Yangshuo, Guangxi | 阳朔 广西
Day 16 | 第十六天
View from New West Street Hotel 2019
Yangshuo, Guangxi | 阳朔广西
After the genealogy-focused part of our trip ended, a few members of our group continued traveling to a neighboring province. Initially, we had planned to visit Hong Kong during this time but, due to ongoing protests, we visited Yangshuo | 阳朔 and Gullin | 桂林 in Guangxi | 广西 instead.
This region of southern China is dominated with a karst landscape that looks like a series of sculptural rolling hills formed by the erosion of limestone. It is part of a larger karst network called the South China Karst, which spreads across the Chinese provinces of Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan, and has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2007.
Yangshuo holds a special place in my memory—rather, Yangshuo circa 1994 does. It’s the first place I traveled to within China during a holiday break from studies in Beijing. In 1994, Yangshuo was known as a backpacker’s town. It catered to foreign tourists and expatriates, and was very likely the only place in China at the time where there might have been more English spoken in restaurants, cafes, and shops than Mandarin. Eateries filled their menus with interpretations of western meals: variations of pizzas, burgers, and sandwiches. There was something enduring about Yangshuo to me as a young student living in northern China and encountering a place in southern China that had become an international destination, yet managed to keep its small town charm.
In 1990s Yangshuo, bikes dominated the area; local streets were filled with small cafes and eateries; and clothing made of batik fabrics—some produced by local indigenous groups—could be tailored within a few hours.
Countryside 1994
Yangshuo, Guangxi | 阳朔广西
West Street 1994
Yangshuo, Guangxi | 阳朔广西
Pantao Road 1994
Yangshuo, Guangxi | 阳朔广西
Bus Depot 1994
Yangshuo, Guangxi | 阳朔广西
I did not know what to expect during this recent visit. I knew things had changed but I intentionally did not research modern day Yangshuo. I wanted to experience it in person.
After a two hour ride on a high speed train from Guangzhou, we arrived in Yangshuo in the late evening. The first thing I noticed as we entered Yangshuo was all the lights radiating off the building complexes. Yangshuo was literally and figuratively glowing from all the signage, street lights, and traffic. After checking into the hotel, a few of us made our way to West Street, which is the main pedestrian area closed off to cars. There is one word to describe West Street—frenetic. West Street was packed with people, rows of bars and eateries, and shops. The energy of Yangshuo had completely changed—it was no longer a small quaint town, but was instead filled with large scale development. Yangshuo had transformed from a place geared towards foreigners to a destination for the burgeoning Chinese middle-class. ■