Exploring Xizhou Viilage (喜洲古镇) on our way from Dali to Lijiang

10 September 2024

Xizhou Old Village (喜洲古镇) is a town with a history of more than 1000 years. It is located just 18 km north of Dali Old Town in Dali City. It is hence worthwhile to pay this town a visit during our road trip from Dali to Lijiang.

The town consists of 13 small villages with a combined population estimated at 2,500, mostly consisting of Bai people with a small population of Hui and Han residents.

Morning Market

One of the best things to do in this town is to visit the local morning market to see authentic daily life.

The Xizhou's daily morning market is one of the largest in the Dali valley and draws farmers and vendors from nearby villages. 

We explored the produce market with many vendors selling fresh vegetables, tropical fruits, live chickens, dried spices and many items not found in our markets back home.

Colourful fruits for sale. These include the dragon fruit (lower right corner), yellow persimmons, fresh dates etc.

Pomegranate with hundreds of juicy edible seeds inside.

These peaches, plums and prunes are sold by weight. Pick any combination and the price is based on the weight.

Led by our local guide, we sampled and purchased fruits at the morning market like locals. 

Walnuts are in season at this moment.  

Our guide demonstrating how the fresh walnuts are cracked to get to the edible fresh inside.

Enormous winter melons.

Edible aquatic plants from the Erhai Lake.

Tiny live crustaceans from the lake or rivers.

Not sure what vegetable or fruits are these. Looks like eggplants.

These are cheese. The one on the right has ham in it.

Our guide buying some local cheese-based snacks for us to sample.

The morning market is a vivid representation of the Bai daily life. We saw the Bai ladies dressed in their traditional clothes and engaged in the lively trade of farming products.

 

Covered wet market section.

Pork is sold openly on wooden tables. Not a fly was seen.

Pigs’ blood and innards.

Spices and pickles that are so colourful.

This is the type of kimchi (pickled sour cabbage) that was used to cook the sweet pea leaves we ate for lunch in Dali.

See the preserved ancient Bai houses

Many historical Bai residences are well-preserved in Xizhou Town. There are about 150 old preserved houses in the ancient town. We had already seen the insides of the traditional Bai house, so we just took a stroll around the town to see some of the old houses from outside.

Streets of Xizhou.

This is the old house that used to belongs to No 1 scholar and advisor to the Emperor.

This used to be village chief's house.    

           Clay mixed with straw used in construction.  

Another ancient preserved house.

Our guide explaining the significance of the red colour poster. This is basically a statement of donations (who contributed, how much) and expenses for some local festival.

Visit a embroidery school

After a quick tour to see some of the ancient Bai houses, our guide brought us to Happy Embroidery, which is an embroidery school for the local Bai minority women.

Entrance to the Happy Embroidery workshop.

The school is one of the filming locations for popular Chinese drama “Meet Yourself” starring actress Liu Yi Fei.

Paintings of western scenery are in the back of the entrance gate.

Courtyard of the school where some scenes from the drama were filmed.

We could see some local women busy with their work. Here the school sponsors, funds and trains local minority girls to do some amazing embroidery to help support their families. While attending the school, the students are given materials to produce work that can be displayed and sold in gallery in the school.

The raw materials for the threads used in the embroidery are silk and these came from silkworms. There are baskets with silkworm cocoons drying in the courtyard.

Baskets containing silkworm cocoons are dried in the sun.

Each cocoon can produce a single strand of fine silk fibre that is 800 to 1,000 meters . The fine fibers are then spun into threads. Usually 8 fibers per thread. These threads are the spun again to form thicker threads.

These thick silk threads are separated by hand to get the finer silk fibers before used in sewing.

Simple design produced by the student.

Watching the students at work. The students need to have good eyesight and steady hands for this intricate work.

Time table in the school showing the activities from Monday to Saturday. Sunday is rest day. This school has 4 sessions per day.

After watching the girls at work, we went to see the finished articles in the gallery. Simple works by students which takes about 3 man-days to complete sells for 200 RMB. Works by masters with years of experience can sell for tens of thousands of RMB and their work could take more than 300 man-days to complete.

Many of the works are based on paintings by famous local painters. Common themes are goldfishes, flowers, fengshui symbols and landscapes.

This magnificent lion caught our attention. Even the dark background is formed by fine needle work. It was done by a master which 25 years of experience and took him 13 months to complete. Price: 98,000 RMB.
Waiting for our driver to pick us after our tour of the town.

Surrounding Xizhuo town are some green paddy fields. These would turn beautiful golden yellow in October due to the ripening rice. 

Eat the local Xizhou baba (pancakes)

Another activity that visitors should do at Xizhou is to try the famous local snack called the Xizhou Baba or pancake.

There are numerous stalls selling these snacks but our guide told our driver to stop at a particular roadside stall to buy them. She said this stall uses the charcoal fired oven instead of electric oven. Hence the taste would be better and more authentic.

This crispy pancake is available in both sweet and savory flavours. She bought both types for us to try. The savoury version is loaded with spring onions and salty pork.  

Crispy and savoury Xizhou baba loaded with spring onions and salty pork.

The other is a sweet version loaded with jam made from brown sugar and rose. It usually takes about 3 months to make the jam. 

Xizhou baba with jam made from brown sugar and rose.

The pancakes were delicious and was sufficient to keep us busy during our drive to Lijiang.