关麓图片Guanlu village Pictures

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One thing I appreciated here was the total absence of tourists or students, unlike the previous three villages whose numbers of sightseers were at the critical level of infection. While I was roaming the empty village, I met two advance photography students who came here prepared with high-end large format cameras, Hasselblads and the latest professional digital 35mm cameras, lights and reflectors, and large tripods and stands. This small quiet village will be their playing field for the week, where their passion will drive them to preserve the village through their images before the onslaught of tourists that had consumed the likes of Xidi and Hongcun. Their professor back back in 杭州市Hangzhou city recommended that they consider this village as their project. When I spoke with them, I sensed their deep frustration at what they see as people's total ignorance of cultural heritage and its irreplaceable value. They were upset at the disrepair of the buildings and the displacement of money for its restoration and protection.  Although there were widespread sabotage several decades ago, there is none of these wildness today. What there is, however, is a rush to set up areas (any area that have a hint of historical value or uniqueness) as tourist spots. Consequently, for those who cares, a distinctive sloppiness can be found in the restorations of original works and a low quality workmanship in reconstructions and other accessories. This is merely my general observation and is not true in all areas. For example, these villages are well-preserved and authentic, but I find the atmosphere unnatural.  I also find the Great Wall to be authentic even if sloppily restored (the Great Wall probably bankrupted the Ming empire, it will very likely bankrupt today's government to rebuild it, or restore much of it), because the Wall is more a piece of engineering and military design than any fine architecture. And its aura depends much on its concept, history, myths and legends, magnitude and other intangibles.

Although sabotage and negligence is a concern, I find the promotion of these places as a "living museum" more troubling. "Living museum" is a oxymoron. By promoting it as a museum, one automatically set it aside as dead history. Thus, people come here to see the wonderful buildings and people from the past.  And the tour guides hold up their speakers while blasting about the history of this and that, and how people had lived like this for 400 years. Things are taken out of context and history is entertainment; you hear people come and go, talking about the great white walls. We ought to treat these areas as logical consequences of its local cultures and landscape. It survival as such has its own reason and not because it has historical value. It lives in the present and ought not to be alienated by popular promotions. Instead, the general well-being of the area should be reinvigorated so that there will be people at home to take care of things, otherwise termites will do the job.

I am in the line of thinking that things ought to come and go naturally. There is a lifespan to everything. One should not fool oneself into thinking that one does this and that for anything's own good. I rather witness all these historical monuments deteriorate and crumble naturally than to see them as useless, untouchable dead museum objects that is taken out of context and cannot relate to the living. There is no need to keep everything nor is it possible. Nor is the selection process always fair. What people should concern, however, is not the site itself but what cause us to think about that site. Is it in our time that we cannot duplicate or improve on the past that we find ourself feeling wonderful walking down the narrow lanes, something that we cannot find in our own streets?

But I was delighted at my decision to come here. It is small village but feels like a magic box that have endless variations. I will surely come back again.