Eight Chengyang Villages
Dear guests, welcome to Eight Chengyang Villages!
Located in Sanjiang Dong Nationality Autonomous County, Eight Chengyang Villages are one adjoined each other, covering an area of 12.55 square kilometers. Viewing by standing at the hillside beside Chengyang Bridge, Linxi River winds its way under the foot. Dong nationality's foot hanging towers near here are situated beside rivers at the foot of mountains, giant water where turns slowly, with rippling sound of water, ease and relaxed, just as life here.
My friends, please look ahead! The bridge in front of us is the world-famous Chengyang Wind and Rain Bridge. The bridge was firstly built in 1912, completed in 1924. It is a canopied bridge completely made of wood, 77.76 meters long and 3.75 meters wide and 11.52 meters high, it was listed as the national cultural relic protection unit in 1982. The Dong people made it for various purposes. They use it for transportation, relaxation and entertainment. It also shelters people from wind and rain. So it is locally named “Feng-Yu-Qiao” in Mandarin. As an integration of bridge, corridor and pavilions, it is highly regarded as a shining pearl in Chinese architecture. It was inscribed to the National Heritage List in China in 1992. It is also known as one of the four renowned historical bridges in the world. The Chengyang Bridge is the landmark of the Dong community.
Dear guests, there stands a tower over there! Yeah, it’s a drum tower.
No matter which village you walk into, the first thing to meet your eye is inevitably a drum tower, resembling either a magnificent pavilion or an exquisite pagoda. Despite their great size, no drum tower is ever built with iron nails. Like the wind and rain bridges, they are built of fir, and neatly connected by tenons and mortises.
In fact, the drum tower is the center of social activities for the Dong people. Once the drum is beaten, people will gather at the tower. From the first to the seventh day of every Spring Festival, besides visiting each other, the Dong also come to the brightly lit up tower to sing together, enlivening the holiday atmosphere. Beginning with the winter solstice in late December, people assemble at the tower to learn new songs. Young people cut golden bamboo on the mountain and bring them to the tower. They invite masters to teach them how to split the bamboo to make bamboo-pipes of various sizes.
Eight Chengyang Villages are a fairyland to the townsmen today, featuring a picturesque landscape and unsophisticated rustic charms. The plain cottages, aged watermills, impressive drum towers, and unique canopied bridge along with exotic folkways are forming a vivid scroll of an ethic Chinese painting. We are welcome all guests from home and abroad to have a splendid journey here.
