In Anhui, China, Centuries-Old Charm
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JUST 250 or so miles to the west of the gleaming high-rises of Shanghai sits a window into a world hundreds of years old. Despite the dramatic upheavals brought by war, the Cultural Revolution and industrialization, the hamlet of Xidi, in the mountainous province of Anhui, along with other villages in the area, has managed to remain largely untouched since the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, starting hundreds of years ago. Wander the narrow, labyrinthine lanes and peek into the open-air courtyards of grandiose homes, with their wooden lattice windows, rock gardens, watercolors and calligraphy scrolls, and it can feel as if you are slipping back in time to the days of the Chinese emperors.
As more and more Chinese move to cities, the small villages of Anhui offer a respite. And perhaps even more surprising, young artists and entrepreneurs are embracing these spots with a renewed sense of pride in their modest scale and tangible sense of history.
After the sun begins sinking behind the whitewashed walls of Xidi's houses and the day-trippers board their buses home, the art students, visiting from the large provincial capital of Hefei and other nearby cities, linger overnight or for the weekend. Perched behind easels in the granite-tile lanes or on rocks in the shallow streams flowing through the village, they appear inspired by the classical architecture, which has all but disappeared in their skyscraper-studded cities. "Young people don't typically like this; they prefer big-city culture," said Wang Nanyan, an 18-year-old from Hefei. "But I'm different. I'm an artist -- I like these kinds of buildings."
Two reasons these villages -- about 20 of which are worth visiting, spread across the southern part of Anhui, an area roughly the size of Belgium -- have retained their centuries-old charm are location and economics: they are set deep in the countryside of one of China's poorer provinces, where residents have lacked the resources to tear down the old and start anew.
First Published October 30, 2011 12:00 am
