Yang Ming Yi – The poet of Lijiang

Country: China
Place: Lijiang, Yunnan Province
Visited in: 1996

I visited Lijiang in Yunnan Province in China in 1996 during a break from working as a VSO volunteer.

Lijiang is made up of the new town and the old town. The new town was in 1996 as grey and boring as any other modern Chinese town at that time. But the old town of Lijiang, which was put on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1997, is one of the most beautiful places I visited in China. Lijiang’s population are predominantly Naxis, and their traditional dress combined with the canal system, the cobbled streets and the old wooden and stone houses give you a feeling of stepping back in time.

One day when I was taking a photo of a child playing in the old market square, a man in a traditional blue suit came up to me and introduced himself as Yang Ming Yi, the poet of Lijiang.

He invited me and my travel partner to visit him in his house to see some of his poems. I am sure, we were far from being the only foreigners, he had invited to his house, and probably not the only one who ended up leaving with a copy of his poem about the 1996 earthquake. But we did enjoy his company, so if he is still around and you get a chance to spent some time with this charismatic guy, go for it. Oh and give him a few quai for his poem!

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External links about Lijiang:
Photos from Lijiang:
Photos from Lijiang on UNESCO web site
Description of Lijiang:
Description of Lijiang on UNESCO web site