Longsheng

Fenced in on all sides by mountains, the town of Longsheng is situated in the northeast of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, 100 km away from Guilin.  Longshen features the folkways of the ethnic Zhuangs and Yaos, hot spring sanatoriums, and the world's most spectacular Dragon-Ridge Terraced Fields. Other tourist sights around Longsheng include forest reserves and unusual stone formations.

Longsheng town is an enchanting place. The seemingly endless mountains are not only host to a rich variety of plants, animals, and minerals, but also create a wonderful atmosphere of seclusion and stark beauty. Hot Spring National Park and the Dragon's Spine Rice Terraces are second to none in terms of their natural beauty, and the same can be said of the rugged hills and cliff faces of the Yangmen Gorge, which are even viewable from below to the visitor who chooses to take a ride down the river.

Though the region around Longsheng is covered with terraced rice fields, in the Dragon-Ridge Terraced Fields these feats of farm engineering reach all the way up a string of 800m peaks. They were first built in the Yuan dynasty and completed in the Qing dynasty by Zhuang people. A half-hour climb to the top delivers an amazing vista. The coiling line spirals up from the mountain foot to the top, making the mountain looks like huge snail seen from afar.

Come for the dancing, the Pole Dancing of the Zhuang, the Reed-Pipe Dancing, Bride-Carrying-Water and Long Drum Dancing of the Yao to the Incense Dancing of Miao; come for the food, the fragrant Pearl Oil Tea Of the Miao and the mellow Dragon's Spine Wine of the Zhuang, the Alid Banquet of the Dong and the Bamboo Rice of the Yao, all of which possess their own inimitable ethnic flavor; come for the architecture, the ingeniously-built Drum Tower, the Wind and Rain Bridge of the Dong and the Dras Jiac Tower of the Zhuang; come for any of these, but come anyway, and know that these people's proudest possession is their hospitality, which can make even the simplest scenery wondrous.

And how could it not be wondrous, when the clothing worn by even the peasants lights up in front of the eye like fireworks! See the women of Dazhai in their embroidered pink costumes, or the heavy, silver earrings, and extremely long hair of the Yao women, or the white shirts, black pants and brightly-colored turbans of the Zhuang women in Ping'an, standing out like little festivals even as they work in the fields.