Ancient Villages

With over 5000 years of history and civilisation, there were numerous ancient villages spreading over a vast region of China. Many villages disappeared in the course of history because of war and natural disasters. There are still a lot of ancient villages that remain in existence, some are over 500 years old while others are around 300 years. Over the years of travelling in China, I visited quite a number of these ancient villages. Here I will share some of these villages that I have visited.

Hongcun ( 宏村) is a village in Yi County county, Anhui Province, People's Republic of China, near the southwest slope of Mount Huangshan. As I mentioned in my earlier post on Huangshan, this is the village I visited before setting foot on Huangshan in the afternoon. The village is arranged in the shape of an ox with the nearby hill (Leigang Hill) interpreted as the head, and two trees standing on it as the horns. Four bridges across the Jiyin stream can be seen as the legs whilst the houses of the village form the body. Inside the “body”, the Jiyin stream represents the intestines and various lakes such as the “South Lake” (Nanhu) form the other internal organs. The architecture and carvings of the approximately 150 residences dating back to the Ming and Qing Dynasties are said to be among the best of their kind in China.One of the biggest of the residences open to visitors, Chenzhi Hall, also contains a small museum. Inside the museum, one can see all the artefacts left behnd by the residents of Hongcun during the early days. Together with Xidi, the village became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. Scenes from the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were filmed on location in Hongcun.

Lake in front of village

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When we were at Hongcun, we caught up with a group of local artists who were sitting by the lakeside, busily putting the beautiful landscape onto their canvases. You can imagine the picturesque scenery at Hongcun.


Local artists enjoying a painting session

Another famous village we visited while we were in Zhejiang is the Zhuge Bagua Village. This village was known to be the place where the descendants of Zhuge Liang settled down. Zhuge Liang was the famous military strategist of  the three kingdoms era who assisted Liu Bei in an attempt to restore the Han dynasty. The unique thing about this village is that the whole village was designed and built according to the concept of Bagua 八卦 (Yin Yang Theory as used in Taiji). Zhuge Liang, the military strategist, was famous in using the Bagua concept to set up his army in confrontation with the enemy's camp.On many occasions, Zhuge Liang was able to defeat the Wei army led by Cao Cao's 曹操 camp using the Bagua concept.


On the way to the village

The tour guide told us that the houses and streets in the village when arranged according to Bagua's principle, the whole village looks like a complicated maze system. It is easy to come in but difficult to get out. Hence, the whole village is well protected against intruders. It was once said that a thief came in to steal from the villagers, he could not find the way out with his loot and was eventually caught.


Zhuge Bagua Village

Phoenix Town

On the street of Pheonix Town

Another exciting village is the Phoenix Town. This is the village we visited when we were in Hunan province of China. The village was built by the side of a beautiful lake.

Yet another village we went to is the water village in Hangzhou where ancient houses were erected by the sides of a river. This village is around 200 to 300 years old and the environment there is rather peaceful and tranquil. An ideal place to visit and soak in the atmosphere of ancient civilisation.




Water village in Hangzhou

To be continued........