Location
Lijiang, Yunnan
Lijiang Old Town leans against the Jade Dragon...
Lijiang Old Town leans against the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and was founded at the end of the Song and the start of the Yuan, over eight hundred years ago. Three streams of living water thread through the town, where the Naxi people have lived for generations; the five-flower cobbles of Sifang Street, the Dongba pictographic script and ancient Naxi music make it a rare living minority town in the world. It was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1997.
The jade spring welling up at Black Dragon Pool divides into three at Yulong Bridge; the West, Middle and East rivers branch again into countless channels threading the streets, so that "flowing water passes every door, and willows trail behind every house." The rule of the three-eyed wells — drink from the first pool, wash vegetables in the second, launder clothes in the third — is honored to this day. Sifang Street was the trading hub of the Tea Horse Road, and the evening custom of releasing water to wash the street has continued for centuries.
The Dongba script of the Naxi people, with more than 1,400 characters, is the only pictographic writing system still in use anywhere in the world — a "living fossil of writing." Dongba scriptures such as the Creation Epic and Lubanlurao record the Naxi cosmology; Dongba papermaking and painting are now listed as intangible heritage. The Dongba ceremony at Yushui Village and the "Baisha xiyue" suites performed by the ancient music societies keep the voice of a civilization audible still.
古城小桥连雪山，东巴字里日月长。 — Little bridges of the old town reach toward the snow mountain; within Dongba script, sun and moon endure.—— Modern verse on Lijiang
Lijiang was a key town on the Tea Horse Road, where caravans carried Pu'er tea north to Tibet, and the town served as a vital relay. Today the old town keeps the bustle of Dayan while linking with the villages of Shuhe and Baisha into a wider settlement group; from the Wangu Pavilion atop Lion Hill the whole sea of dark-tiled roofs is visible, with the snow-crowned Jade Dragon range beyond. Yi, Bai, Lisu and Naxi peoples live side by side — "harmony in coexistence" is the deepest ground tone of this old town.