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The Old Town district of Lijiang, Yunnan province in Southern China
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Our first trip was to the Old Town portion of Lijiang. Lijiang is a beautiful city with about 300,000 people in the entire area, and has the distinction of being only one of two places in China which have been designated by the United Nations as a historical treasure. The Old Town district has remained largely unchanged during the last 800 years, and in fact the town boasts a bridge that is known to have been standing back in AD 1256 when imperial troops from the Yuan Dynasty entered the city. Lijiang is home to the Naxi people (think of them as a tribe or small local civilization) who have their own language, writing, religion and culture. The Naxi are a Matriarchal society which means the women wear the pants and earn the bread. Apparently the men in the Naxi culture mostly sit around and play music, write poetry, sing songs and talk to each other all day. No kidding.
In Old Town you see open air store fronts, buildings constructed in traditional Naxi architecture, with throngs of people out shopping on the eve of the Chinese New Year. Winding everywhere throughout the town are waterways which run through alleys and streets. The water is clear and creates a very unique atmosphere in the town.
The
town is decorated with new years decorations, flowers and ornaments.
Street vendors sell food, clothing, tourist memorabilia, and CD's
-- lots of them. You can
buy all sorts of pirated western music for $2-3 per CD, as well as VCD's
- "Video CD's" which are popular in Asia, and can be played on
a PC or a special Asian CD player. Bryan
tells me you can sometimes buy pirated VCD's of American movies before
the movie itself is even in the theatres! There
was a lady on the street cutting up pineapples and selling them.
That looked pretty good, and we asked for one.
But just before she gave it to us, she dunked it in ice water. Now
in China, you can't drink the water unless it's boiled -- it will give
you a delighful case of diarrhea. As
a matter of fact, everyone boils water, and water is normally drunk
warm, whether it's plain water or tea.
Not knowing if the ice water had ever been boiled, we decided to
wait until we could pour boiling water over our pineapple.
Didn't want that diarrhea! We
stopped into one of Bryan's favorite traditional Naxi restaurants (a
minimalist open air cafe with stone floors and wood construction) and
sat down. We washed our
pineapple, and the lady brought us some Naxi bread.
This was a fried 'cake' with the consistency of baklava (but not
sweet) with nuts and spices. Very
good stuff. She brought
some delicious spicy noodles and we ate them too, along with our
pineapple and some tea. It
was a hearty breakfast, and I think Bryan paid about $3 for the whole
meal.
We
went out and walked around some more.
Old Town is a very serene place, with the sound of water
everywhere and stone streets worn smooth.
Now when you're a westerner traveling in Lijiang, people say
"HELLO!" to you all the time. The Naxi word "HELLO!" means the following : "Greetings, wealthy American, who do not know the right price for anything. Come let me overcharge you for shoeshine."
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