Sitting on a stool made of ancient buckets and leaning against the bar counter made of doors from old ancestral temples, you can savor the locally-brewed wine while listening to folk stories.

Tourists, from every part of China, and even some parts of the world, flock to the bar, located in ancient Xidi Village in the south of east China's Anhui Province, to get a taste of ancient times.

Well-preserved for more than 400 years, Xidi Village enjoys its fame for characteristic ancient architectures with more than 300 buildings from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties,122 of which still remain intact.

As an expert from an international ancient sites council put it, this village well preserves Chinese ordinary people's lives in the Ming and Qing dynasties, as Beijing preserves the life of the royal family during that period.

The Kuangguzhai bar at Xidi Village, made entirely from antiques, offers almost the real experience as 400 years ago.

If you want to stay overnight, the lady of Kuangguzhai bar will take you upstairs to the quaint guestrooms. The next morning, you get to embrace the tranquility and pureness of ancient villages by pushing open the carved wooden window.

"I spent two days in Xidi village, checking out every ancient residence. The time at the bar is so amazing and impressive," said Zhang Guanghao, a tourist who spent one night at the bar.

The bar owner, Feng Min, is a woman from Beijing, who moved her home to Xidi village ten years ago after visiting the beautiful ancient village and falling in love with it. She then bought an ancient residence to live in.

In 2000, Xidi village became listed as a world cultural heritage site, which drew unprecedented numbers of tourists.

Feng then found she could transform her house into a bar to host tourists from afar, giving them a real sense of Xidi ancestors' life.

With almost all of her savings, she sought local antiques house by house. While sticking to the air of the ancient residence, she transformed different parts of her houses into bars, tea houses and guest rooms.

The bar named Kuangguzhai soon became a new hot destination for many tourists, and brings the owner an annual revenue of 80,000 yuan (US$9639).

"I am a big fan of Chinese ancient residences," said a lady surname Gao from Shanghai who is booking a room at Kuangguzhai. "It is so amazing to live in ancient houses for real. I can't believe I am going to sleep on those beds from over a hundred years ago."

The successful operation of the Kuangguzhai bar provides another alternative for the local government to solve the predicament of protecting relics and earning money for protection, which has bothered many Chinese.

"The Kuangguzhai bar model is much better than shops which just sold fake antiques full of commercial atmosphere, "said Wang Henglai, a local official.

Now Yixian County, where Xidi village is located, invests tens of millions of yuan in the protection of ancient villages annually.

(Xinhua News Agency June 16, 2004)