Surrounded by mountains, Lugu Lake is a famed attraction in Lijiang.

Journey of rebirth

But the achievement did not come easily.

The reputation of the ancient city of Lijiang dates back to the late Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) when a Mongolian general Kublai Khan, the first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), occupied the region in 1252 on his way to conquering the Dali Kingdom. Lijiang then became the hub of the ancient tea and horse trading routes linking Sichuan, Yunnan, Tibet and South Asia.

In 1986, architecture professor Zhu Liangwen led 19 teachers and students from an American university to study the buildings of the local Naxi people. Professor Zhu found that some successful local families had begun replacing traditional wooden houses with modern reinforced concrete structures.

The local government also had a plan to develop the economy at the price of leveling a 3.8 sq km ancient residential area in the center of the city.

Zhu immediately wrote the Yunnan provincial government, saying the move would ruin the ancient city.

Fortunately, after reading Zhu's letter and reports of the local construction commission, the provincial government decided to drop the plan.

On February 3, 1996, an earthquake measuring 7 on the Richter scale hit Lijiang, causing the death of 17,366 people and direct economic losses of 4 billion yuan.

When rebuilding the city, the local government then gave priority to protecting the ancient town. Yet whether to remove the original houses and build new ones was subject of heated discussion. An agreement was finally reached to preserve the town as it was before the earthquake.

In repairing the residential facilities, the proposal of "keeping old as old" was adopted.

Professor Zhu, a proponent for the decision, thought that the attraction of the ancient town does not lie in greatness or beauty, but in its simplicity.