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at night, the rebuilt yingtian gate is brightly lit, and the square is crowded with tourists, most of whom are wearing hanfu, looking for the right angle to take pictures; in the street restaurants, the food is hearty, and young boys and girls roll up their long skirts, sit down, clink glasses, and eat skewers; outside the bustling luoyi ancient city, a family jumps off the bus, straightens their hanfu, and merges into the crowd; girls in hanfu ride on shared electric bikes and shuttle through the streets, their sleeves fluttering. most of the people who glance at them are first-time tourists, while the locals have long been accustomed to it.

luoyang's "hanfu fever" is well-known, but when you really get there, you can't help but be shocked. just walk into a hanfu store, where you can find han, tang, and ming costumes. you can rent and make them for a few hundred yuan, and you can travel through time and space and experience the joy of being an ancient person. it's hard not to be moved.

citizens holding umbrellas are preparing to enter the luoyang zhouwangcheng emperor's chariot museum, with heavy snow falling on the chariot statue at the entrance. (photo/visual china)

with the fluttering hanfu and the thick historical dust brushed off, luoyang reveals its light side: on social media, this is a cultural and tourism city suitable for clocking in and especially "photogenic", and the tourists crowded in the scenic area also confirm this. during the may day holiday this year, according to data released by the luoyang municipal bureau of culture, radio, film and tourism, in just 5 days, luoyang received nearly 7 million tourists, with total tourism revenue exceeding 5.9 billion yuan, up 7.41% and 13.71% year-on-year respectively.

luoyang has become popular, but unlike many cities that have just become popular, luoyang residents are more calm in the face of the surging crowds. this city, which has a history of more than 4,000 years, has repeatedly experienced the peaks and troughs of history, and is accustomed to noise and silence; the people living in it also show equal enthusiasm and warmth to visitors from all directions.

in front of the iconic vairocana buddha at the longmen grottoes, a group of tourists wearing a mix of ming and tang dynasty costumes took photos and laughed. the buddha nodded, with a mysterious and tolerant look from the heyday of the tang dynasty - it was a tolerance that had seen through thousands of years.

01

return to luoyang

even if you have never set foot in luoyang, it is a city that will not be unfamiliar to chinese people. you will always encounter it inadvertently.

maybe it’s the words. “if my friends and relatives in luoyang ask me, i have a pure heart in a jade pot.” “whose jade flute is playing in the dark, spreading into the spring breeze all over luoyang.” the poems that i memorized in my youth will suddenly emerge at some point in my life, and thus, the city called “luoyang” has a different meaning.

luoyang mingtang paradise. (photo/pexels)

maybe it was the architecture. in the early summer of 1936, liang sicheng and lin huiyin visited luoyang and stayed at longmen grottoes for four days. at that time, the grottoes were sparsely visited, and the paths were vaguely discernible. lin huiyin tied a towel she carried with her on her head, leaving a famous photo of her looking back. a few years later, liang sicheng wrote in "history of chinese architecture": "since the wei and qi dynasties, the trend of carving statues and building temples on cliffs has been particularly popular in the sui and tang dynasties. ... the most famous and largest of these is the fengxian temple built by empress wu in longmen, luoyang..."

perhaps it was the job in front of her. on july 20, 1958, china's first hand-made dongfanghong tractor was launched in luoyang, roaring out of the first tractor manufacturing plant. more than a year later, the first batch of 13 dongfanghong tractors arrived in the great northern wilderness. she was liang jun, the first generation of chinese female tractor driver. this picture later became the pattern on the third set of rmb one-yuan banknotes. since then, tractors from luoyang have been continuously shipped to villages across the country. the aroma of wheat and rice held by many chinese people all have a taste of luoyang.

our eyes can hardly avoid luoyang. the winding yellow river rushes southward, splitting the loess plateau until it encounters huashan, then turns eastward and rushes out of sanmenxia, ​​where it merges with the luo river, which originates from the eastern section of the qinling mountains. luoyang in the basin straddles the luo river, with the backs of the funiu mountains and the songshan mountains, and across the yellow river, it faces the taihang mountains and wangwu mountains, which are said to have been moved away by yugong. surrounded by mountains and open rivers, luoyang is located in the heart of the world, controlling the east and the west, connecting the north and the south, and the two axes of time and space naturally intersect here.

luoyang white horse temple. (photo/pexels)

therefore, everyone who passes through luoyang is experiencing a kind of return. the zhouyi states in the beginning: "the yellow river produced the map, and the luo river produced the book." the yellow river map and the luo river book emerged from the yellow river and the luo river, carrying the ancient people's understanding of the flow of stars, the change of seasons, and all things, and were imprinted at the source of chinese intellectual history.

return to luoyang, which means returning to our starting point.

02

a time capsule for the chinese people

in the spring of the third year of the tianbao reign of the tang dynasty (744), the 43-year-old li bai came to luoyang from chang'an and met the 32-year-old du fu for the first time. facing the world-famous poet, du fu was deeply attracted and traveled with li bai. just like confucius asking laozi about etiquette thousands of years ago, the acquaintance between li bai and du fu was another important historical encounter witnessed by luoyang. the story here is as magnificent as that of chang'an.

soon after, du fu and li bai set out from luoyang and traveled eastward, where they met the poet gao shi. the new book of tang, biography of du fu, records: "i once followed bai and gao shi through bianzhou, and after drinking, i climbed the chuitai, reminiscing about the past with great enthusiasm, which was beyond anyone's comprehension." two years after their separation, du fu wrote the famous poem "remembering li bai on a spring day": "spring trees grow in the north of wei, and evening clouds drift in the east of jiang." the spring trees grow in chang'an, and the evening clouds drift in the east of jiang. the midpoint between the two places is luoyang, where they met.

20 years later, du fu became a melancholy "old du", and died in poverty and illness on a boat. at this time, the romantic li bai had been dead for several years, like a flame that disappeared in history, and the death of the genius poet remains a mystery. many years later, du fu's tomb was moved back to luoyang, "reburied in front of shouyang mountain in the northwest of yanshi county". shouyang mountain, where the poet rested his head, was the place where boyi and shuqi, who refused to eat zhou grain, starved to death. it marked the spiritual pursuit of traditional chinese literati and formed a certain reflection with du fu's life.

yingtian gate in luoyang. (photo/pexels)

time goes round and round, history overlaps, and there are too many such moments in luoyang. it is a city deeply shaped by history, just like the silt of the yellow river piled up on the shore. every time the traces of a dynasty pass through luoyang, it adds a new background to it. so, what we are facing now is the luoyang of literature, the luoyang of monuments, the luoyang of industry, the luoyang of the hub, the luoyang of the han, wei, sui and tang dynasties, and the luoyang of emperor guangwu and emperor gaozong of tang. it has witnessed history, it has participated in history, and it is history itself.

cao zhi wrote: "i climbed the beimang bank and looked at luoyang mountain from afar. how lonely luoyang is, with all the palaces burned down." sima guang wrote: "if you want to know about the rise and fall of ancient and modern times, please just look at the city of luoyang." facing the ruins of luoyang, two similar sighs were made 800 years apart. what kind of ups and downs of a city did they reflect in the meantime?

the longmen grottoes and bai juyi's tomb face each other across the yi river: the facial features of the vairocana buddha are said to be based on the image of wu zetian. from gandhara to the western regions, and then from yungang to longmen, the style of buddha statues has been localized step by step, and luoyang city is a witness to this. coincidentally, at the other end of the city, the white horse temple freezes the earliest time when buddhism came to the east. in front of bai juyi's tomb, a group of primary school students are respectfully queuing up to pay their respects under the guidance of their teacher, reciting the poem "it's a pity that on the third night of september, the dew is like pearls and the moon is like a bow." next to them, several stone tablets engraved with japanese call bai juyi "the benefactor of japanese culture" to praise the profound influence of his poems on japanese literature.

longmen grottoes in luoyang. (photo/pixabay)

the scenic area was crowded in early august, with tourists from all directions passing by the grottoes and bai juyi's tomb one after another. many people may not have noticed that the luoyang that slowly unfolded before their eyes was once so open and magnificent, standing at the starting point of the silk road, expelling the old and welcoming the new, and spreading civilization far and wide.

"mounds of graves are lined up on the northern mang mountain, facing luo city for eternity. in the city, bells ring day and night, but only the sound of pines and cypresses can be heard on the mountain." luoyang is like a time capsule left to us by history, folding the countless past lives of every chinese. this is of course the heaviest part of a city, but also its most precious part.

03

from the ancient to the new, urban "kiln change"

china is not short of cities with a long history, but urban models that can transform the old into the new - transforming the heaviness of history into the lightness of the present, turning burdens into wealth, the older the more vibrant, the more classical the more youthful - are still rare.

walking in luoyang today, you can see ancient buildings everywhere: yingtian gate rebuilt five years ago, the bustling lijing gate not far away, mingtang and tiantang of empress wu zetian recorded in history books... the core buildings of luoyang in the sui and tang dynasties are almost all recreated in their original locations. the underground floor is a cultural relic site, and the ground floor is the "visible capital", which has become the most popular photo spot for young tourists.

a man solicits customers at the entrance of luoyang mingtang paradise scenic area, with the rebuilt yingtian gate behind him. (photo/su zheng)

of course there will be criticism. some people say that ancient buildings made of reinforced concrete are really worth seeing? but think about it carefully, has luoyang ever refused to "rebuild"? what's more, today's "new ancient buildings" have become one of the important carriers of urban cultural tourism. in 2023, luoyang received 135 million tourists throughout the year and had a total tourism revenue of 104.17 billion yuan, making it one of the top ten popular tourist cities in the country; in the first half of this year, luoyang received 85.1905 million tourists and realized a total tourism revenue of 64.802 billion yuan. among the tourists to luoyang, young people aged 23 to 45 accounted for 50.64%. the ancient capital has changed a lot.

if you want to visit ancient sites, this prefecture-level city has an astonishing 102 museums that showcase various aspects of the ancient capital. the newest one is the sui and tang grand canal cultural museum, which opened in 2022. its director lamented that since the city's cultural tourism broke through the circle and a large number of tourists flocked in, the museum has been visited by visitors in an endless stream. the luoyang ancient tomb museum, which had few visitors a few years ago, has become a popular check-in spot that requires early reservations.

in luoyang, there are many details of the fusion of the old and the new, and the mutual nourishment of the old and the new: the soviet-style buildings in jianxi district are neat and silent. the road named "jianshe road" shows that it inherits the industrial tradition from the 20th century; the new district at the other end of the city, the road called "guangwu avenue" is straight and wide, showing the determination of the ancient capital to return to its glory. due to the improvement of production efficiency, there are not so many workers in the first tractor manufacturing plant today. a corner of the old factory area has been transformed into a cyber amusement park, and the transition from heavy industry to the metaverse is natural. weipo xinxu in mengjin district combines the transformation of the ancient village with the new cultural district. the villagers who roared henan opera on the stage passed by the young people from the city, and the cafes and cultural and creative stores opened next to the century-old courtyards are not inconsistent in temperament, so appropriate.

lijingmen west street in the old city of luoyang is known as the "intangible heritage of heluo culture." (photo/visual china)

100 years ago, the longhai railway was built to mangshan in luoyang, and a large number of tang dynasty ceramics were unearthed from ancient tombs. they were named "tang sancai", "three" means extreme number, and "three colors" means colorful and diverse. this kind of porcelain, which once shone brightly in luoyang's history, has since seen the light of day again.

"let the world see its beauty!" with this belief, 66-year-old gao shuiwang, as a representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage and the head of the chinese time-honored brand "gao family tri-color", has been studying tang tri-color for nearly 50 years. in order to accurately replicate the real tang tri-color, gao shuiwang referred to the records in ancient books on the one hand, and tried repeatedly on the other hand. after years of exploration, he finally fired a work that is exactly the same as the tang tri-color cultural relics. since he started his business, gao shuiwang has focused on training more than a hundred disciples in the village enterprises, and strived to inherit and carry forward the skills. today, gao shuiwang, who is well-known, often travels on business, but when he has time, he still likes to stay in the studio in nanshishan village, mengjin district, carving on the tri-color horse one by one, restoring the lines and postures of more than 1,000 years ago.

"sancai is a craft, not just tang sancai, it is ever-changing and all-encompassing." guo aihe, a chinese arts and crafts master, is also from luoyang. since 1986, he has been committed to the research and innovation of luoyang sancai. under his promotion, "luoyang sancai" was included in the list of arts and crafts varieties; at the same time, in his artistic practice, he integrated a variety of artistic elements into sancai, forming a new type of painting, "sancai glaze painting". from flat to three-dimensional, from modernism to installation art, guo aihe's works carry ancient meaning and chinese philosophy into the future. a few years ago, the large-scale sancai environmental art "luoyang" he created for the luoyang planning exhibition hall is still talked about today: with the five capitals gathering in luoyang, the five roads connecting luoyang, the five waters integrating luoyang, and the five industries prospering luoyang, gazing at the history, present and future of luoyang, conveying the charm of luoyang to every viewer, and also allowing people to see the new possibilities of ancient skills.

in luoyang, henan, the longmen grottoes are very spectacular under the lights at night. (photo/visual china)

the new and the old coexist generously, and the city's multi-layered characteristics are deeply integrated. ancient luoyang is also undergoing a "kiln change": the deeper you go into history, the more you move towards a broader future. in this dimension, luoyang has become a key example of a chinese city.

04

dispelling the burden of history

henan writer yan lianke said that in his imagination when he was young, luoyang, "where countless emperors once strolled," "will never fall and will always shine." before coming to luoyang, almost every outsider has some heavy imaginations: imagine the rolling yellow river, carrying thousands of years of time flowing through luoyang; imagine that this should be a city of "relics"; imagine the entanglement of this old industrial city in the process of industrial transformation and cultural tourism development.

but the real luoyang, with its day and night, its corners, gently dispels these heavy things: the barber stalls under the overpass and the beef soup on the street gently accept everything; on xigong street, a bowl of tofu soup can make people forget the han and tang dynasties. those young people wearing hanfu can talk about classics or chase fashion; they can look history seriously or take a quick look at popular attractions.

the unexpectedly popular "scissor hands buddha" at longmen grottoes is because the palm of the buddha statue has weathered, leaving only the index finger and middle finger, which looks very much like "scissor hands". with the spread of the internet, it has attracted countless tourists to take photos here. after some heaviness is dispelled, some new meanings are born.

laojun mountain is located in luanchuan, a remote suburb of luoyang. (photo/unsplash)

"the first snow in henan always falls on laojun mountain first." laojun mountain, located in luanchuan, a far suburb of luoyang, is not a famous mountain in the traditional sense, but it has become very popular in recent years. the reason for this is that on the one hand, it is supported by the dissemination of new media such as short videos, and on the other hand, the scenic area and local areas quickly followed up to expand their advantages. 17 years ago, laojun mountain, a state-owned forest farm that was in debt, has increased its passenger flow from about 15,000 people per year to 4.5 million people after cultural and tourism development, driving the local county's comprehensive tourism income to over 10 billion yuan. after gaining a good experience, tourists have become the "tap water" of the scenic area, and the internet has exponentially amplified the word-of-mouth effect; at the same time, laojun mountain has continuously optimized its hardware facilities and tourist services, finally turning the popularity into a long-term success.

the inspirational story of laojun mountain is a typical example of luoyang polishing its cultural tourism business card. an ancient capital has found a light life on top of its heavy history through its cultural tourism business card.

the "laughing comedy" hosted by chang shuai is located on the guangzhou market pedestrian street. for luoyang people, this commercial street named "guangzhou" is not unfamiliar. in the early days of the founding of new china, when large factories such as the first tractor manufacturing plant were successively settled in jianxi district, a group of guangzhou merchants moved to luoyang to run businesses, and the street got its name from this. on the contrary, the talk show of chang shuai and his companions is a new thing for luoyang people. even for actors, it takes a process to enter the state of talk show. there are full-time and part-time actors. some people come to try it excitedly, but they give up quickly when the "laughing effect" is not good in the audience; there are also museum staff who do talk shows in their spare time and persist for a long time. chang shuai found that talk shows have gradually gained a stable audience group in luoyang, mostly local young people. in the future, he plans to do a special show in luoyang dialect, which is aimed at local audiences and also allows tourists to understand.

citizens and tourists, with the help of members of the luoyang traditional culture research association wearing hanfu, experienced the dragon boat festival customs such as burning cinnabar. (photo/visual china)

ma jiaming inherited the ma jieshan beef soup restaurant, which is a well-known old brand in luoyang. it is located on an old street in chanhe district. as the sixth-generation successor, he originally studied english in college and wanted to live another life, but he eventually took over the old shop from his grandfather and father, carefully balancing inheritance and innovation. the shop facing the street has just been renovated. it is spacious and clean, but the floor still retains the nostalgic terrazzo. "grandpa is old and is not used to the newly renovated shop. sometimes when he sees that there are not many customers, he has to come out to turn off the lights, and we have to turn them on again." ma jiaming smiled.

at 8 o'clock in the morning, the beef soup restaurant was full of people, about half of them were locals and half were tourists. across from us, a customer was drinking soup while live-streaming on his phone: "come to luoyang, there is nothing unhappy that can't be solved by a bowl of beef soup. if it doesn't work, have another bowl."