The High City of Lijian

Following our epic journey to Lugu Lake we returned to the city of Lijiang, a city of about 750,000 people, which lays in a broad valley at one of which is the beautiful range in which Yulong Xueshan (snow maintain) can be seen. The modern city is attractive as a whole, with broad main streets, distinguished among Chinese cities of its size by its lack of high-rise development. Lijiang is the heartland of the fascinating Naxi culture, which is still strong in many respects, although the majority in Lijiang is from other ethnic groups, particular the Han Chinese. The Naxi continue to use to some degree, the worlds only true pictorial script, known as Dongba.

A section of the city is known as Lijiang Ancient City, having a street layout, and a style reaching back many centuries. Having booked into our accommodation, we were taken there to find our own evening meal, and for our first taste of this quarter. We returned 3 nights later for more of a tour, and a longer opportunity for some shopping. The Ancient City is crowded with old, or at least, old-style buildings around winding cobbled-streets and gushing canals of fresh river water. The quarter has suffered various fires and latterly in 1996 a major earthquake, so many of the earlier buildings were destroyed. It has subsequently been almost entirely rebuilt and remodelled into one big shop-front market, with every building apparently now a shop, pub, restaurant, coffee shop, tea house, guest house and so on. Thus, the term “ancient city”, is something of a misnomer, nevertheless, the streetscape is most attractive, evocative of the past to some degree and certainly an exciting place to spend some time. Ah, so much fantastic handcrafts and other stuff, and so little reason to buy! Our only real shopping here was for basic stuff like warm clothes for our intended ascent of Yulong Xueshan.

One night in Lijiang, Dan, myself and some of the other members of the tour groups were fortunate to be able to see a performance of Lishuijinsha, a magnificent presentation of Naxi and other minority cultures involving music, dance, acting and a touch of acrobatics, all with costumes inspired by those of the tribal minorities in the region. The presentation comprised a series of scenes or stories grouped around the three themes of: water (the river), mountain (esp. Yulong) and human relationships (love). A prequel to the main show was two songs performed by the Naxi on traditional instruments, this strange music was hard to appreciate, due to a rather disrespectful audience who talked a great deal! It was interesting to see a number of extraneous influences or parallels in the show, with men from two minority groups having hats with feathers looking very Swiss (no cowboy hats mercifully), the Yi women’s dress local decidedly flamenco and liberal use of western-style orchestral music. But that is being picky: the ideas, stories, visual effects and presentation in general were first class.

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