A tale of three villages

The streets and architecture of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911) still retain their old look in the villages of Luotian, Shuinan and Jingtai in Anyi county, in Nanchang, Jiangxi province.[Photo by Shi Xiaofeng/China Daily]

A tale has it that a grateful Huang planted the tree as a memorial after he had the luck to dug out treasures that weighed 150 kilograms on the spot.

Now the millennium-old tree has a diameter of 2.8 meters-it takes a circle of at least six people to reach their arms around it.

Spreading out its canopy like a giant umbrella and overlooking the village, the tree has witnessed the village's glorious past.

The village sits along the most important traffic route to Nanchang, the provincial capital.

Tracks from repeated grinding and pressing of one-wheeled carts are still clearly visible on the granite pavements, leading us to imagine the busy scenes of the streets of old.

First built in the overlapping Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1271-1368) dynasties, the village's three main streets flourished in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) when merchants and travelers filed through.

About 3 meters wide each, the streets form a U shape and encircle more than half of the village. The Front Street is most well-preserved: About 200 meters long, it has kept its ancient look, with stores lining both sides even today.

Sewage channels under its granite-slab pavement, first built in the Song Dynasty and incessantly extended over the centuries to form a complete network, still serve well.