Shaoyang is in Hunan, in Central China.
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Hunan · City Guide
Shaoyang, Danxia Peaks and the Book That Moved Japan.
Overview
Why Go
Langshan in Xinning County was inscribed as part of China Danxia in 2010. Red sandstone has weathered into columns, domes and slot passages, with farmland and villages running right up to the base of them.
Wei Yuan, born in Longhui in 1794, compiled an atlas of the world beyond China in 1842. It was reprinted repeatedly in Japan and read closely there in the years before the Meiji Restoration. His house still stands.
Huayao Yao women work their cross-stitch from the back of the cloth, counting threads, with no drawn pattern to follow. The design just appears the right way round when the piece is turned over and finished.
Tantou makes its own paper from local bamboo, grinds its own pigments and cuts its own blocks, so a New Year print there goes from raw cane to finished sheet inside one town. Few print traditions still do all of it.
Nanshan in Chengbu is high open pasture at around 1,760 metres, grazed by cattle and cut by wind turbines. Finding a treeless upland like this at this latitude is not what the province prepares visitors for.
See
The danxia area at Xinning, with Chilli Peak standing free at about 180 metres, the Bajiaozhai ridge of stacked domes, and Tianyi Lane, a slot passage 0.33 metres wide at its tightest. Two days to cover it.
High pasture on the Guangxi border with cattle, turbines and long views, now inside a national park pilot. The road up climbs steeply and the weather changes fast. A full day from Chengbu town.
Villages in Longhui where the Huayao branch of the Yao live, distinguished by their embroidery and wide round hats. Terraces, old maple groves and a festival cycle through summer. Stay a night to see anything.
Workshops in Longhui printing door gods on paper they make themselves, with the bamboo soaking pits and pigment stones on the same premises. Just a handful of families still work. Ninety minutes.
A timber and brick courtyard house in the hills at Simenqian, kept as it was, with an exhibition on the atlas he compiled. Remote enough that visitors need a car. Forty minutes on site.
Ming stone walls and gates survive in stretches around the old county town, which was a princely seat under the Ming. The brined-food shops that make the town's name are inside the same few streets.
On the Map
Approximate locations of the attractions above, across Shaoyang.
Eat
Tofu mashed with pig's blood and diced pork, rolled into balls and hung over the kitchen fire until they are black and hard. Sliced and steamed or fried, they are dense and smoky and keep for months.
A local goose breed simmered in a spiced master stock that shops keep going for years, served cold in slices. The same pot does tofu, eggs and duck wings, which is what many people actually buy.
Fish and pork packed with glutinous rice and salt in sealed barrels and left for months or years, which turns them sour, soft and sharp. Miao and Dong households in Chengbu and Suining keep barrels going for a decade.
Do
The slot narrows to about a third of a metre and runs several hundred metres between vertical red walls. Go sideways, leave the pack, and do not attempt it with a large camera bag on the back.
Each colour is a separate block and the paper has to line up on every pull, which is why the workshops let visitors watch but not help. They sell sheets straight off the block.
The pasture is ideally walked rather than driven, and the weather turns from sun to cloud inside an hour at that height. Take a windproof layer even in July; the nights are cold year round.
Ask a Huayao stitcher to show visitors the reverse of a finished piece. Working blind from the back is the technique, and seeing both sides is the sole way the skill registers.
When
Warm and green, the danxia at its peak against new crops, and the Yao festival season starting. Rain comes in bursts rather than days.
Hot below and pleasant on Nanshan, which fills with Hunan visitors escaping the heat. Book the pasture accommodation well ahead.
Dry, clear and the strongest stretch: navel oranges around Langshan from November, and the cleanest light on the red rock.
Cold, with ice on Nanshan and the mountain roads sometimes closed. Print workshops are busiest before the lunar new year.
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Shaoyang is in Hunan, in Central China.
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