爱华网Hello, myfellow friends,
Welcome toLijiang--- this beautiful place. It’s my great honor to be yourguide. Today I will take you to the ancient town of Lijiang.
A BriefIntroduction to Lijiang
We will getthere in a few minutes. So now I will give you a brief introductionto Lijiang. It is located in Lijing Prefecture in the Northwest ofYunnan province. The population of Lijiang Prefecture is over 1million involving 21 nationalities, for example, the Naxi, Yi,Lisu, Pumi,etc. And later you will see the houses of Naxi people inthe ancient town.
Lijiang Prefecture is the major tourist area of YunnanProvince. It contains beautiful natural resources, unique minorityamorous feelings, age-old minority cultures, and rich touristresources. The scenic spots are mainly scattered in Lijiang Countyand Ninglang County. We can conclude them into:” two mountains, onetown, one lake, one river, one culture and one folk custom.”. Twomountains refer to Yulong Snow Mountains and Laojun Mountains, onetown is Dayan Town, one lake refers to Lugu lake, one river isJinsha river, one culture is Dongba Culture and one folk customrefers to the Moso people’s custom, which we call the “Aixa”. Whatdoes that mean? I will leave it to you to discover. So you seeLijiang, with its rich resources in plants and animals, the naturalbeauties and the amazing minority folk customs, attracting more andmore tourists from home and abroad.
Soon we will get the the Ancient town of Lijiang,it has a history of almost a thousand years. The scenes are uniqueand unconventional. It is one of the best historical, culturalcities at the state level in China. It consists of three parts:Dayan、Baisha、Shuhe. So why is it called Dayan? Because it is inthe middle of Lijiang basin, and the Lijiang basin looks like a biginkstone, and in Chinese the pronunciation of that is“yan”.
What’smore,it is also a unique city throughout China.Have you heard aboutit? Yeah,it is a city which has no walls.It expresses theopen-minded character of Naxi people.
TheEntrance
Ok,everyone, this is the entrance of the Dayan town. Maybe you havealready notice the couple of the water wheels over there.Do youknow the function of it ? It is used to transport water and to makeuse of hydropower to grind grains and crops.Besides it is theChinese Characters written by Jiang Zeming. And there is aneye-catching pillar, we call it “Dragon Post”, which means thewater dragon and indicates the wish to avoid the fire in thetown.
Let’s getinside and have a look. The Dayan town is famous in China for itsold and simple architectural style and the elegant art for thelay-out of the town. In the town the Yuquan River winds in manystreams across the town and past all the houses. The roads here areparallel to the streams, and the door of each house is facing astream. Whatever street and whatever lane you go in ,there is asmall stream with small bridges across it here and there. As asaying indicates : A house beside a stream with a small briageacross it makes a wonderful scene which you can only find here.”That’s why we regard Dayan town to be the “OrientalVenice”.
SifangStreet
Here we are.In the center of the ancient town, here is the Sifang Street. It isa place for country fair trades. Since ancient times, Sifang Streethas been a collecting and distributing center of all kinds ofproducts with travelers and traders going and coming everywhere. Ona market day people of different minorities in their uniquecostumes come here to do business and make the place crowed andnoisy. If you spend a whole day here, you can experience the poeticchanges here. In the morning, the street stretch its arms and wokeup; in the midday, it becomes a busy man; When the night comes, thelight is on, it changes into a dressed young lady; And at night itbecomes quiet and fell asleep.
Why thestreet has a name of “Sifang”? There are two kinds of explanation,one is that the ancient leader in Lijiang named it with a meaningof “spread his power around”, and the other is that “Sifang” inChinese means four directions, and the street has people and goodsfrom every area.
Do you know how do people clean thesquare? They create three wooden boards as a movable sluice in thewestern river.When the water overflows, it will remove the sluice,then the streets can be washed automatically. Howwonderful!
KegongArchway
Now you can see the Kegong Archway.“Kegong” means achievements in imperial examinations. A questionfor you,do you know why do people construct the archway? It is usedto commemorate three successful candidates in imperial exam atprovincial level .What amazing is that they all came from the samefamily. So you can understand how much people care about theimperial exam.
Ok, that’s all for my introduction,now you have 30 minutes to appreciate the nearby scenery, helpyourse lves ! Please be careful and take yourtime!
