China.

Walking the cobblestone streets offers quite different views from the hillside above. The first floor of each building lining the street is a storefront. In the "old days" these shops sold all manner of goods necessary for life in Lijiang. Today they have been converted into souvenir shops, restaurants, and cafés. From morning to midnight this small town's streets are full of tourists shopping, walking and eating.

At first I was disappointed about the shopping mall appearance, with shop after shop selling T-shirts, jewelry, tea and more of the same. However, after a few days I found the reason for all the souvenir shops.

The mountains surrounding Lijiang, including gorgeous places like Tiger Leaping Gorge and the "official" Shangri-La, are also known for their lumber resources. Repeated flooding and landslides, made worse from the deforestation, have prompted the Chinese government to shut down many of the local logging companies. They have begun to encourage the communities to replant trees to stabilize the earth in the affected area. This resulted in massive unemployment, especially among the Naxi people, and they turned to tourism to make a living.

The UNESCO label created a world-class destination and the Chinese are quite proud of it. They flock to Lijiang to shop, take snapshots with the locals in their tribal clothing and to party in the bars at night. Only old black and white photographs on postcards can tell how it used to be, when this old town had its true charm.