Huangshan

The place now called Huangshan is old Huizhou. Settlement in these narrow valleys grew with waves of refugees from the north, particularly after the fall of the Tang, and by the Song a prefecture centred on Shexian governed six hill counties with little farmland and a great deal of ambition. Tunxi itself began as a river port where the Heng River meets the Xin'an, the head of navigation for boats down to Hangzhou.

From the Ming into the Qing, Huizhou merchants became one of the most powerful commercial networks in China, trading salt, timber, tea, ink and pawnbroking as far as the Yangtze cities and the capital. They sent their profits home, and the money built what visitors now come to see: white-walled houses with horse-head gables and carved wooden courtyards, ancestral halls, memorial archways, private academies and gardens, in villages whose men were often absent for years at a time. The region also produced scholars, the Xin'an school of painting, and the ink sticks and inkstones still made at Shexian.

The salt monopoly's end and the Taiping wars of the 19th century broke the merchant economy, and the region became poor and remote. Tunxi grew as the modern commercial centre, and in November 1987 the Huizhou prefecture was abolished and replaced by the prefecture-level city of Huangshan, named after the mountain, expressly to promote tourism. Tourism has since transformed it: the mountain was inscribed by UNESCO in 1990, Xidi and Hongcun in 2000, and the high-speed railway arrived in 2015.

Huizhou culture is a recognised field of study in China, with its own architecture, cooking, opera, medicine and merchant ethic. Its buildings are the most visible part: whitewashed walls, dark tiles, stepped gables shaped to stop fires spreading, small courtyards open to the sky to catch rainwater, and dense carving in wood, brick and stone. Clan organisation was strong, and ancestral halls, genealogies and memorial archways recording filial or charitable acts still stand at village entrances.

The region was a centre of scholarship out of proportion to its size, producing large numbers of examination graduates, the Xin'an school of landscape painting and the four treasures of the study in local form — Hui ink, She inkstones, brushes and paper. Hui opera, which took shape in Huizhou and Anqing under the Ming, was carried to Beijing in 1790 by the Four Great Anhui Troupes and became one of the roots of Peking opera. Tea culture is everywhere, from the plantations to the shops of the old street.

Modern life is a mixture of that inheritance and the tourist economy built on it. Villages restore houses as guesthouses, art students sit sketching in the lanes with folding stools, and craft workshops make ink, bamboo carving and paper for visitors as well as calligraphers. Locals speak a Hui dialect group unrelated in form to standard Mandarin, though Mandarin is universal, and a reserved, thrifty, education- minded reputation follows people from these hills.

About 1.3 million people live in the prefecture-level city, which covers a large area of hills and small counties; the urban core around Tunxi holds a few hundred thousand. Most residents live in the valley towns of Tunxi, Shexian, Yi County, Xiuning, Qimen and Huangshan District near the mountain, and in villages strung along the rivers.

Tourism is the leading industry, from hotels and restaurants to porters, guides, drivers and ticketing staff, with the mountain alone drawing millions of visitors a year. Tea is the other mainstay — Maofeng, Keemun and Houkui leaf from the surrounding slopes — alongside bamboo, timber, chrysanthemum and herb growing, ink and inkstone workshops, and light manufacturing in the new districts. Many families also live partly on money sent home from work in Hangzhou and Shanghai, a pattern older than the railway.

The daily rhythm in Tunxi is a small-city one: markets and tea early, shops on the old street opening late morning, coach groups through the day and a busy lit street in the evening. Villages wake early for farm work and fill with day visitors by mid-morning. Wet weather is a constant fact of life, the school system is competitive in the Huizhou tradition, and depopulation of the remoter hamlets is the standing local worry.

Huizhou cooking is one of China's eight major regional traditions and the least known abroad. It is mountain food: heavy on braising and steaming, salted and preserved ingredients, ham, bamboo shoots, wild herbs and river fish, with less sugar than the delta and less chilli than the provinces west of it. The best-known dish is stinky mandarin fish, salted and left to ferment lightly for a few days before braising, which gives a strong smell and firm, layered flesh.

Other staples include mao tofu, bean curd grown furry with white mould and fried on a griddle; Wenzheng bamboo shoots from She County, boiled and dressed with sesame oil; a one-pot layered stew of pork, tofu skin, greens and egg dumplings served at banquets in the hill counties; braised pork with preserved mustard greens; and crisp shaobing pastries filled with the same greens. Villages dry chillies, beans and persimmons on roof trays through the autumn, and preserved vegetables appear on most tables.

Tea is the region's other product. Huangshan Maofeng, picked on the mountain slopes, is one of the famous green teas of China, Taiping Houkui from the northern valleys has long flat leaves, and Qimen in the west gives Keemun, the black tea that became a mainstay of English blends. Tea shops line Tunxi Old Street, along with sellers of chrysanthemum flowers, hill honey and bamboo-shoot preserves.