Located at the foot of Mount Huangshan, Hongcun village has long been regarded as one of China's most beautiful ancient villages. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com]

Hongcun village at the foot of Yellow Mountain has long been regarded as one of China's most beautiful ancient villages, with its picture-perfect traditional stone courtyard buildings set against the mountains on a serene lake.

Acclaimed Chinese director Ang Lee took its beauty to the big screen in his martial arts epic "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". The village was added to UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage list in 2000.

Today, let's follow our reporter Manli to tour this charming ancient village.

I was brimming over with anticipation as I boarded the bus for this famous village, about half an hour's drive from Mount Huangshan in east China's Anhui Province.

As we approached the village, the roofs of the ancient stone houses were just visible above the stone wall that surrounds the village. The serenity of the river and flowering trees in the foreground and the dramatic mountains in the distance created a poetic vision of an idyllic ancient Chinese village. Groups of painters sitting by the banks of the river were trying to capture the vision.

Most of them were university students majoring in fine arts, keen to create a masterpiece on a beautiful spring day in the Anhui countryside. Zhang Xudong from Hunan Normal University was working hard to capture the village on canvass.

"This village is like a Chinese ink painting. I can't capture its beauty very well with colors, so I am experimenting by using the techniques employed in traditional Chinese landscape paintings and pencil sketches. I chose this perspective because you can see the whole spectacle of the Hui-style architecture from this angle."

The village contains around 150 courtyard homes, family temples and schools that date all the way back to the Ming and Qing dynasties, making them 400 to 500 years old. Around 130 of the original buildings are still in good shape and many are open to the public. Every building and wall is unique. They stand at different heights, lending the village a certain disorganized charm.

The cobbled streets of the village remain exactly the same as they have been for centuries. Every street has a water canal running along it, filling the village with the soothing sound of rushing water. They carry water to every building in the village and empty into a small lake near the entrance.

The men who planned Hongcun village actually planned this ingenious network of canals before anything else in the village. They designed the water supply to comply with the principles of feng shui, then built the village around it.

Our tour guide told us the entire village resembles an ox. The water canals forms the intestines, which empty into the lake that forms the stomach. A hill at the western end of the village resembles the head of an ox, as it has two large trees like enormous horns. The four bridges at the front and rear of the village form the four legs of the ox and the buildings symbolize the body.

Ang Lee immortalized the "stomach lake" in his international hit, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". Two of the leading actors in the film, Chow Yun-fat and Zhang Ziyi, fought desperately as they half-flew, half-ran across the surface of the lake. It's easy to see why the director chose the lake for his film. Everywhere you look, the still waters perfectly reflect the simple, graceful Hui architecture and mountains in the distance.

Time doesn't stand still even in Hongcun village. Tourism is taking off in a big way as more and more city residents tour 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 of the locals now leads 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. His wife runs another handicraft shop in the village. The growth in tourism has allowed him to pursue his passion for music and open the store two years ago.

"I'm a music lover. I want to have such a kind of shop of my own. My biggest wish is to cultivate my child’s talent in this regard."

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 thrive.

"In the old days, there was only a small farmer 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."

But 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 Meleny – 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."

"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 just a place of creativity and beauty right now."

As our 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.