With its interconnected series of courtyards and rooms – including a shrine, mahjong room, opium room and study – Chenzhitang has been named "A Living Ancient Residential Museum" and “the forbidden city in the countryside”. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com]

As we wandered through the complex, rectangular skylights in the ceilings provide our ventilation and light. The roofs all slope in a way that ensures that when it rains, all the water flows down to the openings that make up the skylights and into the rooms, where they are collected. The locals call this practice "four sides of water returning to the main hall of the houses” and believe it prevents their fortunes from running off outside the house.

The clever businessman who once lived here had the doors at the side entrance to the complex engraved with the Chinese character for "business". Our tour guide said he used this to have a secret joke at the expense of some of his guests. Businessmen used to have a lower social status than government officials, farmers and tradesmen. The master of the house subverted these social rules by asking all his higher-ranking guests to step through the side doors and walk under the sign of the business.

We wandered out to the tree-lined courtyard, where the daughter of the house once liked to rest by the goldfish pond. Our tour guide points to a small hole on the second storey of the house. She says open-minded father of the house constructed it to allow his daughter to spy on the young men who visited the house and select her future spouse.

After we left the house, we discovered time doesn't stand still even in Hongcun village. Tourism is taking off in a big way as more and more city residents pour into the village. A lot of the buildings have now been transformed into shops selling souvenirs like tea, bamboo carvings and wax paintings.

My curiosity about the lives the locals now lead led me into a store that sells traditional folk instruments. The 30-something owner, Han Shaohui, comes from a family that has lived in the village for generations. The growth in tourism allowed him to pursue his passion for music and open the store two years ago.

"My wife runs another handicraft shop in the village. I’m a music lover. My biggest wish is to cultivate my child’s talent in this regard,” he said.

The new wave of visitors has made the village much noisier than it was before, but Han Shaohui said he welcomes all the tourists who have helped his business to thrive.

“In the old days, there was only a small peasant economy here. But the tourist boom in recent years has made our lives better. My shop turns over about 100 yuan every day, so I earn around 10,000 yuan each year,” he said.

Han Shaohui is concerned about the impact tourists are having on the village environment. He said art students sometimes pollute the water canals and river by pouring their paint into the waters. Their thoughtless actions have rendered the water undrinkable because the village has no way to discharge the pollutants. The villagers now have to obtain their drinking water from the mountains many kilometers away. Han Shaohui said he hopes the local government will act to prevent the water from becoming even more polluted.

Every house in Hongcun seems to be filled with the memories of centuries past, even though the village has not escaped the concerns of the present. As we began to make our way back to the tour bus, I wished I had time to linger in every house, examine every door frame and carving.

Two other big city people – Mike Kou and Mileny – I met felt the same way. They had escaped their home from Shanghai to visit Hongcun and Mount Huangshan for the weekend. The peaceful countryside village had worked its charm on them too.

"It is very unique. That's one of the reasons we are here. We went into a very tiny alley, away from most of tourists. You truly have the feeling, you know, very quiet, in an ancient village just by yourself. That's very nice," Mike Kou said.

"It is absolutely stunning. It's spring so there are beautiful blossoms on the trees on the edges of the water. The contrasts and colors are so vivid. It's is just a place of creativity and beauty right now," Mileny added.

As our tour bus departed the village, I looked back at the gorgeous Hongcun landscape one last time, which really does look like a vision from an ancient Chinese painting. It's an ideal place for anyone who needs to escape the relentless modernity of the city, as well as architects, photographers and artists in search of inspiration.