What Rural Life in a Chinese UNESCO Village is Actually Like (Xidi) | This is China?! Ep. 13

I paid 104 yuan(!) to enter Xidi, fully expecting just another commercialised UNESCO heritage site: from a distance, immaculate Huizhou architecture set against seas of golden rapeseed blooms, and up close, identical souvenir shops, herded tour groups, and photographers for hire at every turn. Instead, I was greeted with large cuts of cured meat hanging under the black-tiled roofs (and socks, sometimes underwear too); endless bundles of mustard greens laid out to dry against the whitewashed walls. In mid-March — the brief window of clear weather before the rainy season kicks in — preserving mustard greens suddenly becomes every villager's top priority. One auntie washes well over a hundred kilos of them down by the creek, still to be plucked, salted, cured, dried, boiled, and dried again. And right before nightfall, an uncle hurries to gather half-dried batches from his bamboo trays, tucking them away from the evening damp. Dampness — or rather, the fight against it — turns out to be a year-round, century-old preoccupation here. Traditional Huizhou houses were built with raised, ventilated flooring to block ground moisture. Then there is the wooden threshold at every doorway, and another stone step leading up into the rooms themselves. Yet at the heart of these near-windowless homes sits the skywell, an open central courtyard framed by inward-tilting roofs that channel rainwater straight into the space (with water symbolizing wealth in local tradition, the design was long believed to lock prosperity within the family). As I was invited into a tea-selling auntie’s home, I was amazed to find that she had her skywell fully sealed. A bold move! Turning away from age-old, venerable (if only largely symbolic) traditions, I thought. But she went on to explain that between the region’s heavy seasonal downpours and its lingering moisture, dampness is simply tea’s greatest threat. And at the end of the day, that's how she makes a living. True to time-honored Huizhou mercantile culture, money always seems to pop up somehow in every conversation (nothing unusual here in China nowadays, though). Another auntie, while plucking rapeseed greens on her doorstep, laments that tourism is nowhere near its usual bustle — and that villagers receive only a tiny fixed slice of the ticket revenue in any case — so she’s been tending to her fields instead of selling flatbreads to tourists lately. Join me for a sneak peek into this seemingly time-frozen village: a rooted farming community nestled amid the mountains, living a self-sufficient life that “ordinary folks are quite content” with, as auntie claims with a faint trace of resignation — its gentle idyll pierced now and then by a blunt remark that echoes through the alleys: “I just want more money!” China Travel | China Travel Vlog | Travel Series China | UNESCO World Heritage Site China | Xidi | Hongcun | Huizhou | Huangshan | 西递 | 宏村 | Best Ancient Villages in China | Chinese Village Life | Traditional Chinese Architecture | Chinese Food | This is China?! | Unseen China | Hidden Gems China | Rural China #xidi #hongcun #chinatravel