Night Falls, and Lijiang Changes
It’s 10 p.m. in Lijiang Old Town. The tour groups have left, the selfie sticks are packed away, and the last flag-waving guide disappears into a side alley. The main square, Sifang Jie, is suddenly quiet. Water from the 800-year-old canal system runs louder now. A few elderly men sit on stone steps, playing Chinese chess. A shopkeeper pulls down a wooden shutter with a soft thud. This is the other Lijiang—the one that millions of daytime visitors never see.
For most foreign tourists, Lijiang Old Town is a daytime sensation: cobblestone streets packed with stalls selling yak jerky, silk scarves, and “handmade” silver jewelry; bars blasting pop music; and the iconic waterwheel constantly surrounded by selfie-takers. But once the last entrance ticket is scanned and the loudspeakers go silent, the town becomes something else entirely—a neighborhood where people actually live, work, raise children, and grow old.
A Tale of Two Lijiangs
The split personality is written into the town’s geography. Sifang Jie is the beating heart of tourism, but just a few hundred meters away, streets like Wenyi Alley have no shops—just old wooden houses with washing lines and courtyard doors open to reveal pomegranate trees and barking dogs.
In 1997, Lijiang Old Town was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, praised not only for its Naxi architecture but also for its living community. Today, that liveliness is strained. The local government counted over 20 million tourist visits in 2019 before the pandemic; numbers have largely recovered. During peak weeks, the main streets are so crowded that residents sometimes avoid them altogether.
“We joke that we have two seasons—tourist season and waiting for tourists,” says Mu Chen, a 32-year-old café owner who moved from Shanghai to Lijiang a decade ago. “I came here for the quiet, but now I run my café during the day and catch the quiet at night.”
The People Behind the Shutters
Who still lives inside the old town? Not as many as a generation ago. In the 1990s, almost all of Lijiang’s residents were Naxi, the ethnic group that built this town and developed its distinctive pictographic script and music. Today, many original families have sold or rented their homes to outsiders. Local estimates suggest only about 5,000 to 6,000 people still reside in the core protected area, compared with roughly 15,000 before the tourism boom.
Yet those who remain have created a quiet rhythm that visitors often miss. In the early morning before the tour buses arrive, you can see Naxi grandmothers walking to the market with woven baskets, children in yellow school uniforms threading through the alleys to Lijiang Experimental Primary School, and vendors setting up fresh fruit stands.
One of the best places to witness this is the Dayan Flower Market, tucked on the eastern edge of the old town. From 7 to 9 a.m., Naxi farmers and flower growers sell homegrown produce to restaurant owners and local families. The talk is local, in the Naxi language, and prices are a fraction of what tourists pay at commercial stalls. It’s a reminder that this stone town is not just a stage set.
The Small Surprises of Everyday Life
Beyond the market, there are dozens of daily scenes that anchor Lijiang to the present. On most mornings, a group of retired women practices tai chi with wooden swords in the square outside the Mu Palace—a 10-minute walk from the tourist hubbub but worlds away. In the afternoon, old men gather under the ancient near-elms to play cards and drink tea, ignoring the occasional passerby who stops to take a photo.
Children are another constant. Schools inside the old town still function, and at 3:30 p.m. you’ll see parents on electric scooters picking up their kids, dodging slow-moving sightseers on the narrow lanes. “It’s not easy to grow up in a museum,” says He Juxiang, a Naxi mother of two. “But my kids know every secret corner. They think of the tourists the way kids in Venice think of Carnival—it’s just part of the year.”
How the City Is Trying to Save Itself
The struggle between preservation and profit is not new. A decade ago, complaints about noise, souvenir clutter, and rising rents grew so loud that the local government began experimenting with unusual controls.
One is the “Naxi household protection” program. Indigenous Naxi families who agree to keep living in their heritage houses can receive up to 150,000 yuan (about $21,000) in subsidies for repairs, as long as one family member stays year-round. The idea is to keep real social life within the ancient walls, not just a façade.
Another is a strict business license policy. Since 2018, the old town has banned chain stores, karaoke bars, and low-quality shops selling identical trinkets. New businesses must be “culture-oriented”—art galleries, Naxi music workshops, traditional crafts — and pass a review board made up of officials and local elders. The policy is controversial; some small shopkeepers say it’s hard to make a living without bowing to tourist tastes. But it has visibly changed the character of the main streets.
There’s also a smart crowd-control system. Using mobile phone signals and ticket data, the city counts visitors in real time. During Golden Week holidays, when more than 80,000 people try to enter the old town in a single day, entrances can be temporarily closed. Some tourists have complained about long waits, but residents say it’s worth it. “I used to feel like a stranger in my own home,” says a 63-year-old Naxi craftsman, Yang Yaoxian. “Now there’s at least a limit on the wave.”
Lijiang and the World’s Tourist Towns
The challenges Lijiang faces echo those of many other heritage destinations. Venice has lost half its resident population in five decades. Barcelona has battled cruise ship flooding. Amsterdam actively campaigns to manage tourism. Lijiang is in their company—but its response isn’t identical.
In Venice, local resistance often comes from civil society and street protests. In Lijiang, the state drives the agenda. The government can cap visitor numbers, dictate what type of business may open, and provide direct household subsidies. It can also fund heritage conservation on a scale that fragile community groups can’t. The trade-off is less bottom-up creativity. But for a city that nearly drowned in its own success, top-down intervention has been effective in slowing some of the damage.
It’s worth noting that not all locals agree with the approach. “We don’t want Lijiang to be a Disneyland,” says Mu Chen, the café owner. “But we also don’t want it to become an abandoned theater. The government’s policies help sometimes, but they can feel heavy-handed.” The search for balance, like elsewhere, is a work in progress.
How to See the Other Side
If you’re planning a visit, here’s how to experience the Lijiang that locals know:
- Wake up early. Aim to be at Sifang Jie by 7 a.m., when the stone square is empty and the sunrise paints the roofs gold. You’ll see a cleaner, calmer town—and you won’t be alone for long; residents emerge to sweep their doorsteps and buy breakfast from a steamer stall.
- Walk away from the crowds. Any small lane that looks too narrow to lead somewhere is usually worth taking. In the grid of alleys around the Mufu Palace, you’ll find residential corners with laundry, bike parking, and vegetable gardens.
- Visit the Dayan Flower Market before 9 a.m. It’s not on most tourist maps, but it’s the best window into local commerce.
- Stay at a locally owned guesthouse, not an international chain. Many host families cook traditional meals and can point you to their favorite secret spots.
- Return to the old town at night, after 9 p.m. The bars near the water are loud, but further into the lanes it’s still and luminous. Listen for the sound of running water—it’s the same sound that guided residents through the streets centuries ago.
Lijiang is many things: a UNESCO site, a travel bucket-list item, a business park for souvenirs. But it’s also a home to thousands of people who live between the tourists—and who, for all the difficulties, still find meaning in stone and water and memory. The other face isn’t hidden; you just need to look at the right hour.
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