Wuyuan

About Wuyuan

Tucked into the northeastern corner of Jiangxi, Wuyuan is the poster-child of 'Chinese pastoral.' Mist braids around emerald karst peaks, while yellow rapeseed quilts cover terraced fields in spring. Black-tiled, white-walled Hui-style villages lie half-hidden among camphor forests, their upturned eaves frozen mid-flight. Locals still speak a soft Huizhou dialect, burn bamboo for charcoal, and drink tea brewed from mountain springs. Settled 1,200 years ago during the Tang dynasty, Wuyuan became the ancestral heartland of the Huizhou merchants whose wealth financed the ornate ancestral halls and stone archways that still stand. It is the birthplace of Neo-Confucian master Zhu Xi and the cradle of the 'Three Carvings' (brick, wood, stone) and 'Two Carvings' (ink, seal). Today, UNESCO lists its Nuo dance as intangible heritage, and every spring villagers parade 100-metre dragon lanterns to pray for harvest. Dishes follow the Huizhou maxim 'no vegetable too plain, no meat too rich.' Signature plates include steamed 'pouch' red carp braised in wine lees, tofu stuffed with minced pork and river shrimp, then clay-pot steamed, Qingming 'green dumpling' stuffed with bamboo-shoot pork or sweet sesame, and air-dried pork belly rolled in rice flour and steamed with tea leaves.