Choosing the “unpopular place” is our tribute to the poetic world. If you divide China roughly by provinces, each one has a place that locals instantly deem “remote.” Wealth and people have gathered around centers for centuries; these places, remote by definition, received fewer and fewer visitors—until one day, they embraced a new name: “hidden realms.”

Like a chapter of old countryside memories that never breaks character, the winding mountain roads were once walking paths and bike routes. Mountains may have slowed the spread of WeChat among elders, but they never blocked the quiet wisdom that has flowed in Chinese blood for generations: till in sunshine, read in rain, let kindness nourish the home.

 

E119°10', N28°14', Songyang County
DaLeZhiYe · Songyang
Head 30 km west: just one hour from the lodge to rediscover the “nearby” we often ignore.
Wild Notes | Thirty Kilometers West · vol.11

A #Songyang Route to Wash the Dust Off Your Heart

Song Dynasty scholar Shen Hui, a top-ranking “zhuangyuan,” once said: “Only this Peach Blossom Land, surrounded on all sides, free from worry.” Songyang was his homesickness, and National Geographic’s dreamland. For the children who grew up here, homesickness and wanderlust are the things waiting beyond morning fog when they put down their bamboo flutes.

【Memory I · Red Paper & the Backbone of China】

At 72, Wu Changrong rushed to us after carrying cement in the fields, writing four characters by hand. His brush trembled from labor, his strokes stained with sweat and ink; yet muscle memory from youth remained. He said he once passed the college exam but could not afford tuition, so he stayed in Songyang all his life. “I’m not a calligrapher,” he insisted, “but the couplets for two villages during festivals are always written by me.” After finishing the piece, he went straight back to work.

We followed the trail of ink marks in the ancestral hall to find him, just to frame his writing as a keepsake. No signature needed—he was the only one who should write it. Red paper is the most ordinary yet most hopeful symbol of private Chinese life; and the four characters he wrote—“Accumulated Kindness Brings Long Fortune”—hold the continued wishes of unsung scholars who never entered officialdom.

【Memory II · A Village-Level Destination】

Deep in mountains where peaks rise beyond peaks, Songyang holds the largest arable plain in southwest Zhejiang—the Songgu Basin. Songyang is already “a small place,” and we insisted on going even smaller. Our goal was simple: to witness real farming.

Yangjiatang—Songzhuang—You Tian—Xikeng—Chenjiapu…
Songyang is a constellation of tiny landlocked villages. Unlike trendy online recommendations, XiaoHouShe Village sits 800 m above sea level, with few houses and abundant farmland.

Xiaohoushe Village

The village’s central path is a cattle trail—and also a path for chickens and ducks. Every step is a living documentary of farming. Between homes, traces of seeds and harvests are everywhere. Wandering casually, following roaming animals, you reach the 140-year-old oak at the entrance for shade. Plants of all kinds line the route; the village is small yet vibrant, its people simple and generous—tea is offered before you even ask.

While the outside world treats solar terms like *Lichun, Yushui, Jingzhe…* as poetic rituals, here in the deep mountains, they mark the schedule of rice seedlings to harvest: “sitting the roots—stretching the leaves—swelling the belly—closing the grain—eel-yellow ripeness…”

Even if you are only passing through one moment in this agricultural rhythm, you can feel the peace of “hands planting green seedlings.” Farming teaches patience, restraint, effort, and surrender. When both people and grains bow toward the earth—more substance, less vanity—a year of humble meals is secured. In this eternal cycle, youth turns slowly grey. Elderly women with bound feet once lived here all their lives without visiting the next village over. Fewer interactions froze time among the fields.

The village preserves its original architecture. Hakka and She ancestry shaped its geography and clan houses—some with the “four-water-returning-to-the-hall” courtyard style, others with sweeping roofs. If you care for Chinese pastoral poetry, everything described in the classics still exists here.

Walls glow golden like ripened rice; traditional couplets still read “Family of Farming and Reading” or “Generations Nurtured by Books.” Tools for plowing, harrowing, and sifting sit beside symbols of music, chess, calligraphy, and painting—farming tied to learning, farming tied to commerce, and today, farming tied to travel. We don’t wish to rebuild houses; only to fill small spaces between fields and neighbors, using local timber and earth, to make room for guests.

【Memory III · The Literal Meaning of Clarity】

We never understood why people say you must “bravely venture into” the Ruoliao Primeval Forest. Yes, it looks untouched, almost unvisited—but no, it requires neither bravery nor strength. This is the clearest place we have seen in years. From the foot of the mountain, fallen petals follow the stream; in just half an hour you understand the literal meaning of “clarity.”

Perhaps this is also the literal meaning of “Lishui”—“beautiful water.” Along the trail are rare plants; but please, take nothing. Beauty this fragile cannot withstand the “check-in” culture—immerse, don’t extract.

【Memory IV · From Kindness to Trust】

On the return journey, we visited the Huang Family Courtyard. Once wealthy merchants in tea and tobacco, they shipped goods from Songyang’s port via the Ou River to the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. For generations, they opened granaries to aid villagers during famine. The plaque “Grace Extending to the People” still hangs today. In Songyang, wealth grows from soil, and whether rich or poor, people never lose their delicate balance of farming, learning, and commerce.

Through dynastic upheavals, the Huang family served as peaceful gentry—hosting war-time headquarters, military banquets, and later a People’s Commune. Carved beams and Western-style wings record how late Qing transitioned toward modernity, preserving stories of integrity, hardship, and humanity—Songyang’s past written in wood and stone.

Anti-climax choices are not always right; consumerism is unavoidable. But without deep reading and anti-climax travel, nothing meaningful can be gained. Places long overlooked are now giving poetic answers to the world.      Here, among villages with 500 years of history, we choose again the anti-climax route—letting the heart turn outward while the body goes inward.      To Lishui Songyang—quietly gifting us beauty without demanding a price.      And may you, someday, arrive.

1 · Wash the Heart, Collect Old-Time Treasures

Keywords: old streets, wooden carvings
Route: DaLeZhiYe Songyang — Huang Family Courtyard — Old Songyang Street — Return
(Huang Courtyard is 36 km away, ~54 mins drive, entry ¥30; exquisite wood carvings worth admiring. Then 15 mins to Old Street—try salt-braised chicken & Baisen noodles. Return ~33 km, ~45 mins.)

2 · Into the Mountains, Meet the Trees

Keywords: primeval forest, hiking, stream tracing
Route: DaLeZhiYe Songyang — Ruoliao Primeval Forest — Yantian Village — Return
(~25 km, 41 mins drive; entry ¥58; great for hiking, stream walks, and dogs. Stop by Yantian to meet Mr. Wu for calligraphy. Last 3.3 km, 15 mins back.)

3 · Walk Through the Magistrate’s Home

Keywords: ancient villages, Jiangnan hidden realm
Route: DaLeZhiYe Songyang — Songzhuang — Yangjiatang — Return
(A journey through Jiangnan’s secret villages. Songzhuang is 47 km away, ~1h21m. Then 12 km, 38 mins to Yangjiatang—sip new tea under ancient trees & try the local restaurant. If time allows, continue to Chenjiapu.)