Yanshan uses leisure to sell tourism

Despite scenic beauty, college town promotes idyllic lifestyle to attract visitors, Huo Yan and Li Yang report.

Yanshan district is located in the south of Guilin and north of Yangshuo county in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, and boasts the majority of the busy waterways and best scenic spots along the Lijiang River.

Yanshan is also known as a college town, because 70,000 out of 180,000 residents are college students or teachers from the area's seven universities. Eighty percent of the remaining residents are farmers.

The district government is renovating some ancient villages beside the Lijiang River and transforming them into family stays for tourists.

The district government is attracting investment to build 10 leisure parks along the Lijiang River, among which Yuzi Park run by the French tourism corporation Club Med is the most popular.

A life made up of farming and reading is regarded as an idyllic lifestyle in traditional Chinese values. This is why the local authority thinks leisure lifestyles should be what Yanshan is known for, although it has as many beautiful views as its neighbors.

Yanshan attracted 2.4 million visitors to the district last year, up 26 percent year-on-year.

"When you really live in the landscape harmoniously, you are part of each other. And that's the real appreciation and enjoyment of nature and culture," said Huang Hongbin, Party chief of the district. "Do not only look at it, but live it. That's Yanshan's tourism concept, and the idea comes from our history, which deepens our understanding of the happiness and hardships of life."

Cultural icon

In the early 1930s, the first modern university of Guangxi was established in a manor named after the town, which was regarded as a must-see cultural icon of not only Guilin, but also of South and Southwest China.

Yanshan Manor, which served as a shelter for scholars during World War II, remains a source of inspiration for philosophers, writers and artists.

Local official Tang Yue built the traditional manor, which covers 150,000 square meters, at the foot of Yanshan Mountain to its southwest from 1869 to 1873 during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Following the suggestions of feng shui masters, Tang constructed the manor along an open section of an underground stream, which flows into a deep pond to the north of the manor.

The stream is about 15 meters wide and 300 meters long between two underground springs.

Its water is dark green and the water flow is stable throughout the year. Flourishing bamboo as well as osmanthus, maidenhair and banyan grow on the riverbanks, turning the manor into a sea of green and filling it with fragrance during blossom season.

It is said the location of Yanshan Mountain, which looks like a wild goose stretching its wings, and the stream, which is comparable to a dragon, can ensure constant prosperity for the manor's residents.

Tang was transferred to North China a few years after the manor was completed and died there in the late 1890s. His heirs sold the manor to regional governor Cen Chunxuan in 1909.

The only legacy Cen left is a "dragon path" built with gravel along the stream, the hunched middle line of which is marked with a row of neatly arranged stones of similar size to represent the backbone of a dragon. Cen believed walking on the path every day boded well for his career.

However, the Qing Dynasty was overthrown in 1911 and Cen left Guangxi with his family soon after. Because of a lack of maintenance, termites destroyed most of the mansion's wooden buildings within a decade.

Cen gifted the deserted manor to the new provincial government hosted by local warlord Li Zongren, a prominent Guangxi warlord and Kuomintang military commander, in 1929. Li rebuilt the manor without changing the original layout, and replaced the old wooden buildings with solid brick buildings and small villas.

Guangxi Normal University was established on the grounds in 1932 and merged into Guangxi University in 1936, which was moved to the manor from neighboring Wuzhou city to evade the invading Japanese.

With its open and free academic atmosphere, the university quickly attracted a large number of scholars, artists and writers on their way to Guilin from around China, such as philosophers Hu Shi and Liang Shuming; historian Chen Yinque; architects Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin; geologist Li Siguang; writers Ba Jin and Guo Moruo; and painters Qi Baishi, Zhang Daqian and Xu Beihong.

Their short stays at Yanshan Manor, varying from one to three years, came at the most difficult time in China's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, as well being their most productive periods.

They taught students and accomplished a large number of classical works during their stays at Yanshan Manor before moving to Yunnan together. Their perseverance in teaching and research during the war inspired the nation and left a rich artistic and academic heritage.

The university moved to Guilin after the war. From the 1950s to the early 1980s, the manor was turned into a military barracks. Thanks to military protection, most historical relics were not destroyed during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).

The Guangxi agricultural school took care of the manor until 2003 when businessman Peng Peng, who has a doctorate in history, leased it and opened it to the public as a tourist resort and school for local painters.

Peng said, "Botanists regard the manor as a treasury of rare plants. Feng shui masters praised it as a treasure land. Architects marvel at its layout and buildings. Landscape painters find their home here."

Yanshan offers even more to tourists.

It is globally famous for its caves, some of which were lived in by earlier peoples, some were used as kilns for porcelain, and most of them are still in their natural state and ideal places for exploration.

Su Qiulan contributed to this story. Contact the writer at huoyan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 05/28/2015 page7)