Amplitude meets altitude at the Second Snow Mountain Music Festival, which will hit the ancient town of Lijiang, in Southwest China's Yunnan Province, from October 4 to 6.

Celebrated as the biggest outdoor music festival in Southwest China, this year's three-day event will strive to maintain its reputation as the "world's highest" music festival. This claim to fame comes from being staged halfway up the isolated 5,596-meter-tall Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, where the first showcase was staged five years ago.

Participants come from the ilk of rock guru Cui Jian, senior female singer Dadawa, grunge veteran Xie Tianxiao, folk rocker Wan Xiaoli and acclaimed local band Shanren, plus a slew of rising talents.

The festival gives that much more oomph to Li Jiang's reputation as a potential Golden Week destination. The city is already well known among holidaymakers as the ideal place to do nothing in particular besides soak up the ancient settlement's leisurely and charming ambience.

Nestled at the foot of Jake Dragon Snow Mountain, Lijiang started to take shape as a town 800 years ago and later prospered as the most important hinge of the so-called Tea-Horse Trading Route, which linked Yunnan Province with Tibet and China's midlands.

Since the first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty Kublai Khan began his reign there, Lijiang embarked on a developmental fast track and became the political, cultural and educational center of the region. It also became a lynchpin of trade between China, India and other Asian countries.

Even now, when walking the streets of the old town, one can sense the prosperity of the town from its shops, which deal in fancy and superb handicraft collections.

Modern Lijiang showcases the harmonious fusion of different cultural traditions and features a true feel of urbanity and sophistication that is rarely seen in this part of China.

The old town area of Lijiang, or the Lijiang Ancient City, which is perfectly adapted to the uneven topography of this key commercial and strategic site, has been maintained as an exceptionally authentic, historic townscape. Its architecture is famed for the fusion of elements from several cultures that have come together at this site over many centuries. Lijiang also possesses an ancient water-supply system of great complexity and ingenuity that still functions effectively today.

Lijiang city is surrounded by craggy mountains in the northwest, which barricade it against cold winds. The southwestern area of the town is checkered with a patchwork of fertile fields that stretches for dozens of kilometers across the landscape.

The city is bathed with bountiful sunlight, swept by an eastbound wind and bubbles with clear spring water, which flows along three streams to reach every dwelling.

Its streets are paved with indigenous stone slabs. Many stone bridges and arches in the city were built during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911) and orderly roads and lanes extend to the four cardinal directions from the central square. Residential houses are made of timber; most have a screen wall in front of the buildings and some feature four-sided courtyards.

The Naxi ethnic group has been influenced by the Dongba Culture, which is based on the Dongba religion. Believers practice witchcraft, are skilled in medicine and pass on their culture through literature and art.

October 4-6. At Shuhe Old Town, Lijiang, Yunnan Province. Ticket sales: 0888-6688519. Festival Committee number: 0888-5121830. For more info, please visit www.xueshanfes.com.

(China Daily 09/27/2007 page10)