A glimpse of Han Ying's Bing Ling Ge, or ice slice pavilion, on July 30, 2009. The home inn in Nanping village, Yixian County of east China's Anhui Province, is an ancient house built during the Ming and Qing dynasties. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com]

Han opened her home as an inn in 2001 when tourism in Nanping village started to take off. Located close to the world cultural heritage sites of Hongcun and Xidi, Nanping also developed quickly over the past years but managed to maintain in its original form and remain less commercialized.

Han built a new section with internet access in the backyard of her old building in 2005 to better accommodate the growing number of visitors. That gives the lodgers enough freedom to choose from the modern and the ancient.

A night's stay in the ancient house costs 80 to 100 yuan ($12-$15). Han and her husband earn 20,000 yuan or 30,000 yuan annually from running their inn. Although the amount is not huge, Han says she is very content with her present life where "doing business is just a method rather than the goal" - the same as it was for the ancient Hui merchants.

Every year students visit Han's inn during their summer holidays to paint. She likes to tell them about the history of her house and their village traditions. She is so familiar with and fond of the Hui culture that her eyes sparkle when she describes legends or explains the meaning of emblem decorations. Han once studied in a technical secondary school, but has learned all of this on her own.