Source: CCTV
We'd probably never obtain a true picture of the history, but it's a perpetual theme that intrigues us mankind. Where to look for the links between past and present? Well, it's relatively an easier task in some places that the others. Welcome to ancient Huizhou area, where you can easily visualize its heyday from 400 years ago just strolling along its old street, picturesque countryside, and enchanting villages. Welcome to the Street Special of Travelogue!

Mainly referring to the hilly terrains at the southern tip of today's Anhui Province, Huizhou area has long been considered a living museum of Chinese Ming and Qing folk history stretching for over 500 years.

For centuries, limited farmland drove local people to go all out for survival, bringing about the legendary success of Hui merchants who dominated Chinese business world up until the 19th century.

The huge amount of wealth accumulated by Hui merchants transformed into numerous townships, markets, docks and villages, most of them remain intact sheltered by the hilly terrains.

  Laojie, literally meaning Old Street in Chinese, and it's definitely the oldest street in whole city. First came into being as the distribution center of the whole area for all kinds of goods, the street has been weathered through the vicissitudes of time for over 700 years.

Flanked by over 200 stores, Laojie runs for about 1000 meters east to west on a flagstone pavement just like when it was first built.

No longer a thriving distribution center, it now serves as one of the tourist attractions in Huangshan city, the largest city in Huizhou area.

Don't just shun away at the word "tourist attraction" yet, comparing to a lot of cheap copies of ancient streets in other parts of the country, Laojie has more redeeming factors than you'd expected.

For example, a hot bowl of wonton from a portable wonton stand, a local fast food tradition passed down from way back. The efficient design of the stand is called Xu Xiake style, named after the greatest traveler of Ming Dynasty.

Although most stores along Laojie sell local produces, antiques, and touristy knick-knacks, if you do a little bit research in advance, you'll find some real, authentic old stores here, for example, this old Chinese herbal medicine store. And I've even got myself a doctor's appointment here today!

 
Tong Deren herbal medicine store has been on Laojie for over 120 years. The decorations and layout are characteristic of that time period; and what's more, it still keeps the tradition of having a practitioner of Chinese medicine see patients at the lobby.

Seeing the traditional Chinese doctor is quite relaxing - no need to have awkward metal equipment poking around or even inside your body. Just a few minutes of pulsing, looking and chatting,

And somewhere inside these antique cabins are the dried grass, barks, roots and other novelty herbal medicine that supposedly can bring me well and sound sleep.

If you have to get some travel souvenir from Laojie that can best represent Huizhou, Ink slab is a safe bet. And it's not too hard to find a good piece here since the area is known for crafting one of the best ink slabs and ink sticks in the country.

 
Mr. Wang Zuwei has been engaged in inkstone carving for over a decade, and he is just one of the many ink stone artists along Laojie.

Huizhou boasts the best ink slab in whole country, now I see why. To make a good piece of ink slab is not only the carving work. It's your training, your education in a lot of areas. For example, literature, painting, and music, because the designing and the creativity behind the whole piece of inkslab is more important, that's how you bring out the best of this piece of stone.

 
Although the majority of the stores along the old street are not the same as they were first built 200 years ago, you can still find some of the original layout remains intact. For example, they were all built this way that the front end is the store and the back end is the workshop.

In old times, most merchandise sold in Laojie ranging from Huizhou specialty products to household items such as soy sauce came out of small family workshops of manual labor. Today, only Hui Mo, the brand name ink sticks are still manufactured the traditional way. According to local people, the top quality of Hui Mo has a lot to do with the manual process, plus a touch of secret recipe.  

To get a crash course on Hui culture without going too far out, you can go to Wan Cui Lou, a private museum on Laojie specializing in Huizhou antiques, arts and crafts collection.

A pair of golden lions is a masterpiece of Huizhou lacquerware ¨C made by applying layers of lacquer upon layers of linen cloth. So although look mighty powerful, even a kid may lift it up.

Now let me take you just a couple blocks away from Laojie and step into one of the old-fashioned wooden gates. You will be surrounded by other bits and pieces of Huizhou culture and history that are as fascinating.

Mr. Cheng Dawei's formal residence is just one of such kind of places.

Cheng is a Hui merchant himself, and through his business experience, he realized the importance of a standard abacus calculation. And later Hui merchants spread his abacus theory to Japan and Southeast Asia.

See, we all know Chinese are good at math because we invented abacus, but do you know why Hui businessmen holds a competitive edge against businessmen from other area of China? It's because of this guy, Mr. Cheng Dawei.

Born in 16th century, Mr. Cheng made a major contribution to the then Chinese society by setting the standard format of abacus, and perfecting the abacus calculation rhymes. Of course, his accomplishments were not limited to abacus, he is also believed to be the first person ever to make and use a tape measure.

How do you use a round abacus? I've absolutely no idea. Looks like the creativity of ancient Chinese is everywhere, even in the design of abacus - you can find all kinds of abacus in this museum!

There are altogether over 200 abacuses on display in the museum, each of different material, design, and function.

Here is a definitely the tiniest abacus I've ever seen and it's the smallest one in this museum. And it's embedded on a ring. It must belong to a Hui businessman; they like to do business all the time.

I guess it must be really busy to calculate the square root using this abacus, it's so long and got 81 columns, literally it's like playing some kind of instrument if you use this to do calculation. Pretty amazing.

 
A local elementary school was even named after Mr. Cheng Dawei to commemorate his achievements. Guess what is the strong point of the school's curriculum? The kids here can calculate real fast, even faster than calculators.

It's too fast! I could not even get my numbers keyed in yet. And look at their little hands; they are moving the imaginative beads on the abacus. This is a new calculation method created by this school. They use a combination way of the traditional method and calculating by heart to calculate the numbers.

Now I feel extremely safe walking next to this guy, Mr. Zhongkui in red robe. He is the god who specializing in capturing evil spirits, eating demons. Only in this kind of remote places in China, can you still find some authentic folk customs. For example, today's performance called Tiao Zhongkui! 

Tiao Zhongkui is performed on every May 5 of lunar calendar year as a ritual to expel devils and bring good luck.

Many such ancient folk customs get to thrive in the countryside of Huizhou area due to its sheltered environment and unique culture ¨C the loyalty toward tradition.

So landmark of history is plenty to be found in Huizhou countryside ¨C for example, the seven memorial archways of Tangyue Village. Erected through a period of 400 years to recognize the virtues and good deeds of the Bao family, a powerful name in salt business, the archways witnessed the heyday and the declining of Hui businessmen.

In feudal society, women were not even allowed to enter the ancestral hall. But, there's only one exception in whole country, the Bao family ancestral temple for women.

In the past, family members would meet in ancestral temples to settle the most important tribal matters. However, ancestral temple for women just served a single purpose.
In ancient China, especially in ancient Hui culture, chastity is considered the biggest virtue of women. That is, they should remain loyal to their husbands and were not encouraged to remarry after their husbands passed away. And looks like in Bao family there appeared a lot of such role models. And only if they lived by this kind of philosophy, could they have their name tablets established in family ancestral hall and worshipped by their offspring."

In ancient China, especially in ancient Hui culture, chastity is considered the biggest virtue of women. That is, they should remain loyal to their husbands and were not encouraged to remarry after their husbands passed away. And looks like in Bao family there appeared a lot of such role models. And only if they lived by this kind of philosophy, could they have their name tablets established in family ancestral hall and worshipped by their offspring.¡± 

White wall, black tile against serene water and clear sky, ancient Huizhou villages would settle any restless soul with its soothing charm. Out of hundreds of well-kept villages in the area, Hongcun stands out for its ingenious community plan.

In old times, most villages were planned around water. And this is especially true here in Hongcun. In front of every household you can find canals flowing by, and this whole village centers around this pond, half-moon shaped pond here. And this is actually a manmade pond dug about four hundred years ago when this village was first built. And word is the Fengshui of this village became extremely well because of its water planning.

Legend has it that a geomancer designed the water system according to the shape of a bull. The half-moon shaped pond is the stomach, the criss-crossing canal the intestines. The water was channeled down from the mountain overlooking the village. It took over 180 years to complete the complicated water system.

If you pay close attention you'll notice that most of the stone paths of this village were designed with a slight inclining angle, that's for the easy drainage of rainwater into the canal. And along the stone path, you can find a lot of such kind of spots with stone steps leading down to the surface of the water, that's for the easy access to get the water for washing, cooking or bathing purposes.

Actually the canal is the lifeline of the village in the past. To ensure the hygiene of the water, the village pledge made it clear that the water could only be used for washing purpose only after 8 am during the day, before 8 was the time to get drinking water.

Most of the houses in the village were built during the Ming and Qing dynasty, a time of strict social hierarchy. The floor plans had to follow strict building codes, down to the door opening, the room size, or the height of wall.

The structure of the house was also shaped by local culture and way of life. As men of the family were away from home doing business most of the time, the houses were all protected with high walls and tiny windows.

Without the freedom to build the houses any way they wanted, the Hui businessmen lavished their wealth and creativity into the extravagant details of the house. Stone carvings, wood carvings, brick carvings of Hui style houses are hot items on antique market nowadays for their superb craftsmanship.

If it's in the old times, I'd probably be thrown out of this door. Only high-ranking officials had the privilege to enter the courtyard through the gate in the center. And for us little potatoes, we had to walk through the side doors.

If a person stand beneath side door, it forms a Chinese Character ¨C Shang, meaning business. Check out the archway, it's an upside down gold nugget.

Guess why this house has this kind of design? Because the owner of the house is a prominent businessman, and you know in ancient China businessman really didn't enjoy a high social status, so he built a business shaped gate that every guest entering his house would have to walk beneath the Character of business. 

Every single detail in this house called Chengzhi Tang reflects part of Hui culture. The beam on the front courtyard was carved out of a whole tree trunk depicting the banquet of royal officials, as a place in the royal court is the career path every Hui businessmen dreamed for their kids.

You'd never guess what the two tiny windows on the second floor railing were for ¨C they are the peepholes for the unmarried daughters to check out on their future husbands.

Very smart design. From here I could only see two small black boxes. But behind these windows, they could see very clearly of their future husband chatting with their parents.

It almost feels like I'm standing at the bottom of a well. And this part is called Tianjing, and this is a very important section of the whole house, especially for businessman. Water and rain represent money, so the design of a sky well in a Hui-style building should help them to amass the maximum amount of water.

A tiny window is typical of Hui-style building. You know in the past, women were not allowed to be seen by men from outside the family. So their view was blocked by high wall and limited by this small window. Absolutely love this bed, vintage design, and vivid details; this is some kind of extravaganza you don't get to enjoy in the modern society. Maybe tonight, I can get to dream the dreams of those dainty misses over a hundred years ago.

This is a very healthy meal - almost every dish is made from bean curd. Just different shape, different style of bean curds.

Looks like the lives of those little misses living upstairs 100 years ago were not that miserable after all. Because once in a while they could get to enjoy the local opera performance in the courtyard although they were not allowed to get out, and in bitterly cold winter, sitting in this cute little charcoal basin.

In ancient Huizhou area, Xinan River was the only way connecting local people with the outside world. Therefore the river became extremely important for their daily life. Just take a look at Yuliang dam on the river built in Song Dynasty, still standing strong after weathering through 1000 years.  

 Being washed over by water for thousand years, the shape of these stones defines the weight of history, or shall we say the wave of history. And it's right from here, the ancient Yuliang dock, that over millions of teenage boys bid farewell to their hometown. They didn't have time to be sentimental, because for them, this was the starting point for a bright promising future career. And without their efforts, there probably wouldn't be so many old streets, old towns.