One Night in Lijiang...

Our tour guide gives us the whole afternoon to ourselves to explore the old town. The new friends I’ve made on the tour bus wanted to try the local specialty – roasted black goat, which I admit, does sound exotic and appetizing. But I wanted to spend every minute in Lijiang Old Town soaking it up, so I politely declined this most delicious offer to join them.

I wandered through the octagonal maze, snapping pictures everywhere like a good tourist. On a busy lane not far from Si Fang Jie, is a bunch of brightly lit, delicious-looking food stands, side by side, making lime green steamed buns, chow miens, and grilled tofu pockets. I ordered a bowl of steaming noodles with pork, soy sauce, vinegar, sesame and chili oil, and sat down on the crowded wooden bench.

As I was slowly slurping away, watching people walk by, a guy from across the table starts talking to me,

“Hey beautiful, are you traveling alone?”

I look up to find a man in his twenties maybe, pale skin. Not the best looking guy I’ve seen but not repulsive either. He goes on to tell me his name is Han, and that he’s on a road trip with a group of friends from Chengdu - the capital of the neighboring province SiChuan. One of the girls in his group chimes in, “He’s nice and single!” I chuckled shyly. Han politely invited me to join them at the local pub later that night, which I’d gladly accepted.

After the sun sets, Lijiang slips on her favourite party dress and dangling strings of red lanterns, all seductive and alluring. The town is lit up from under. If you look at it from afar, it’s layers upon layers of golden pagoda style rooftops, jade trees, and huge waterwheels “pumping blood” into the city that is 800 years young. Young people from all around the world roam the ancient streets, looking for people they’ve yet to meet, and stories they’ve yet to tell.

Water wheels in Lijiang

Lijiang pub lane at night

The pub lane is where the action is at, half bluestone, half water canal. Two-story timber and tile pub houses stand on either side of the waterway, lined by willow trees, connected by tiny little bridges that date as far back as the Ming dynasty.

The pubs have really interesting names, One Meter of Sunshine, Peach Blossom Island, Back Lane Number 5, Green Bird, to name a few. Everyone has got their windows and doors wide open. Some are blasting Chinese pop music; others have live bands, bellydancers, or in-house singers performing. Pretty boys and girls in vibrant ethnic minority costumes stand outside to pull tourists in to get the night started. It is quite a different experience being pulled into every pub versus being made to wait in line outside like we do in Vancouver. The whole town is throbbing with excitement.

Ethnic minorities in China are like Native Indians in Canada.
This is an example of their brilliant traditional clothing.

Sakura Kim - the pub I went to

I was to meet Han and his friends at a pub called Sakura Kim. A boy warmly greeted me at the door. Seeing I arrived alone, pulled me in and sat me down at a table with a man. The man is very good looking, like Korean movie star good looking. I explain I’m here to meet some friends. The waiter doesn’t listen, cracks open a beer for me and insists that I sit there for a while.

He must have been someone who’d ordered the “intimate encounter” special.  With Canadian maple syrup on the side.

Feeling awkward, I got up and went back outside to call Han. He came to get me. When I got to his table, it was just him and another guy. “Where did the whole group of people go?” I asked him. It was only 11 and the pub was starting to look empty. “They went back to the hotel,” he said.

‘Hmm…this isn’t quite what I had in mind.’ I thought to myself, ‘Is this where they get the girl drunk and take her to bed?’

On stage, the talk show host was starting a live auction game. They first auctioned off a glass of cocktail called the Sakura Kim Special. The next item up for auction was a comic book entitled “How to Pick Up a Girl in 3 Seconds”, written by the pub owner on the infamous bar scene in Lijiang.

“You definitely don’t need that book,” I joke to Han.

“I could write one!” he nods confidently, “But you need to read it”.

I was thinking, ‘why would I need to read it? I would much prefer “How to Get a Guy to Ask for Your Number in 3 Seconds”’

He doesn’t wait for me to respond, and starts bidding.

100…

200…

300…

I have to admit, there’s something very sexy about a man bidding for a woman. Even if I didn’t care for the book itself, it’s the action. He’s fighting with other people for this “prized possession”, demonstrating his generosity, beating all other bidders, and finally getting the book at 10 times the original price. During the whole bidding process, he didn’t look at me once. When the waitress brought the book, he gestured to me, and said coolly, “It’s for the lady.” The whole place clapped.

No one has ever done that for me before. I know he was doing it to impress me, but I can't say that I wasn't impressed. Let's just say I giggled a little (or a lot) inside. I felt like the prettiest girl in the room. If my ego had legs, it probably would’ve gone on stage and pranced around with a victory sign.

After the auction, we played drinking games for a while. The bar was closing. Han offered to take me back to the hotel. I thanked him for the beautiful evening and politely declined the offer. He insisted. I refused again. He insisted again. I refused again. After half an hour of back and forth, I finally gave in, and said, “Ok, you can take me back to the hotel, but you’re not coming in.” 

We took a cab together. I offered the cab driver fare for the round trip so Han could go home, which Han took to be hugely offensive. We get off; walk through the meandering paths of the traditional Chinese garden under the soft moonlight. Han gently held my hand in his. Part of me was feeling sad the romantic evening is coming to an end, and wondering what if… what if I had another day here, another moment, another life… would there be a beautiful ever after? The other part, recovered from the influence of alcohol, is pushing me to turn around to bid him good night and store Han on the shelf of the past that will remain forever unexplored. As I’m about to act on the clearer and better part of my thinking, I notice something was awry.

The gate was closed...

When I pushed on it, it was locked.

Are you kidding me?

I was staying at these really cute traditional Chinese houses in a sprawling garden. Each house had its own 24-hour butler, (or so I thought), who carried the key to the gate. I must have pressed the doorbell 20 times, called the tour guide, buzzed the hotel switchboard, asked the security guard, but no one could reach my butler, who apparently is the one and only person with the key to my gate.

It was 2 in the morning. I was locked out.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I paced around the courtyard breathing out hot air into the cool evening sky. This can’t be happening! This can’t actually be happening! What kind of hotel does this to its guests? Hotels have curfews? I could just imagine a disclaimer posted at the front entrance saying: ‘Dear guest, if you return later than midnight, you will be locked out of the premises and rendered homeless.’ What are we, Cinderella and the pumpkin carriage here? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

In the end, Han said, “Let’s just go back to my hotel. It’s on Si Fang Jie.”

‘Is this a joke?’ I thought. I was trying so hard not to spend the night with him, and now I have no choice? I didn’t even have enough cash left on me to get another room. I contemplated the other option of sitting on the cold stone bench until dawn. That didn’t seem comfortable, or at all lady-like.

So we cabbed back, and spent a few uncomfortable hours sharing a bed, where I learned Han is 30, and works as a loan administrator for a few private lenders. He studied Chinese literature in university. His mom is a teacher, dad used to manage a few people in a factory in a small town in SiChuan. They divorced when he was six, but it made him mature a lot sooner.

I also learned that Han is in fact not single, and has several girlfriends. Fidelity seems to have zero meaning to him. His girlfriend is well aware of his sexual escapades, but accepts it, and even supports it. She intends to marry him.

“My girlfriend keeps on asking me when I’m going to get some more girlfriends. If I only have the one girlfriend, it’s embarrassing. Because most guys around us have several girlfriends. Did you see that chubby guy at the noodle stand with that pretty girl?” Han says.

“Yeah? She’s very pretty. Isn’t that his girlfriend?” I ask.

“That’s his other girlfriend,” Han says.

My jaw must have dropped in the darkness. I stared straight into the ceiling, with my brows firmly knotted into a deep frown of confusion. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. What kind of girl would want to marry someone like Han? What kind of surroundings make Han think this kind of arrangement is at all acceptable? I didn’t know what to make of Han, or the world around him.

Han asked me to abandon my tour group and come with him on his road trip. He'll pay for my flight back home. I thanked him for the generous offer, but refused, for I very much looked forward to the next destination, Xi Shuang Ban Na – China’s tropical jungle.

At around 6 o’clock, I got up and walked out through the 800 year old town in its morning glory. It's so quiet and peaceful. Some of the shop keepers are out sweeping the narrow bluestone streets. Backpackers are on their way to the next destination, where ever that may be. Photographers with their long lenses try to capture this bit of quietude, the moment where this charming old lady is just waking up, before she puts on her make up for the world to see. You begin to see how old the place really is, the wrinkles that went unnoticed in the dim lights at night.

I feel slightly sad about leaving Han, but understand such is the nature of things. Some people are meant to walk with you for a while, and then your paths will part. So just enjoy your time together, however short it may be, and let fate decide, if and when, your paths will cross again.

I let out a gentle sigh and draw in a big breath of fresh air. My lungs are filled with happiness. Watching this town in the soft sunlight of dawn, I reminisce for a moment the eventful past 15 hours, I got to see the old town of Lijiang in its hustle and bustle under the hot afternoon sun, watched it turn into an experienced seductress at dusk, and now its age and purity in the morning. I drank green tea in an ancient teahouse, met a boy at a noodle stand, checked out the infamous bar scene, experienced an "intimate encounter", got locked out of my own room, and spent the night in a boutique hotel right here on Si Fang Jie.

That was fun.

The 800-Year-Old Beauty - Lijiang Old Town

A Typical Lane in Lijiang Old Town

I saw a friend’s Facebook status the other day, and it went like this, “Two friends: one lives in Beijing, the other lives in Lijiang. One is making a hundred thousand a year, can’t afford to buy a house, rents a tiny apartment, has a 9 to 5 job, takes bus to work, breathing car exhaust, working like a dog trying to climb the corporate ladder; the other is a freelance photographer, no fixed income, lives in an old traditional Chinese courtyard house by the lake, sleeps until noon, drinks tea all day in the sunshine, watching clouds float by snow-capped mountains. One thinks the other has no ambition. The other thinks he doesn’t know to enjoy life.”

Which one would I rather be?

I think I’m moving from the former to the latter. Slowly. In transition.

Especially now that I’m in Lijiang, I fully intend to do some tea drinking and sunbathing and cloud watching.

Lijiang is the reason I came to Yunnan.

I saw it in a movie 10 years ago, and have wanted to visit ever since. It’s love at first sight. The old town of Lijiang is 800 years old, and it takes you back in time the moment you walk in.

Red lanterns, willow trees, bluestone streets, narrow and winding lanes, 350 little bridges, wood houses, lush gardens, green ponds, brilliant gold fish, it captures your eyes like a beautiful woman, and your heart like a lovely soul (too cheesy?, but that’s really how I felt. It’s like a woman who’s got the face the body and the depth). The air is intoxicating. Everywhere you look is a picture perfect scene for an ancient love story. It amazes me that so much visual interest and architectural variety can be neatly crammed into 900 acres of land. It’s like a decadent chocolate cake. You cut it open and then realize how many layers of flavor are hidden inside. I felt like I don’t have enough eyes to take it all in. Every corner you turn, you discover something new that tickles your interest. It’s a book you never tire of reading. A dish you never weary of eating. It’s like aged Pu Er Tea, you can wash it, steep it endless times and it’s still full of fragrant flavor. It’s a town you walk away from and miss right away.

In addition to this entire sensory overload, there’s something very sensual and poetic about Lijiang.

I think it’s the presence of water that lends it that feeling. Water is the spirit and soul of the old town. Lijiang, literally means “beautiful waterway”. Some people call it Oriental Venice. It used to be the “palace” of the local ruler, who must have hired an excellent irrigation engineer, with the skills and brilliance way ahead of his time, when he designed this place. I’ll explain in a bit.

Downtown Lijiang is called Si Fang Jie (Four Square Street). It’s a square shaped open space, paved with stone, connecting four major streets in different directions. Then in a spider web formation, smaller lanes radiate from the four main streets, reaching every corner of town. The main water source from Black Dragon Pool divides into hundreds of little streams running in parallel with these stone lanes, reaching every household.

In each house, there are three pools the water flows through. The top pool is used for drinking and cooking, the middle pool for cleaning fruits and vegetables, and the third pool, the bottom pool, is used for washing clothes. See what I mean by excellent irrigation engineer? Such efficient use of water all designed from 800 years ago.

Three different pools for drinking, cleaning vegetables, and washing clothes.

Streets are paved with local bluestone, which are neither muddy in the rainy season nor dusty in the dry season. At night the sluice at the center is opened and the resulting water current flushes the town to keep it clean.

Houses are made of timber and tiles, mostly two stories tall with a courtyard garden and engraved figures of people and animals on windows and doors, perfect environment for sipping afternoon tea and watching the clouds float by. (No wonder that freelance photographer never wanted to leave.)

The old town is quaint, intriguing, and mysterious. It’s ancient scientific wisdom married charmingly with ethnic minority multiculturalism. I could spend all day piling on all of my favourite words to describe her, and it doesn’t even begin to illustrate how in awe and in love I am with it all. When standing in her presence, in her eternal embrace of charm and beauty and grace, I feel some ancient, famous love story must have happened here.

How could you not want to fall in love here? The air itself smells like sweet romance.

Unfortunately, the only story I’ve heard about the place has nothing to do with love. It’s about why the old town doesn’t have a city wall.

Not to despair, young travelers make up for it with modern reenactments of Romeo and Juliet, or more commonly known as - “what happens in Lijiang stays in Lijiang”.

At night, the town is so well-known for intimate encounters that some pubs have it advertised on a carved wooden board hung proudly outside the door, and some tourists would walk into the pub and order an “intimate encounter” like a dish on the menu. To which the hostess would politely respond with a smile, “Gentlemen, please follow me to the bar, where you’ll be most strategically positioned for meeting pretty ladies who walk in. And … good luck!”

The board says, "Lijiang Intimate Encounters"

I also had my little share of “intimate encounters” in Lijiang.

Well, not exactly.