Guilin travel story: the source of the Liugong Village

In Yangshuo, Guilin there’s an ancient village named Liugong Village which located at the side of the Li River. The landscapes there are fabulous and it’s convenient to go there either by boat or by car. This village has 500 year’s history; many tourists came to visit during their Guilin travel, not only for thenatural landscapes, but also for the human landscapes.
Why is this village called Liugong Village? Let’s start with the story about the Three Color Lake (Sanse Tan).
It was said that once upon a time, a rich family lived beside the Three Color Lake. The host owned numerous money and thousands of servants. His houses and field were borderless. But this family treated servants very severely. For example, they had those servants collect water with sharp-bottom barrels in case they stop to have a rest.
One day, a fairy came to the temporal world and turned herself to a beggar. She came to this family and was treated well by the servants. Then she told those servants:” Tomorrow morning, clean the main room, and break the two bamboo shoots which will appear under the censer, and then run away from here." And since this family always bullied the civilians and was mean to the servants, God would not forgive them. So the fairy also told those servants: “When the bamboo shoots are broken, it’s time for the family to die."
The next morning, the servants did what the fairy told them to do. And it was said that those two bamboo shoots were the pair of horns of a dragon, when the dragon’s horn were broken, it got raged and turned over which made the sky turn dark, the ground shake, the mountains shiver and the rich family fell into the hell, becoming the Three Color Lake.
The Three Color Lake is consisted by three lakes and the distance between each lake is less than 20 meters. Something strange is that these three lakes have three different colors. One is yellow and words had it that was originally the host’s stable. One is green and is said that used to be the living room. The last one is white and people said it was the kitchen.
When the host’s son-in-law came back to see his wife and father-in-law, he saw his wife crying on the door sill. And before they said anything to each other the door sill fell in hell with this woman too. At this time the fairy turned to a bird and sang on the tree:” Husband left and wife gone, drag the horse and backward run.” The man heard this and realized that it was meant to be like this, so he left with his horse despondently. Since the “husband left” in Chinese is just “liu gong”, so this village is named the Liugong Village from then on.

 

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