Lijiang exists in the imagination long before you arrive.
It’s a name synonymous with romance, a UNESCO World Heritage Site painted in postcards with cobblestone streets, burbling canals, and the dramatic silhouette of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
It is, by all accounts, one of the most beautiful ancient towns in China, a place that promises escape and enchantment.
For decades, Lijiang has occupied a distinctive place in popular imagination; and among tourist destinations it is thought of as a place with spiritual forces and healing power.
Chunmei Du (see “source” at the end)
Lijiang tourism differs from the usual Chinese tourist places that focus on programs consisting of visiting famous sites, taking pictures, and souvenir shopping. It instead presents an alternative model for simple relaxation and lifestyle change.
And yet, few places inspire such divided opinions.
To some, it’s a dreamscape, a perfectly preserved vision of the past.
To others, it’s a magnificent Potemkin village—a flawless theatrical set built for tourism, where culture has become a commodity and every corner is a pre-packaged photo opportunity.
This very tension is what makes Lijiang a compelling destination.
It’s a town of profound contrasts, where surface beauty and a darker, more complex history are deeply intertwined.
To navigate Lijiang is to learn the art of looking twice, of peeling back layers of myth and commerce to find the resilient soul of the Naxi people.
This is not a place for passive sightseeing; it is a landscape that demands your curiosity and calls for further learning.
The Beautiful Labyrinth
To wander through Lijiang’s Old Town is to willingly get lost.
The maze of streets, flanked by rushing waterways and traditional timber-framed houses, is disorienting by design. It’s undeniably stunning. The sound of water is a constant companion, and the dark, fragrant wood of the buildings feels cool to the touch.
But it’s also a performance. The old wooden buildings now house countless souvenir shops, silver merchants, and bustling bars. The air thrums with a commercial energy that can feel at odds with the ancient, tranquil setting you came to find.
A Perspective from Above
The microexplorer’s journey begins here, by accepting this reality and then choosing to look deeper.
Step away from the main arteries and climb. Ascend the winding paths of Lion Hill, which borders the Old Town. Many tourists stop at the base, but paying the fee to enter the park and climb the Wangu Tower is an investment in perspective.
The view from the top is revelatory. The iconic grey-tiled roofs of the Old Town spread out below like the scales of a sleeping dragon, an organic, chaotic cluster of lanes and courtyards.
But beyond this, the modern city of Lijiang stretches out, making it clear that the old town is but a small part of the total city.
From this vantage point, you see Lijiang not as a timeless relic, but as a living, breathing city caught in a struggle for its soul—a small, preserved heart beating within a rapidly growing modern body.
The Sacred Mountain’s Reflection
You can gain another perspective from a walk to the Black Dragon Pool on the northern edge of town.
On a clear day, the park offers the definitive view of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, Lijiang’s guardian mountain, its glaciated peak reflected perfectly in the placid water.
But the view is often obscured by clouds, a fitting metaphor for Lijiang itself.
The mountain is a fickle deity, sometimes granting a perfect, crystalline vision, and other times withdrawing completely behind a veil of mist. Its true nature, like the town’s, is not always so easy to see.
Deconstructing a Dark Romance
Lijiang is often marketed as a city for lovers, a reputation built on a haunting local tradition: love-suicide.
As the popular story goes, young Naxi lovers forbidden to marry by their families would make a pact, leaping to their deaths from the slopes of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain to ensure their eternal union in the afterlife.
It’s a tragic, romantic tale that has been amplified and commercialized, adding to the town’s mystical allure.
A More Complex Reality
The real story is far more complex and politically charged.
Historically, many ethnic groups in Yunnan, including the Naxi, had more egalitarian or even matriarchal social structures where women enjoyed greater autonomy and freedom.
The practice of love-suicide, often initiated by women, can therefore be read not as a simple act of romantic desperation, but as a tragic form of protest against the encroaching, patriarchal norms of Han Chinese society.
As their traditional freedoms were eroded, this final, desperate act was one of the few ways to reclaim agency in a world that was stripping it away.
The Commercialization of a Myth
Today, this painful history of cultural collision and female resistance has been sanitized and flattened into a marketable myth.
Even the idea of a more egalitarian society, with women having more power, has seen a rebrand towards a kind of sex-positive attitude that has gone hand-in-hand with a Chauvinist view of minority women as more exotic, therefore wilder, more erotic.
The narrative conveniently strips away the political context of love-suicide, exoticizes Naxi women, and creates a “what happens in Lijiang, stays in Lijiang” vibe that draws tourists seeking a fleeting, consequence-free romance.
To understand this is to see the town in a new light—to recognize the deep cultural currents flowing beneath the commercial surface and the power of stories to both reveal and conceal the truth.
The Microexplorer’s Path
So, how do you find the ‘real’ Lijiang? You must become an active interpreter, not a passive observer. You find it in the details, and you find it by questioning the stories you are sold.
- Look for life. Notice the small patches of vegetables growing on the edges of the canals—a quiet insistence on daily routine amidst the tourist flow. Wake up early and you might see the local markets in full swing before the souvenir shops have even opened their doors, catching a glimpse of the town before it puts on its makeup for the day.
- Listen. In a town filled with the repetitive beat of souvenir shops and bars, seek out the chance to hear traditional Naxi music. It is a complex and endangered art form, using a unique notation system that looks more like a pictographic map than a musical score. Hearing the ancient, sometimes dissonant, melodies played by elderly musicians is an experience that connects you to a deeper, more authentic soundscape.
- Learn. Use the love-suicide myth as a starting point. Read about the unique Dongba script—one of the world’s last living pictographic languages—and the Naxi belief system. Follow the story of Joseph Rock, the Austro-American explorer and botanist who documented Naxi life in the early 20th century. His detailed writings and photographs provide a vital baseline against which to view the town’s modern transformation. A trip to the village of Yuhu at the foot of Yulong Xueshan, where he lived, becomes less a tourist side-trip and more a pilgrimage to a Lijiang that once was.
Beyond the Postcard
Lijiang challenges the very idea of authenticity. It proves that a place can be both a tourist trap and a site of profound cultural importance. It asks us to be more than consumers of beauty, but active interpreters of a complex reality.
The reward is an experience that transcends the pretty pictures and connects you to the powerful, enduring spirit of a people and their sacred mountain. You come away not just with memories, but with a deeper understanding of how stories are told, sold, and reclaimed.
Source and recommended further reading if you want to dive deeper into the story:
Chunmei Du, “The Love-Suicide Mystique of Naxi: Experiential Tourism and Existential Authenticity.” Frontiers of History in China 2015, 10(3): 486–512
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