Tangmo Ancient Village
Tangmo means a village built according to the model, style, and standard of the Tang dynasty (618-907). It developed during the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1271-1368) dynasties and flourished in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties. With a history of one thousand years, it is one of the homes of ancient Huizhou culture.
- Location: Qiankou Town, Huizhou District, Huangshan City, Anhui Province
- History: about 1,000 years
- Best time to visit: 2 hours during spring or autumn
Highlights
Located at the foot of Yellow Mountain, Tangmo is a tourist attraction featuring water gardens and pastoral scenery. It is not as well-known or exquisite as Hongcun or Xidi, but it’s quiet and less touristy. Its peaceful rural scenery and the unadorned human landscape complement each other.
1. Tanganyuan Garden
Built during the Qing dynasty, Tanganyuan Garden is the largest private garden in southern Anhui. The waterside pavilions inside were modeled on West Lake in Hangzhou, so it is also nicknamed the "small West Lake".
Legend has it that during the early Qing dynasty (1644-1912), there was a man named Xu Yicheng in Tangmo, who was very wealthy, with 36 pawn shops in the country. His 70-year-old mother always wanted to visit West Lake in Hangzhou, known as paradise on Earth. With the mountain and river barriers, however, and suffering from the decline of old age, she couldn’t make such a long journey.
Without regard for the trouble involved, in order to fulfill his mother’s wish, Xu had no hesitation in spending huge sums of money to create a mini West Lake, digging ponds and dams, and building pavilions and bridges, to simulate the landscape of West Lake in Hangzhou. The lake has thus earned the nickname “Filial Son Lake”.
2. Bajiao Pavilion
Built during the period of Emperor Kangxi (1662-1722), the Sand Causeway Pavilion has a unique shape. Seen from any angle, there are eight corners on the roof of the pavilion, so it’s also known as the Bajiao (Octagonal) Pavilion. The pavilion has three floors, though it is hollow with a cloister. There are no steps upstairs because it was just a landmark to control feng shui.
3. Hanlin Brothers’ Archway
Walking on from Bajiao Pavilion, you come across the Hanlin Brothers’ Archway. This bluestone archway was built to commemorate the Xu brothers, Xu Chengxuan and Xu Chengjia, who were appointed simultaneously as Hanlin academicians by Emperor Kangxi of the Qing dynasty. This was very rare at the time.
Hanlin: Members of the Hanlin Imperial Academy (Hanlinyuan, 翰林院), employed as imperial secretaries from the time of the Tang dynasty (618-907) onwards.
Owing to its elegant workmanship and exquisite carving, the Hanlin Brothers’ Archway is known as the portal and symbol of Tangmo.
4. Huizhou Old Workshop Area
The Huizhou Old Workshop Area brings together some collective and family-style workshops from the ancient Huizhou area, such as an oil mill, a tofu workshop, a four-treasures-of-study (writing brush, inkstick, ink slab, and paper) workshop, and tea processing workshops.
All the equipment in these workshops is in keeping with the relevant patterns and principles of ancient times.
The owners of the old workshops are carefully assessed and managed by the local tourism management department. They are experts in the associated industry and have certain traditional craftsmanship or professional skills.
Walking around such an old-style street and watching people busily engaged in ancient processes, you may gain some insight into the hardships experienced by Huizhou merchants of the old days.
5. Water Street
Water Street is the main street in Tangmo. On either side of the street, there are nearly one hundred Huizhou-style houses. There is also a marketplace built along the stream. The street is full of Jiangnan (south of Yangtze River) water town features, with flags fluttering and all kinds of stores available.
It is a rare treat to sit down in the tea room on Gaoyang Bridge, over a cup of Huangshan Maofeng, observing the scenery of Water Street while listening to local opera. Meanwhile, the villagers, washing clothes and chatting with each other in local dialects, will also be much in evidence.
Not being over-commercialized, the village retains its original livelihood. If you venture into Water Street, you’ll find that this peaceful and simple life gives you a great sense of stability.
Food in Tangmo
The food in Tangmo, as in other ancient villages near Yellow Mountain, is famous for all kinds of tofu, such as hairy tofu, stinky tofu, and baked tofu, among which the best-known is dried tea tofu.
“Five-City Dried Tea Tofu” (Wucheng Chagan, 五城茶干) is a traditional specialty of Huangshan. Legend has it that when Emperor Qianlong of the Qing traveled to Jiangnan and by chance tasted the dried tofu, he praised it unceasingly.
Five-City Dried Tea Tofu is famous for its tasty ingredients, fine processing, and beautiful color and fragrance. It is filtered from soy milk slurry, pressed using traditional methods, and boiled with seasoning.
Ingredients: high-quality soybeans, raw sauce, rock sugar, sesame oil, cloves, cinnamon, and anise.
The color of the finished dried tea tofu is dark brown, similar to dried tea leaves, hence the name.
How to Get There?
Tangmo Village is 4.7 km from Tangyue Stone Arches, 24 km from downtown, and 40 km from the Yellow Mountain Scenic Area.
From downtown: Take a tourist shuttle bus from Huangshan Tourist Hub (Huangshan Bus Station) downtown, at a cost of 7 yuan, and then change to a taxi to Tangmo.
From Yellow Mountain: There are regular coaches from Yellow Mountain Scenic Area Coach Station near the south gate. Take a coach from Tangkou (汤口) to Shexian (歙县) and then get to Tangmo by taxi.
- Ticket Price: CNY 80
- Opening Hours: 7:30 - 17:30
- More Tips: Tangmo is a small village. It’d be better to tour it along with other ancient villages like Tangyue.