Jiang Tou Ancient Village

Jiang Tou Village is located in the north of Guilin and about 32 km always from Downtown Guilin. It is a very famous ancient village with the history of 600 years, the buildings built in Ming & Qing Dynasties survived and they are preserved very well.

There are 158 families with population of 680. The family’s name of all the villagers is Zhou, because their ancestor is Dun Yizhou, a famous philosopher of Northern song Dynasty (over 1000 years ago), whose essay “on lotus—loving” is so famous that nearly all the Chinese students can recite it. Zhou gave lotus the connotation of a virtue of honesty. Here he intended to exhort his later generations to keep honest in performing their official duties.

What to see in Jiangtou Ancient Village?

In front of the village is a beautiful river like Jude—ribbon encirling the village. The village faces some beautiful hills, such as brush—rest hill, brush—holder hill, the emperor’s chop hill, etc. Between the hills and the river are the vast fields.

There is a variety of buildings, including residential house, water well, ancestral temple, alley, gate, bridge, tomb and so on. The residential houses survived are in a large scale. Those anti—fire walls, the wood carvings, the old court yards, the narrow pebble’s lanes…all of these will take you back to those old times, The “Ailian”(which means lotus—loving) ancestral temple is the village’s important building and also their public house. There were once six rows of house but only three rows survived, they are the big gate, Clan—rejuvenating gate and Wen Yuan Tower The last two are the main buildings of the temple. They were the place for the home schools and also for the ritual ceremonies.

Many valuable and rare historical relics are well preserved here, such as ancient coins, inscription forest, ancient instruments, longevity beds and so on. Relics here contribute greatly to explore the culture of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

So far, tourism has not been developed at all in the village.

Source: visitourchina.com