Lijiang

Lijiang grew where the caravan routes between Yunnan, Tibet and Sichuan crossed a fertile basin below the snow mountain. The Naxi, whose ancestors are thought to have migrated south from the Tibetan plateau, settled the plain, and from the thirteenth century the Mu family governed it as hereditary chieftains — first under Mongol overlordship, then confirmed by the Ming, who granted them the surname Mu and considerable autonomy. Their walled compound in the old town was the centre of a small state that traded in tea, horses, salt, medicine and timber.

The old town that survives took shape in that period, built without city walls and laid out along water: a stream from the springs at Black Dragon Pool splits into three and again into channels that once reached every quarter. In 1723 the Qing replaced hereditary rule with imperial officials, and Lijiang became a frontier market town rather than a capital. In the twentieth century it drew outside attention through the Austrian-American botanist Joseph Rock, who lived in the area for much of the 1920s and 1930s and wrote about Naxi religion.

An earthquake in February 1996 killed hundreds of people and damaged much of the region. Reconstruction favoured the old timber and stone architecture, and in 1997 UNESCO inscribed the Old Town of Lijiang as a World Heritage Site. Tourism followed on a scale nobody had planned for: guesthouses, bars and shops replaced many homes, most original residents moved to the new town, and Lijiang has since become both one of China's best-known destinations and a standing argument about what heritage tourism does to a living town.

The Naxi are the defining community here, with their own language, a matrilineal strand in kinship attributed more strongly to the related Mosuo further north, and a religious tradition called Dongba after its priests. Dongba ritual uses the only pictographic writing system still in use anywhere, a script of small drawings recorded in manuscripts kept in Lijiang's museums and libraries and taught today to a small number of students.

Music is the other inheritance. Naxi ancient music draws on Taoist ritual and Chinese court repertoires preserved locally after they had faded elsewhere, and is played on old instruments by ensembles that perform regularly in the town. Naxi dress is recognisable in the women's sheepskin capes, embroidered with discs that are explained as stars, moon and sun, signifying work that begins before dawn and ends after dark.

Everyday manners here are relaxed and hospitable, shaped by centuries on a trade route where Naxi, Bai, Yi, Tibetan and Han travellers met. Bai carpenters and Tibetan traders left marks on the architecture and the religious art, and the murals at Baisha show Buddhist, Taoist and Tibetan figures on the same walls. The tension in modern Lijiang is between that inheritance and the industry built on it: staged costume, loud bars and photographic crowds beside households still living quietly behind the courtyard doors.

Lijiang is a prefecture-level city of roughly 1.3 million people, but most live in mountain villages and small towns across a large and rugged area; the town itself is small, and the resident population of its old quarters has fallen sharply. The plain around it is farmed for maize, potatoes, vegetables and increasingly for fruit and flowers, and herding continues on the higher ground.

Tourism is now the main employer by a wide margin. Guesthouses, restaurants, guides, drivers, craft workshops and performance venues depend on visitor numbers, which makes the local economy sensitive to travel patterns and holidays. The predictable effects have followed: rents in the old town too high for ordinary households, absentee owners, and a population that commutes into the historic centre to work and leaves at night.

Daily rhythms are set by altitude and sun. Mornings are bright and cold, the market is busiest early, afternoons are warm, and the lanes fill after dark when day-trippers return and the lanterns come on. Water still runs through the channels and is used, carefully, for washing vegetables at set points. Current concerns are water supply and drought, fire risk in dense timber quarters, the cost of maintaining old buildings, and how far commercialisation should be allowed to go.

Naxi cooking is mountain food adapted to a cool plateau: cured meat, beans, potatoes, wheat and whatever grows in the basin. The best-known item is Lijiang baba, a fried wheat flatbread made in layers, crisp outside and soft within, sold plain, savoury with ham and spring onion, or sweet with sugar or rose. Jidou liangfen, a jelly made from chickpea flour, is eaten cold in summer with chilli, vinegar and coriander, or fried in slices when it is colder.

Meat is often preserved. Yunnan ham appears in stews and stir-fries, cured pork is cooked with potatoes, and yak meat, dried or hotpotted, reflects the proximity of Tibetan country to the north. A whole chicken stewed with local mushrooms and herbs is the usual celebration dish, and in summer the markets fill with wild mushrooms gathered on the hills. Rice noodles in broth are the standard breakfast, as across Yunnan, and grilled fish from the lakes is common in the villages.

Drinks lean to tea and grain alcohol. Pu'er tea from southern Yunnan is sold and drunk everywhere, butter tea appears where Tibetan influence is strong, and local barley and highland spirits are poured at gatherings. Rose and walnut sweets, honey and yak-milk products fill the shops, and bars in the old town serve fruit wines alongside ordinary beer.