The city of
Lijiang has a long history. The residents in the
Ancient Lijiang City are Naxi Nationality whose
ancestor was one of the ancient minorities. Since
they have been making a living by herding the yaks,
they make the yak as their totem.
The ancestor of Mushi in Lijiang submitted to the
authority of Kublai, the fifth emperor of the Yuan
Dynasty in 1254 A.D.. The Yuan Dynasty was put out
by the Ming Dynasty in 1368. The construction of
the Ancient Lijiang City developed fast in the Ming
Dynasty, especially the Ming Dynasty made a large
number of people in Anhui Province to migrate into
Lijiang in order to station the military troops
and common people in the boundary areas, so the
buildings of the ancient city were affected much
by the inland building style in Anhui Province.
The real buildings of Naxi nationality can only
be found in the rural areas surrounding Lijiang
City.
Naxi Nationality is a nationality good at absorbing
the culture of other nationalities. Since Lijiang
was a port in the Southern Silk Road and tea and
horse trading road, it was a market between Yunnan
and Tibet. Kublai stationed its military troops
in Lijiang in 1253. He brought the foreign culture,
and then Lijiang was affected by the culture of
the Central Plain, such as the Tibetan Buddhism
and Taoism, and then affected by the Christianism
culture in the early 1900s and the ancient Dongba
Church of Naxi nationality. Naxi Nationality can
assimilate all these cultures and coexist and develop
with other cultures. All these cultures increase
the Ancient Lijiang City's meaning.
The beauty of this ancient city also lies its nature
and harmony with its surrounding geological environment.
The Yulongxueshan Mountain with the altitude of
5596 meters and the 4th generation of glacier relic
lies in the place where is 30km away in the northwest
of the ancient city. The human being has not climbed
to the top of the mountain. The Ancient Lijiang
City has no city walls, which is one of the features
of this ancient city and different with other China's
ancient cities. The Yuquanshui River includes three
mainstreams, which flow towards the west, east and
in the middle. The river running into the ancient
city includes many branch canals, so the network
of rivers mixed with the roads of the five-flowered
stones. You can get the beautiful picture that "
every house is surrounded by the rivers and the
drooping poplars", so it is highly spoken by
the architects of China and abroad. It is called
"the Gusu in the Plateau" and "the
Oriental Venice". Attracted by the ancient
city and the Xueshan Mountains, millions of tourists
come here and enjoy themselves in the ancient city
of primitive simplicity, naturalness, tranquility
and elegance.
Naxi people like planting trees and flowers. What
is different from the Bai Nationality in Dali is
that Naxi people in Lijiang like the noble and elegant
flowers such as the plum, the sweet-scented osmanthus,
the chrysanthemum and the orchid.
The residents in Dayanzhen Town also have the tradition
to evaluate flowers. When the flowers are in the
best time, the hosts of a household often invite
their relatives or friends to come and evaluate
the flowers. When they are evaluating the flowers,
they often create poems or paintings. The men in
Dayanzheng Town take it as an honor to be good at
reading, paintings and performance of music.
You can hear the beautiful music from the dwelling
houses in Dayanzhen Town at festival time or having
a rest in the evenings. The performers are mainly
the old folk musicians or the young fans, they carry
their musical instruments to take part in a party
in a household. The hosts of the household often
prepare some tables, tea and burn incense. The musicians
perform the folk music of Naxi Nationality in the
happy atmosphere.
The ancient city has an altitude of 2,400 meters
and covers 3.8km. At present, there are 280,000
people in the city, of whom 66.7% are Naxi people,
30% are engaging with the traditional national handicraft.
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