Why Do All Ancient Towns in China Look the Same? So Boring.

This is the 310th post of City Walk Plan.

If you’ve ever traveled to an ancient town with your ex, you might find that when you travel again, ancient towns are the easiest places to remind you of them.

In China, almost every tourist city has an ancient town or old street specifically prepared for visitors. All ancient towns seem the same, except the person you’re strolling through them with is different. The May Day holiday is exactly the time when you visit these similar ancient towns and start thinking about your ex again.

You’ve seen the little bridges and flowing water of Jiangnan together, and then it pops up again in Sichuan and Yunnan; the wooden hammer candy you bought for her also appears in Anhui and Jiangxi; all the big and small shops you visited together, in another place, you can browse them all over again. The differences might exist, but they’re subtle. For example, in some places, the signature dish is spring chicken, in others it’s spring goose, and in still others, it’s spring duck.

The little bridges and flowing water you imagine as Jiangnan are actually Gubei Water Town in Beijing’s Miyun District.

Same little bridges, same flowing water, same ancient paths lined with the same kind of homes. At this moment, the ancient town feels like it’s singing you an old song—“Same sky, same face, same me standing right before you.”

You came to a foreign land to see the sights, but no matter where you look, why do all these ancient towns end up looking the same?

Going all out to protect the ancient towns

Today, Wuzhen is the poster child for ancient towns, but the first time people in China truly discovered such towns was in 1984. The very first ancient town to enter the public eye was Zhouzhuang in Jiangsu.

In 1984, American oil tycoon Armand Hammer bought the famous oil painting Memories of Hometown, later renamed Double Bridge, and gifted it to Deng Xiaoping as a symbol of building a bridge of friendship between the two countries. The little bridge and flowing water in that painting were exactly Zhouzhuang[1].

Zhouzhuang, known as the “No. 1 Water Town in China,” is located in the southwest of Kunshan.

The water town scenery of Zhouzhuang caught the attention of urban planning scholar Ruan Yisan. In the spring of 1985, he led a team to begin surveying and visiting several ancient towns in the Jiangnan region, including Zhouzhuang [2]. Thanks to their efforts, Zhouzhuang restored and protected its local ancient architecture, while the government also started developing tourism.

The research and conservation planning of Jiangnan ancient towns pioneered the study of historical and cultural village preservation in China. In 1986, the State Council officially proposed protecting “neighborhoods, building complexes, towns, and villages” with historical or local characteristics, gradually drawing attention to these ancient towns [3].

With widespread promotion, Zhouzhuang became famous overnight. Soon after, in 1986, Tongli Ancient Town in Suzhou also began tourism development. In 1989, Zhouzhuang’s first attraction, the former residence of Shen Wansan, opened its doors, receiving 55,000 visitors that year.

Overlooking Tongli Ancient Town in Suzhou

In 1998, the number of tourists visiting Zhouzhuang had already exceeded one million. Around that time, from 1997 to 2001, Xitang, Wuzhen, Nanxun, and Luzhi also began developing their ancient towns. Together with Tongli, these six ancient towns became iconic examples of the ancient towns in the Jiangnan region.

Cherry Blossom Season in Xitang Ancient Town

In 2001, the six ancient towns in Jiangnan began a joint application for UNESCO World Heritage status. Leveraging the “Golden Week” system implemented in 1999, the tourism market became even more vibrant, and ancient towns gradually emerged as major tourist attractions [4][5].

The state also started to pay attention to these ancient towns. In 2003 and 2005, the Ministry of Construction and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage successively announced two batches of 44 historical and cultural towns.

Driven by the ancient town tourism boom, regions across China began developing ancient town tourism on a large scale. For instance, Wuyuan Ancient Town in Jiangxi and Fenghuang Ancient Town in Hunan—now world-famous tourist destinations—have only been under conservation and development for about two to three decades [6].

Wuyuan Scenery

Tourism is the Hope for Saving Ancient Towns’ Economies

The process of Zhouzhuang becoming a model ancient town is actually a story of “a blessing in disguise.”

In the 1980s, as China gradually opened up its market, township enterprises in southern Jiangsu developed rapidly. At that time, companies from cities like Shanghai and Suzhou set up branch factories in nearby towns. For example, in 1985, Zhouzhuang established a branch of a Shanghai brick and tile factory. Later, factories for leather shoes, clothing, and steel were also opened.

Many wealthy towns in Jiangsu and Zhejiang grew from this period, but Zhouzhuang struggled on this path. In the early 1980s, when some areas in Jiangnan had already become “billion-yuan towns,” the average annual income in Zhouzhuang was only 400 yuan. Fresh meat cost 50 cents per pound, but few could afford it.

Because of its lagging economic development, Zhouzhuang didn’t undergo the same “old looks to new faces” large-scale modernization as other towns in Jiangnan. However, this turned out to be an opportunity for its tourism development.

Zhouzhuang, cloaked in a silver coat of snow. The fact that so many ancient buildings have been preserved here is actually because the local economy developed slowly in the early 1980s, so it wasn’t modernized like other towns.

Before the 1980s, tourism was seen as a symbol of capitalism. The few tourist services that existed back then were usually aimed at “learning and publicizing the achievements of socialist construction.”

After the 1980s, tourism began to grow rapidly. Zhouzhuang, with its well-preserved Ming and Qing dynasty architecture, was left behind by the wave of industrial development, but it happened to catch the fast track of the tourism boom.

Zhouzhuang, a place where “coming and going within arm’s reach both require boats.”

The same situation also occurred in the ancient town of Fenghuang in western Hunan. In the 1990s, the economic pillar of Fenghuang County was the Fenghuang Cigarette Factory. When the factory’s business was booming, Fenghuang County became the first county in Hunan Province to have fiscal revenue exceeding 100 million yuan. At that time, the leader of the Xiangxi Prefecture once said, “If the Fenghuang Cigarette Factory sneezes, the whole prefecture will catch a cold” [8].

In the late 1990s, after the cigarette factory was shut down, Fenghuang County’s economy quickly slumped. To escape the fiscal crisis, tourism became a lifeline.

Dusk in the Ancient City of Phoenix

In 2001, the Phoenix County government transferred the operating rights of eight scenic spots, including the Ancient City of Phoenix and the Southern Great Wall, for 50 years to a company run by renowned planner Ye Wenzhi for market-driven development. At that time, the total tourism revenue of Phoenix County accounted for less than 10% of its GDP, but by 2009, this share had surged to over 80% [9].

This is a common phenomenon in ancient towns across China. For instance, in Tangkou Town near Huangshan in Anhui and Nanyue Town near Mount Heng in Hunan, the tourism economy also accounts for over 80% of the local economy [4].

Tangkou Town is located at the foot of the famous Mount Huangshan. Pictured is the scenery of Mount Huangshan.

Ancient Towns Won’t Be Your Dream Hometown

The large-scale demolition and reconstruction in the 1980s led to many ancient towns and villages that are now tourist destinations sharing certain similarities in history.

They usually had a glorious past—for instance, Zhouzhuang was once a waterborne trade hub and economic center in the Jiangnan region; Hongcun in Anhui was densely populated and packed with buildings due to the prosperity of Huizhou merchants. It is because of this that they have preserved exquisite architectural complexes and rich historical and cultural stories[10].

Hongcun in Spring

Often, these places would decline in a later historical period, no longer engaging in frequent large-scale construction, or due to reduced interaction with the outside world, they would settle into stable architectural forms [3].

This historical pattern differs from typical economic development. For the economic structure of a country or region, the usual direction of progress is a gradual transition from the primary sector to the secondary and tertiary sectors.

Ancient towns in China generally lack a solid economic foundation and instead make a direct leap to the tertiary sector. Unlike developed countries that can use economic benefits to preserve cultural heritage, these towns often need to leverage cultural heritage to generate economic value.

To address the funding bottlenecks in the early development of ancient towns and achieve quick economic returns, many places bring in external companies to manage the entire town. Examples include Heshun Ancient Town and Shuhe Ancient Town in Yunnan, as well as Wuzhen in Zhejiang [4].

Shuhe Old Town

Although outside companies can bring benefits, the cost is borne by the local residents. Take Hongcun as an example—in 2000, ticket revenue reached over 1.4 million yuan, but only about 30,000 yuan actually went to the village, averaging just 70 yuan per person per year [11].

During the operation process, in order to generate higher profits, tourist shops have been opened in large numbers within the old towns, too many visitors have been accommodated, and even the original residents have been relocated. This has made the old towns less and less like their original selves, and life in these towns has become increasingly less livable.

As early as 2006, a survey by the Department of Architecture at Tongji University on Wuzhen, Xitang, and Nanxun found that in these old towns, tourist-oriented businesses accounted for over 80% of the shops, while those serving residents only made up about 15% [13].The Snowy Ancient Town of Nanxun

This has become the most contradictory aspect of the ancient town itself. In its promotional materials, it’s always described as a place you won’t want to leave once you arrive, the hometown of your dreams. But the reality is that even the residents who have lived there for generations no longer want to stay.

An Ancient Town Without Residents, Only Goods

When cultural displays are solely aimed at maximizing economic returns, rather than preserving and passing on the culture itself, culture becomes nothing more than a symbol in the tourism experience.

As long as there’s a bridge and water, it can be called “little bridge, flowing water”; as long as there are bricks and tiles, it can pass for a leisurely home.

Digging into an ancient town’s unique culture and developing locally distinctive souvenirs often requires a huge investment, with unpredictable results. But cloning a already successful model is much easier.

This is most evident in tourist souvenirs.

For example, at the Leifeng Pagoda scenic area in Zhejiang, souvenirs like keychains, pinwheels, porcelain crafts, wood carvings, models of ancient weapons, amulets, horn combs, jade items, zodiac charms, and Chinese knots have little connection to local history and culture, and you can often find the same items in other tourist spots.The Full Moon over Leifeng Pagoda

These crafts are usually mass-produced, with low costs, and they meet the requirements for travel souvenirs—portable and affordable—so they can be seen everywhere in old towns and other tourist areas.

However, there are only a very limited number of souvenirs related to local characteristics, such as bookmarks of the Ten Scenes of West Lake, small screens of the Ten Scenes of West Lake, and wooden Leifeng Pagodas. In fact, these products can also be easily replicated through simple imitation. For example, they can be made into Mount Huangshan bookmarks or Datong bookmarks[12].

If it’s the same region of old towns, the similarities are even greater. In Zhejiang, almost every water town old town has blue calico, ancient costumes, yellow wine, zongzi, and other goods, and even the dishes in restaurants are similar[5].Dyeing workshops are a standard feature in water town ancient towns.

When Zhouzhuang branded its braised pig trotter as a specialty and named it “Wanshan Trotter,” Tongli Ancient Town got its “Zhuangyuan Trotter,” and Luzhi Ancient Town had its “Fuli Trotter.” It’s not that the wealthy families of Jiangnan were particularly fond of pig trotters—they’re just the easiest to replicate.

And when economic development clashes with cultural preservation, many ancient towns prioritize economic benefits over culture.

In 1998, the Suzhou city government planned to build a tourist highway connecting Zhouzhuang, Tongli, and Luzhi to boost local economic growth, but this plan would have damaged the ancient town landscapes. To stop it, Ruan Yisan wrote several letters to relevant officials demanding the plan be scrapped, even going so far as to say, “If you build that road, I’ll lie down on it and let the car run me over and kill me.” [2]

In the end, the highway was never built. But stopping one road couldn’t halt the relentless wave of overdevelopment in these ancient towns.

Fifteen years later, when Phoenix Ancient Town faced widespread criticism over ticketing issues and its original residents kept moving out, Ye Wenzhi, then chairman of the Phoenix Ancient Town Tourism Company, responded by saying, “The media is all covering Phoenix’s ticket incident. That’s worth hundreds of millions in advertising. Even a bad reputation is still fame [9].”Night in Fenghuang Ancient Town. Now, it’s not what many people imagined Fenghuang to be anymore.

Back then, the tourism economy of Fenghuang Ancient Town was growing at more than double the rate. The income tourism brought to the area mattered more than the tiles on the stilted houses or whether the local residents stayed or left.[1] Compiled by the Research Group on the Protection and Tourism Development of Ancient Towns in Jiangsu, Research on the Protection and Tourism Development of Ancient Towns in Jiangsu, Southeast University Press, 2014.05.

[2] Ruan Yisan, Pan Junxiang. The Zhouzhuang Turmoil Triggered by a Road: Part Three of “The Oral History of Ruan Yisan”[J]. Century, 2019(02):17-20.

[3] Zhao Yong, Zhang Jie, & Qin Zhong. (2005). Research Progress on Historical and Cultural Towns and Villages in China. Urban Planning Forum, 2, 59-64. Page 59.

[4] Research on the Development of Tourism-Oriented Small Towns in China.

[5] Wang Yuncai. (2006). A Comparative Study on Tourism Development Models of Six Ancient Towns in Jiangnan and Sustainable Utilization Strategies. Journal of Central China Normal University (Natural Sciences Edition), 1, 104-109.

[6] Li Qian, Wu Xiaogen, & Tang Shu. (2006). A Preliminary Study on Tourism Development and Commercialization in Ancient Towns. Tourism Tribune, 21(12), 52-57.

[7] Zhao Hongxi. (2002). Local Governments, Enterprises, and Planners in the Development of “Cultural Tourism” in Mainland China: A Case Study of Zhouzhuang, an Ancient Town in Jiangnan (Doctoral dissertation, National Taiwan University, Department of Building and Planning).

[8] How Far Are We from Modern Civilization: Taking the Pulse of Xiangxi’s Economy and Management. Peng Xueming.

[9] Peng Dan. A Study on Tourism Myth: A Case Analysis of the Ancient Town of Phoenix in Xiangxi, Tourism Education Press, 2016.04.

[10] Lu Lin, Ling Shanjin, Jiao Huafu, & Yang Xingzhu. (2004). The Evolution Process and Mechanism of Ancient Villages in Huizhou (Doctoral dissertation).

[11] Lu Song, Lu Lin, Ling Shanjin, & Xu Ming. (2003). A Preliminary Study on the Tourism Development of Ancient Villages in Southern Anhui. Land and Natural Resources Research, 4(7).

[12] Yang Congfeng. (2004). A Study on the Formation of Regional Cultural Characteristics in Tourist Souvenirs.

[13] Wang Yuncai, Shi Yishao, & Chen Tian. (2007). The Commercialization Trend of Ancient Towns in Jiangnan and Its Sustainable Development Strategies: A Case Study of Three Towns in Northern Zhejiang (Doctoral dissertation).Recommended Reading

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