Xidi and Hongcun (8-6)

Monday was travel day from Wuyuan to Xidi. When I arrived in Huangshan city and went to purchase a ticket to Xidi, the bus was leaving in five minutes. Good timing, but I didn’t have time to stretch or recover from the 2.5 hour ride. The next bus was not a smooth ride. So, when I arrived in Xidi an hour later, I was ready to be off buses and to rest. The time from waking up to arriving in my new room was six hours, and I was tired. I’ve realized that my concession to being older is that after traveling I often need to rest; whereas in younger years I was always ready to go out and scout out the new place. It’s good that I allowed full travel days even when the journey wouldn’t take a full day. Of course, night person that I am, by 7 or 8 in the evening I’m full of energy and ready to go. But I don’t.

My hotel in Xidi was one I splurged on a bit. It’s a group of old houses linked together to make the hotel. The reception area is an old mansion. The restaurant is also a former mansion. Entering both parts of the complex is like entering the historical mansions that I visited in the village and in other villages.

After relaxing in my room for a couple hours, I went out to explore the hotel. In back of the hotel there is a garden with a path along the stream behind it. The path goes up a hill to “the best shooting spot.” It didn’t take much to figure out the sign means the best spot for shooting photos. I enjoyed sitting there looking at the view.

After returning to the hotel, I decided to have a drink and read in the tea house garden. Afterwards, on my way out the front door, I met Joseph, the hotel manager, who speaks English fluently. It was a pleasure to talk with a fluent speaker again, as it had been a couple weeks since I’d met a fluent speaker. Joseph is originally from Hong Kong and worked for a number of years in Macau. He explained how Xidi is a village in which residents live in the old houses and take care of them. Like Little Likeng, the front of the bottom level is often a shop.

By this time, it was 4:00, which is a good time to walk around these villages because the tour groups are usually gone and things are fairly quiet. It’s also not as hot, and the sunlight isn’t as bright; so it’s a good time for taking photos. 

One hotel invited people to go, for a small fee, to their rooftop to take bird’s eye views of the village. Since that’s always fun, I did it.

One special feature in the village is a series of old stone lions. When I walked down one of the side streets, which are residential streets, a man at the end of one street invited me to look inside his house. It is magnificent—just like the old houses on display on the main street except that it has their personal things instead of historical ones. Inside the door is a garden area. Behind that there is a table where two women were sitting. To the side is a library with lots of books along the wall. A beautiful place to live, but I wonder if it’s expensive to maintain.

A Chinese breakfast was included at the hotel. Western breakfast—ham and eggs—was also available at an extra cost. So I went to the breakfast buffet, which is what is usually offered at hotels. Not here. I was taken to a small room with a table and my personal breakfast was served there: rice porridge with three types of pickled vegetables and peanuts to add to it along with a boiled egg and dumpling with red rice filling. On the third morning, the breakfast was a buffet, as there were many more guests.

Tuesday’s sightseeing destination was Hongcun, another ancient village that is half an hour from Xidi. Since I wasn’t going far, I sat on a swing in the courtyard and read for a while before leaving. When I was waiting for the bus, a man with a car taxi invited me to go in his car; so I joined the three boys who were already there. One has a scholarship to a university in CA study computer science for four years.

The buildings and streets in Hongcun are similar to those in Xidi. The main features of Hongcun that are different from Xidi are a lake and a pool. 

The pool was created in the 15^th century and is called Moon Pool because it is shaped like a half moon. It is quite lovely, especially the reflections on the crescent side. Hongcun also has water trenches along the sides of the buildings, usually on one side of the sidewalk. These are used for washing, similar to the stream in Little Likeng. 

Another difference is that Hongcun has dried meat hanging on many buildings. I was intrigued by the pig legs hanging to dry in various places.

Joseph had told me that Hongcun has been taken over by a corporation and is, therefore, different in style and has more tourism as a result of the publicity. I noticed that more of the shops carry general China goods rather than mainly locally produced items. This goes with being a tourist destination ancient village. There were also a lot of tour groups. When I arrived at 11:30, I encountered several tour groups, but the main influx was after 2:00. Then four groups in sequence would come into the main buildings with hardly a break between them. But I’m good at waiting for them to leave so I can enjoy the beauty peacefully and take photos without a mob of people.

Houses in both villages are stucco with elaborate decorations above the doors and  wood interiors. 

They feature openings in the roofs with a sunken area below them to drain rain water. I’ve seen this elsewhere but can’t remember where. One sign explained it as natural air conditioning. I think a previous explanation I had was that it opens the home/temple to connect heaven and earth.

I succumbed to purchasing more tea. The first was from a woman who spoke to me in good English and invited me into her shop. I almost always respond to good English, especially from women. She then explained the various kinds of tea in good English. So I bought a kind that is special to this area. The next person was a man who invited me to sit down and drink some tea at a moment when I needed to sit down and have a drink. He was also very nice although he didn’t speak English; so I bought some chrysanthemum tea, which he said is good for something related to coughing. It is also a specialty of the area. When I left the area on a bus, I noticed several fields of chrysanthemums.

Both towns are known as places where students and others come to paint. In Hongcun I saw a few painters painting the trees along the lake. There is a sign at Moon Pool instructing people not to paint there as it could be dangerous for painters and tourists. In Xidi, the students arrive at about 3:00 and leave at 6:00. Small groups go to different places and set up their easels.

Wednesday was an extra day. When I was planning, I knew 1.5 days would be adequate for Xidi, but I didn’t want to move to another place for one day; so I decided to hang out in Xidi instead of moving on. So it was a quiet, relaxing day. In the morning I read on the courtyard swing. Then I decided to take my computer to the lobby to use the wifi, as there was no Internet connection in my room. At 2:00 I went for a walk in the village to see the sections I hadn’t seen on Monday. Like visiting a sequence of many cathedrals in Europe, the buildings start to look the same after a while; so I didn’t anticipate anything different. But then I found the stream on the back side of the village where houses are on one side with slate slab bridges to the walking path on the other side. 

When I was on my way out, the painting students were arriving. I chatted a little with a couple girls and learned that they are high school students. Then the teacher set up his easel, and they all gathered around to watch. In an hour he painted the street scene. I was mesmerized as I watched the paper transform from a few lines to a painting of the street ahead. It was a good day.