Yuhu Village: Where Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Resilience

by Jacqueline You 28th July 2026

At the foot of Yulong Snow Mountain (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain), a Naxi (纳西) community shows that resilience is not about resisting change, but about learning how to change without losing what matters most.

Traditional homes, working animals and modern machinery (Photo credit: You, 2026)

A village living with change

High in the mountains of south-western China, beneath the peaks of Yulong Snow Mountain, Yuhu Village is finding its own way into the future. Known in the Naxi language as Wuluken–'the first village at the foot of the snow mountain'–Yuhu lies approximately 2,600 metres above sea level. It is the highest and northernmost settlement in the Lijiang Basin: a place of stone-built houses, clear mountain water and cultural traditions passed from one generation to the next.

At first glance, the village appears timeless. Yet it has undergone considerable change, particularly since tourism began expanding across the Lijiang region in the 1990s. Its mountain setting and predominantly Naxi population attracted visitors seeking beautiful scenery and opportunities to experience Naxi culture.

Tourism brought income and new possibilities. It also created environmental pressures, altered social relationships and raised questions about how culture should be shared. Yuhu is therefore more than a picturesque destination. It offers a revealing example of community-based adaptation: a village learning to benefit from development while protecting its landscape, cultural identity and sense of belonging.

A traditional courtyard house shows how timber, stone, planting and domestic space come together in Yuhu’s living heritage (Photo credit: You, 2026)

Stone, memory and living heritage

Walking through Yuhu, it is difficult not to notice how naturally the village fits into the mountain landscape. Traditional houses line narrow paths, their stone walls blending with the surrounding terrain. Built with local materials and knowledge developed over generations, they have endured cold winters, earthquakes and social change.

The village is surrounded by places rich in history and legend, including the Yulong Academy, Longnü Lake, Yuzhu Qingtian–'the Jade Pillar Reaching the Sky'–and the legendary Princess Tree. Yet Yuhu’s greatest heritage is not a single monument. It is the culture people continue to practise in everyday life.

The Naxi language can still be heard. Stories of the ancient Tea Horse Road remain part of local memory. Traditional food, crafts and household practices continue to connect families with earlier generations. For visitors, this makes Yuhu more than somewhere to take photographs. It is a place to slow down, listen and consider how history continues to shape the present.

Preserving Yuhu’s built heritage requires more than celebrating its beauty

(Photo credit: You, 2026)

The Dongba: keeping Naxi knowledge alive

The word Dongba is commonly translated as 'wise one'. Dongba are the priests, scholars, healers and cultural teachers of the Naxi people. For generations, they have preserved an extraordinary body of knowledge, including ritual manuscripts written in the distinctive Dongba pictographic script.

Many of its symbols resemble small drawings: a mountain, bird, river, sun or person. Together, they record creation stories, moral teachings, healing practices, ritual instructions and observations of the natural world. These texts are not simply historical documents; they hold the memories and beliefs of the Naxi people.

Dongba have also played an active role in community life, conducting ceremonies associated with birth, marriage, death and the agricultural seasons. Their role has been spiritual, but also social and educational. By keeping stories, knowledge and ceremonies alive, they help the community remember who it is.

Community participation in the tourism economy

One of the most striking features of Yuhu’s tourism economy is the visible participation of local residents. An older resident roasts pine cones over an open grill, while elsewhere a contemporary shop presents coffee beans in carefully arranged glass tubes.

(Photo credit: You, 2026)

Horse riding provides another example of livelihood adaptation. Horses have long been part of movement and work in the mountain landscape, carrying people and goods through terrain where travel could be difficult. With the growth of tourism, some residents have turned this knowledge, labour and access to animals into visitor-facing riding businesses. For local households, guided rides can create income from skills and assets already rooted in village life. During my visit, I observed both older residents and women participating in horse-riding activities connected with tourism.

A resident leads saddled horses for visitor rides (Photo credit: You, 2026)

Horse-riding businesses bring tourism into Yuhu’s residential lanes (Photo credit: You, 2026)

These activities show that residents are not simply affected by tourism; they are actively shaping the changing village economy. By building on local skills, knowledge and resources, households can create new livelihoods and adapt to economic change. This active participation is an important expression of community resilience.

Dongba culture and environmental responsibility

Within Dongba culture, Yulong Snow Mountain is not simply scenery or an economic asset; it carries cultural and spiritual significance. Rivers, trees and animals are also understood as part of a wider relationship between people and the natural world.

However, cultural values do not always result directly in environmental protection. Some households have historically depended on surrounding natural resources to meet practical and economic needs. Under such circumstances, immediate livelihood pressures may compete with longer-term conservation priorities.  

Tourism has introduced additional incentives for environmental protection. Clean water, attractive lanes and a well-maintained mountain landscape contribute to the visitor experience and tourism-based livelihoods. At the same time, tourism can create environmental pressures, including waste, traffic, increased water use and disturbance to the landscape.

Yuhu’s experience suggests that environmental resilience is strengthened when community learning and participation, economic incentives, effective regulation and responsible business practices and respectful visitor behaviour working together.

Village life and the natural environment (Photo credit: You, 2026)

If the mountain is protected only because tourists pay to see it, its future remains dependent on the market. When it is also valued as part of the community’s identity, conservation becomes a shared cultural responsibility. Yuhu’s environmental resilience may therefore be stronger when economic interests and cultural values support one another.

Plants, stone architecture and water channels coexist along Yuhu’s lanes (Photo credit: You, 2026)

Traditions that change so they can continue

Ritual life has also adapted. Large community ceremonies require time, resources and coordination, which can be difficult as people take on new forms of employment or move away. Some families have responded by maintaining simpler, family-based practices that preserve core elements of Naxi belief while fitting more easily into contemporary life.

Something is gained through this flexibility: rituals remain possible rather than disappearing. Something may also be lost when fewer people participate and the wider social bonds created by collective ceremony grow weaker. Continuity and change happen at the same time.

The fire pond offers a similar reflection. It remains associated with food, warmth and gathering, but it can also become part of a visitor experience. The visible form of the tradition remains while its setting and audience change.

The fire pond evokes food, warmth and domestic gathering (Photo credit: You, 2026)

Commercialisation can create tension between preserving culture and turning it into a product. The Roof Guardian Cat, traditionally associated with protection, prosperity and good fortune, is now also sold as a colourful souvenir. This can support local businesses and introduce the symbol to wider audiences, but may separate it from its original spiritual and architectural context. Such adaptation is not necessarily inauthentic; the central question is whether local people retain control over how their culture is shared and interpreted.

The Roof Guardian Cat carries cultural meaning (Photo credit: You, 2026)

What Yuhu can teach us

Yuhu offers a more complex picture of tourism-led development than either a simple success story or a narrative of cultural loss. It reminds us that culture survives not by remaining untouched, but by remaining meaningful to the people who live it. The village’s future will depend not only on preserving stone houses, pictographic manuscripts and visible traditions, but also on sustaining the relationships, shared responsibilities and sense of belonging that hold the community together.