Jiangnan Summer Vacation: Huangshan and Hongcun

"The place of a lifetime, no dream of Huizhou" I often saw this quote when planning my summer vacation. Perhaps it doesn't mean what people think it does, but it is enough to guide people there. We traveled from Nanjing to Huangshan and decided to rent a car for a deep tour. The blue sky, white clouds, and black-tiled houses along the way made me feel bored until we drove into Yixian County and arrived at Hongcun. The mottled walls and distant mountains told me that we had arrived in Huizhou. Hongcun is bustling with tourists, students sketching, and busy shopkeepers. Hongcun is also quiet, with grandmothers washing clothes by the Moon Pond and making pancakes by Nanhu Lake, seemingly completing their daily routine for years. No tourists or urging could affect them. Hongcun's beauty lies in its different colors at different times of the day. In the morning, it is blue; at noon, it is green; in the evening, it turns orange. In the morning, the blue sky reflects in the water. The water is the same color as the sky. When I open the window, the quiet village seems never to have been lively. The staggered horsehead walls tell me they have been like this for many years. At noon, the hot sun shines through the trees onto the walls, and the water turns green. The flowing water tells us about its 800-year history. In the evening, the sunset turns Hongcun orange. I have never been so close to the sunset anywhere else, as if it wants to catch up with us and stop us. Quiet and bustling, reality and fantasy, past and present, contradictory qualities perfectly blend and coexist harmoniously in Hongcun.