The scenery of the Hengshan Mountain in Lanxi. Hengshan Mountain is located in the southwest of Lanxi, rising 140 meters above the sea level

Located in the middle western part of Zhejiang province, there is a small city called Lanxi. Honored by Emperor Huizong of the Song dynasty (860-1279) as “Tianxia Jiangnan” or Jiangnan (south of the Yangtze River) under the Heaven, it is known as “the first commercial port of Qiantang”, “the first county of the Republic of China” and “small Shanghai”. It is also the hometown of Li Yu (1611-1680), the “Shakespeare of the East”.

Lanxi, which towers on the shore of Lanjiang River and enjoys a beautiful natural landscape, is a place of profound culture and thriving trade.

Since its establishment in the year 674, the city has witnessed an everlasting culture boom: Confucianism, landscape, food, Chinese medicine ... Nowadays, by tapping into the thousand-year history and rich cultural resources, Lanxi is enhancing its image, recognition, and reputation centering on the culture of Li Yu and developing in a culturally motivated pattern.

In the old town of Lanxi, next to the decorated archway beside the East Gate is an easily neglected, nameless old bookstore. Several small wooden stools of different heights are placed at the entrance, invariably occupied. The owner, Pan Zhiping, was born in 1970. He is also a collector with a collection ranging from little comic books to Lanxi’s local literature.

It is said that if you want to find books related to local history and culture, then old Pan is your man.

A panoramic view of Lanxi

Naturally, his small store has become a gathering place for culture enthusiasts and researchers, who are mostly members of a private organization called Lanxi Literature and History Research Association, including Pan himself. Every year, the association publishes two issues of Lanxi Literature and History. No wonder people say that “Lanxi’s culture is worth digging”.

If you name the top ten well-preserved ancient cities in China, according to expert opinion, Lanxi can be counted as one; if you choose the top 100 well-preserved ancient towns, three in Lanxi can be shortlisted; if you choose the top 1,000 well-preserved ancient villages, Lanxi has at least ten of them. Now, Lanxi has one National Historical and Cultural District (Tianfu Mountain Community), eight Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level, 37 Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the Provincial Level, and more than 2,600 registration points for cultural relics. It is one of the areas where ancestral halls are distributed most densely nationwide and has the largest number of ancient academies in Zhejiang.

Lanxi is also home to famous people in history and culture. According to some statistics, there are more than 400 poets who have visited Lanxi and generously praised the beautiful place with their poems.

Nowadays, everyone is talking about a crossover — in fact, Li Yu has long been a crossover pioneer, for he held many “titles”: poet, novelist, playwright, theater theorist, publisher, gourmet, garden artist, social activist and so on. Today, over 400 years after his living age, Li Yu has clearly become the icon of Lanxi. Li Yu Road, Li Yu Drama, Li Yu Tea, Li Yu Home Brew ... traces of him are simply everywhere. Under his influence, the Lanxi folks are easy-going and laid-back, and they love enjoying their days in a leisure way, drinking tea and eating snacks while watching a play.

The picturesque Zhuge village at dusk

In recent years, Lanxi has taken “Li Yu culture” as the starting point, setting up Li Yu research associations, studying Li Yu’s thoughts and exploring relevant cultural resources in depth. A series of activities themed “Return to the Mustard Seed Garden” have been held, where domestic and foreign artists are invited to gather in Lanxi and exchange thoughts on traditional culture. Lanxi has also co-hosted Li Yu Drama Festival with the Chinese Theater Association, and launched activities including “Touring Lanxi with Wuju opera”, all of which have effectively enriched Li Yu culture, and promoted the creative inheritance of traditional culture such as Wuju opera.

Compared with the fast-paced urban life, the days in Lanxi are in slow motion, just like the way described by Li Yu’s Xianqing Ouji (Casual Expressions), leisurely and elegantly pursuing a wise, exquisite life of quality.

Today, going to Yubu town for morning tea is a new passion for many people. The well-preserved old street even attracts the fashionable Shanghai girls to come here and have a nice cup of morning tea, just as the old generations did. Recently, Lanxi has made a great effort to revitalize its traditional culture by focusing on its profound historical and cultural heritage, encouraging first-rate literary creation, and creating cultural tourism projects.

As a city that has been focusing on industrial development, Lanxi is now modernizing its industrial relics. For example, an old cotton factory in Lanxi has been transformed into Lanxi Cotton 1957 Cultural and Creative Park, which is the first cultural and creative neighborhood of Lanxi with the theme of “urban memories and industrial relics”, loved and frequented by many young people.

The days in Lanxi are also full of flavors. Since ancient times, merchants from all over the world have gathered and traded here, and different food cultures have been thus developed. In Lanxi, you can find more than 300 kinds of snacks, such as beef noodles, egg-stuffed pastry and salty glutinous rice balls. It has won the title of “Zhejiang’s the Famous City of Food” and “The China’s the Famous City of Food”, the first-ever in Zhejiang.

In June 2021, the Lanxi Food Development Center was inaugurated, which is an agency of the highest order set up to promote local cuisine in Zhejiang. Later, a series of initiatives and policies were released, such as the top ten projects of Lanxi cuisine, the group standard and supporting policies of Lanxi beef noodles, the demonstration standards of Lanxi model restaurants, etc., which will become a new way to increase people’s income and improve their well-being as a whole.  

Editor: Huang Yan