2 Questions Every Girl is Asking Herself

Chapter 3

I saw a friend's Facebook status the other day, and it went like this: 

"Two friends, one lives in Beijing, the other lives in Lijiang. One works like a dog climbing the corporate ladder. Makes a hundred thousand a year, but can't afford a house. Takes the bus to work, breathing car exhaust. 

The other is a freelance photographer with no fixed income, lives in a courtyard house by the lake, sleeps until noon, and drinks tea in the sunshine while watching clouds float by snow-capped mountains. The former thinks the latter has no ambition. The latter thinks the former doesn't know how to enjoy life."

Which one would I rather be?

I think I'm beginning to move from the former to the latter. Slowly.

Especially now that I'm in Lijiang, I fully intend to do some tea drinking and sunbathing and cloud watching.

Lijiang is the reason I came to Yunnan.

I saw it in a movie ten years ago, and have wanted to visit ever since. It's love at first sight. The old town of Lijiang is 800 years old, and it takes you back in time the moment you walk in.

Red lanterns, willow trees, bluestone streets, narrow and winding lanes, 350 little bridges, wood houses, lush gardens, green ponds, brilliant gold fish. The atmosphere is intoxicating. Everywhere you look is a picture perfect scene for an ancient love story. It amazes me that so much visual interest and architectural variety can be neatly crammed into just 900 acres of land. It's like a Black Forest cake. You slice it open and then discover how many layers of flavor are hidden inside. I felt like I didn't have enough eyes to take it all in. Every corner you turn, you discover something new that tickles your interest. It's a town you walk away from and miss right away.

In addition to this entire sensory overload, there's something very sensual and poetic about Lijiang.

I think it's the presence of water that lends it that feeling. Water is the spirit and soul of the old town. Lijiang, literally means "beautiful waterway". Some people call it Oriental Venice. It used to be the "palace" of the local ruler, who must have hired an excellent irrigation engineer, with the skills and brilliance way ahead of his time. I'll explain in a bit.

Downtown Lijiang is called Si Fang Jie (Four Square Street). It's a square shaped open space, paved with stone, connecting four major streets in different directions. Then in a spider web formation, smaller lanes radiate from the four main streets, reaching every corner of town. The main water source from Black Dragon Pool divides into hundreds of little streams running in parallel with these stone lanes, reaching every household.

In each house, there are three pools that the water flows through. The top pool is used for drinking and cooking, the middle pool for cleaning fruits and vegetables, and the third pool, the bottom pool, is used for washing clothes. See what I mean by excellent irrigation engineer? Such efficient use of water all designed from 800 years ago.

Streets are paved with local bluestone, which are neither muddy in the rainy season nor dusty in the dry season. At night the sluice at the center is opened and the resulting water current flushes the town to keep it clean.

Houses are made of timber and tiles, mostly two stories tall with a courtyard garden and engraved figures of people and animals on windows and doors, perfect environment for sipping afternoon tea and watching the clouds float by. (No wonder that freelance photographer never wanted to leave.)

The old town is quaint, intriguing, and mysterious. It's ancient scientific wisdom married charmingly with ethnic minority multiculturalism. I could spend all day piling on all of my favourite words to describe her, yet it doesn't even begin to illustrate how in awe and in love I am with it all. When standing in her presence, in her eternal embrace of charm and beauty and grace, I feel some ancient, famous love story must have happened here.