Jinping, a county known as "The Hometown of Firs" in southwest China's Guizhou Province, is a place of mountains, forests and streams. The county's well-preserved natural beauty, unique traditional ethnic culture and passionate Miao and Dong people, fully lives up to its name "Jinping" -- "as beautiful as a peacock in full display."

Early in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the county was already famous for the high-quality firs it produced. In the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the timber was specially set aside for the imperial family and was known as "Real Wood."

The surface of the Qingshui River used to be covered from bank to bank with fir trees which were being floated downriver to ports along the Yangtze River and then transported overland to Beijing, Nanjing and Xi'an.

In those days, people could walk across the river on the tree trunks.

Jinping was in the news in the 1960s when ancient contracts were found about the fir trade. To prevent deforestation, the ancestors of today's Jinping people in Ming and Qing dynasties developed a contract system to limit cutting and encourage replanting. The system, called the "wood contract system," is now acknowledged to be an ancient conservation system based on, and enforced by, some of the earliest known contracts in China.

Journey on boat

Today, the scenery still attracts nature-lovers.

The high roads to the county wind through the mountains, overlooking abysses and the river.

As darkness fell, we arrived in the small town of Jinping after 12 adventurous hours on a bus and we spent the night in a new four-story hotel overlooking the Qingshui River.

We took a boat the next day on the Qingshui River to Wendou Village. Our journey began in the morning mist with a gathering of people from the Dong National Minority to see us off.

The boat was uniquely shaped with a length of more than 8 meters and a width of less than one meter. It looked just like a long willow leaf floating on the water.

The Qingshui River is a branch of the Yangtze and flows through high mountain ranges still covered in virgin forests. There is an old saying that:" The Guilin landscape tops those found elsewhere and a trip to the Qingshui River will save you a trip to Guilin."

As our boat floated on the azure water, amazing scenery met our eyes. The mountain peaks and the forests were partly hidden by a slight mist. The mist was rising from the surface of the water making the scenery near and far blur into the image of an ancient Chinese painting.

The peaks climbing skywards were in various wonderful shapes which gave them the beautiful names still used today. A series of peaks called "Baxian Guohai" were seen as eight immortals crossing the sea.

Then there is Qinglong Peak, which looks like a dragon lowering its head to drink. There are also peaks shaped like the Chinese God of Life reaching for a peach. Two peaks looking like deer holding flowers in their mouths were given the names, "Shouxing Zaiyue" and "Yelu Hanhua."

As the boat went down the river, Miao and Dong-style wooden cottages, partly hidden on the hill slopes, could be seen.

The boat occasionally had to struggle through narrow gorges with the current rushing between reefs. The sound of the torrent could be heard far away and the boatmen called this passage, the "Smaller Three Gorges."

Surrounded by the weirdly shaped mountain peaks and with its powerful current, the Qingshui River is one of nature's wonders.

Dancing Miao girls

It took three hours to reach the village. Melodious singing was heard as we approached Wendou, the sound echoing up the nearby valleys. Six Miao women in light dark clothes with colorful embroidery were waiting on the riverbank holding six horns full of rice wine. The faster you finish drinking, the more respect you show the local people.

Drinking water flows to every house through bamboo tubes from springs and can be drunk directly. The network of bamboo tubes is as effective a water supply system as any to be found in cities.

Another wonder is the houses themselves. Built on sloping ground, the two-story houses are made of wood held together by wooden nails and wedges with no iron or steel used. Doors and windows are delicately carved.

The ventilation system in the houses is so good that pigs, cows and sheep can be put on the first floor and people can live comfortably on the second floor.

Our hosts prepared local dishes for us, some of which we found too spicy. But the real challenge came from the Miao girls who, in their short dark skirts, sang drinking songs to encourage us to have more wine.

At night, we were invited to take part in " Cai Ge Tang," a singing and dancing ceremony to welcome the visitors. A bonfire was lit in the middle of a large clearing around which people sang local folk songs and danced.

The welcoming ceremony in Hekou, which we visited two days later, was even more amazing. I had the chance to watch a passionate dance performed by Miao girls in their traditional costume-mini-skirts.

The beat was strong and the movements were bold and had a modern look. A professor from Zhongshan University sitting beside me said it was the earliest form of disco music.

Yaobai Village is well-known for its Lusheng Festival, usually held in July, and featured a performance on bamboo wind instruments, known as Yaoguang. This is a Miao tradition, the Shao'ai - a cultural fossil going back to the Stone Age - and the music is about an ancient and mysterious fir culture.

Longli fortress

But Jinping County is not only a paradise of firs and ethnic festivals -- it is also a cultural museum.

Longli, the only town inhabited by Han people in the region, is regarded as a living museum of the architecture and the culture of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Longli was a Ming military fortress housing 3,000 soldiers and their families. They had been sent from Shandong, Henan and Shanxi in Northern China to govern the Miao and Dong peoples. In the only area of flat land in Jinping, they built a town in the Ming style.

In those days, there were 3,700 people living inside the fortress and 7,300 outside, who shared 72 surnames and 72 wells.

Today, the streets are still paved with stones and lined with houses, ancestral halls, temples, attics and bridges going back to the Ming era. Located in such a remote place among mountains and rivers, the town is so well preserved that any stone is a museum piece.

It cannot be denied that in such a remote place, the soldiers and their families from the north would have felt homesick. Missing their hometowns in the north so much, they made a copy of them. The built replicas of their houses, temples and decorative style in a struggle to keep their Han culture and identity among the Miao and Dong peoples.

The 72 ancestral halls remain the best-preserved architecture in the town.

The Han garrison faced continual threats from the local people. The town wall can be traced back to the battles that were fought in the Ming period. To defend themselves against attacks, the Han houses in Longli were all inter-connected and you can still visit all the houses without having to go out into the streets.

(China Daily August 22, 2003)