Zhejiang Province - Xitang 西塘

Xitang is a waterside town noted for its winding streams; boats, arched bridges and whitewashed old dwellings. The town is divided into new and old parts. The old part, with most of the houses built in the Ming and Qing dynasties, is applying to be listed among the World Heritage Sites of UNESCO together with five other Jiangnan (South of the Yangtse River) waterside towns. They are Zhouzhuang, Tongli, and Luzhi in Jiangsu Province, and Nanxun and Wuzhen in Zhejiang Province. Unlike Nanxun and Zhouzhuang, tourists have not yet spoiled Xitang. Narrow, winding lanes, called “Long” in the local dialect, are a part of Xitang’s charm. Mostly one or two meters wide with high walls and elegant gables on both sides, they are paved with flagstones. When the tourist enters one of these deep and tranquil lanes, no matter where it might lead, to a guesthouse, a garden, an old house or a snack bar, s/he feels that s/he has stepped back to an older more charming time. There are 122 lanes in Xitang, five of which are more than 100 meters long. The Shipi Long is the most famous lane in the town. With an average width of less than one meter, the 68-meter-long lane is known for its narrowness: People weighing more than 80 kilometers must walk sideways to get through. Like many Jiangnan townships, Xitang is on the water. The waterways, crisscrossing the town, provide another means of getting about. Dark-awning boats are innumerable. Some shuttle back and forth for passengers, some drift with fishermen and others are berthed along the riverbank rocking slightly in the spring breeze. Most of the homes beside the waterways have small flagstone berths, where women used to wash clothes and vegetables. However, water lines now reach every family living in the town. People living in the old part of the town are mostly elderly. The long porches on the embankments, which are seldom found in other Jiangnan towns, create pleasant shade for local residents. Strolling beneath the 1,300 meters of porches and black tiles, tourists get a glimpse of old dwellings on the other side of the river. With lofty gables, flying eaves, they exude a genuine classical elegance. The museums, all in old houses, featured exhibitions of the traditional winemaking facilities of the area, tree-root carvings, traditional Chinese bricks and tiles and traditional Chinese woodcarving from the Ming and Qing dynasties. Except the temples, which harbour some newly restored but crude Buddhist clay statues, all these sights warranted close attention.

With about 100 of them, Xitang is also known as a town of bridges. Broad and arched, narrow and flat, many of them are made of stone and were constructed hundreds of years ago. They provide an insight into the town’s former glory. Built in the period 1716 to 1719, with a height of 5.5 meters, the curving Wolong Bridge is the highest and thus the most conspicuous in Xitang. Standing on top of it, the tourist could see black-tiled roofs in the old part of Xitang rolling away into the distance, all in sharp contrast to the cement high-rises towering up in the new town. The old town is small.

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