Away from the cities and into villages

After Shanghai, I realized I was tired of visiting big cities, since they tend to have a lot of similarity and often lack on the traditional Chinese culture. As a fellow traveler put it; developing countries seem to have a tendency of making their cities more western to show that they are developed, but that's not why we travel here ... it's his theory anyways and I think he has something there based on what I've seen in the past.

So I traveled first to Hongcun, a beautiful village in Anhui province that has preserved a lot of it's traditions. I was accompanied by Lion, a Chinese friend that I met earlier on my trip. We arrived to the village by a series of buses early in the morning. We were hungry and so we jumped at some quick food outside the village, believing it would be cheaper: we had ballz (dim sum) and a bowl of soup. We then proceeded on to the village and followed a tour when it was nearby.

The village was beautiful; it was full of narrow alleys and traditional houses that went back to the Qing and Ming dynasty. There was a stream flowing through the village which was engineered to go by all of the houses in the village. This stream is used for drinking water in the morning (during certain hours) and for washing and other duties afterwards. The stream flows in to a river that has a beautiful little bridge and many old trees that together produced a mystical feeling to the village. The people in this village produce some unique bamboo crafts that I have not seen elsewhere; you can find traditional Chinese paintings on bamboo and crafts made out of bamboo here. In the middle of the village there is a half moon pond surrounded by some old houses; it is an inspiring scenery that is commonly found on Chinese stamps.

I learned many things walking through this village, especially about various patters used for decoration in the houses and their significance: most of which are there for superstitious beliefs.

After a few hours in the village and a nice tour around, I ate some sugar canes while overlooking the river surrounding the village and the perfect reflection of a bridge and nearby buildings in it. I then headed further south to Wuyuan in Jiangxi province; there I would see China's true country side and a beautiful experience of living in the traditional village and many adventures.