City Affairs｜Longtan Lane, the Secret Land of the Ancient Village

I took advantage of the National Day Golden Week to visit "Longtan". This trip was a "surprise" but no danger.

Longtan, hidden among the mountains and rivers, is a provincial traditional village located in the southeast of Xiling Township, Pingnan County. As soon as you enter the village, you will see corridors of ancient houses, small bridges and flowing water, and bustling tourists. Longtan Village is famous for its cultural and creative industries, and is known as the “Internet Celebrity Ancient Village.” So I couldn’t help but start to worry that it would be another village with a strong commercial flavor.

Walking along the street from the parking lot, I didn’t feel anything different. Then we followed the stream deep into the village and gradually felt its charm.

Yellow walls and black tiles are built along the stream. Stepping on the bluestone road, you can hear the gurgling stream beside your ears. In the small village, B&Bs, book bars, coffee shops, etc. are all transformed from ancient houses, making them unique.

The warm and hospitable owner of the B&B invited us to visit the interior. There is no gorgeous decoration, just some simple embellishments, but it is very warm. The wooden house creaked, and the figure of me and my friends making noise in the old house when I was a child suddenly appeared in front of me.

Some people say that in Longtan, everyone is an artist. I think only those who have actually been to Longtan can believe this.

Longtan villagers use paintings as a medium, attracting many artists and tourists. The painting room is filled with students' works. Showing the new look of their hometown on canvas is a hobby of many villagers. Although it is not as good as what the masters did, they have their own style.

Strolling through Longtan Village, nestled among green waters and green mountains, you will be greeted by the scenery. The long lanes and scattered old houses add a bit of timeless charm. This ancient village of Longtan is naturally the first choice for sketching and photography.

The artistic atmosphere of Longtan Village is not only reflected in the paintbrushes. Siping Opera, known as the "living fossil of Siping Opera in the Ming Dynasty", is one of the national intangible cultural heritages. It is a relict high-accent opera that was introduced to Longtan Village from Jiangxi during the Wanli Period of the Ming Dynasty. Today, Longtan Ancient Village is the only surviving Siping Opera. place.

In the old Longtan Village, people not only used Siping Opera to express their joy for the festival, but also brewed rice wine themselves to inject a bit of a tipsy feeling into the joy.

The mountain spring water in the village has a sweet taste and is an excellent water source for brewing rice wine. The high-quality rice produced in the high mountain paddy fields is an excellent raw material for making koji. In 2007, Pingnan red yeast production and rice wine brewing techniques were included in the provincial intangible cultural heritage list. In order to better inherit the wine culture, people built a rice wine museum in the village.

Although Longtan Village has been built into an ancient cultural and creative village, it also retains its original rhythm of life. Unlike some renovated ancient villages, the shops are highly homogeneous and even compete to sell some souvenirs that have nothing to do with local culture.

When we visited Longtan Village, it was the rice harvest season, and the villagers were drying rice in the open space in front of their homes, which filled the atmosphere with a strong autumn harvest atmosphere. Some elderly people will set up small stalls in front of their homes to sell agricultural products, such as cone chestnuts, persimmons, peach gum, dried bamboo shoots, dried shiitake mushrooms...mostly local specialties.

Some people say that the core attraction of Longtan Village is the special humanistic temperament it exudes from the inside out, which has the magic power to make people feel at peace. Longtan is a place where people can calm down, think and pay attention to life itself. It's a pity that I went there in a hurry and couldn't slowly appreciate its temperament.

People call Longtan Village a secret place. I think not only because of its geographical location, hidden deep in the mountains, which gives people a sense of distance, but also because of the special humanistic temperament and atmosphere it exudes. It touches visitors.

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