Xidi

Where it sits. Xidi occupies a narrow valley about eleven kilometres east of Hongcun, in the same corner of Yi County in southern Anhui, hemmed by low wooded hills and threaded by three small streams. The village is long rather than broad: one main street running roughly east to west, two parallel lanes flanking it, and a dense mesh of alleys connecting the three. Its original name was Xichuan, meaning west river, after the watercourses that shaped the site. The approach road drops into the valley from the north, and the first thing visible above the tiled roofs is a tall stone arch standing alone at the village entrance, which is exactly where the story of the place begins.

The Hu family. Xidi was first built during the Huangyou reign period of the Song emperor Renzong, between 1049 and 1053. Its fortunes are inseparable from the Hu clan, whose lineage tradition traces back to Hu Shiliang of Wuyuan, in turn descended from a son of the Tang emperor Zhaozong who was adopted into the Wuyuan Hu family — a genealogy the village has never been shy about. By 1465 clan members had moved into merchant trade, and the money that came back from the salt and pawnbroking businesses of the lower Yangtze built the halls and infrastructure that survive. Through the seventeenth century the family's influence extended from commerce into officialdom, and Xidi peaked in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries at roughly 600 households. When the imperial economy unwound in the late nineteenth century, the Huizhou merchant network collapsed with it, and construction simply stopped — which is why the village froze in the shape it holds today.

The archway and the halls. The stone arch at the entrance is the Memorial Archway of Hu Wenguang, raised in 1578 for a Ming official of the clan: three bays, four pillars and five tiers of dark local stone, carved with lions and cloud panels. Thirteen such arches once stood around Xidi; this is the only survivor, spared because it was briefly repurposed rather than quarried for building material. Beyond it, some 224 old residences remain, of which around 124 Ming and Qing timber houses are considered well preserved, and many are open. Look for the Hall of Respect and the Hall of Reminiscence, the Dafu Di residence with its cantilevered upper window, and repeated inscriptions above doorways urging descendants to read, trade honestly and stay modest. The carving here is the point: brick lintels, stone window screens cut like lattice-work, and timber brackets worked into layered scenes of figures and foliage.

On screen. Xidi's cinematic record is quieter than its neighbour's, and it is worth being precise about that. It was Hongcun, eleven kilometres west, that Ang Lee used for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Hongcun that has traded on the association ever since. Xidi's role in Chinese screen culture is different and more continuous: it is the Huizhou village that domestic television crews use when they need working merchant streets rather than a decorative pond, and it appears constantly in period serials, documentaries and advertising shot in Anhui. The two villages were inscribed together by UNESCO in 2000 as the Ancient Villages in Southern Anhui, and the practical effect of the joint listing is that most visitors arrive with a combined ticket, see Hongcun first, and reach Xidi with an hour to spare — which makes Xidi the calmer half of the pair for anyone willing to reverse the order.

What the visit feels like. Because Xidi has no large body of water at its centre, the experience is architectural rather than scenic: you spend your time indoors and in shadowed lanes rather than looking at reflections. Granite paving, whitewashed walls streaked with damp, and stepped horse-head gables that block fire from jumping between houses give the village a strong graphic quality in overcast weather. Several hundred residents still live here, and the courtyards you enter are frequently somebody's home with the front room ticketed. Shops sell ink stones, bamboo carvings and the local chrysanthemum tea; a handful of guesthouses occupy converted halls, and staying overnight gives you the main street empty at both ends of the day.

Getting there and timing. Yi County town is the local road hub, with buses from Huangshan Bus Station at Tunxi and connections from Tangkou below the Huangshan cable cars; the nearest high-speed rail is Huangshan North, about ninety minutes away by road. Spring brings rapeseed to the fields immediately outside the village and is the busiest short season, roughly the last ten days of March into April. Autumn is drier and clearer. Winters are cold and damp, and the unheated old halls feel it. Expect uneven granite paving, high stone door sills and steep interior stairs, none of which suit wheelchairs or unsteady footing.