First published: 11/10/24.

Trekkie900 3.5

Mount Wuyi

Mount Wuyi (Inscribed)

Mount Wuyi by Els Slots

The WHS boundary of Mount Wuyi includes the west most part of Jiangxi province and the northwest part of Fujian province. As a mixed site, Mount Wuyi is famous for both its natural beauty and historic value. 

The natural part of Mount Wuyi, of course deserves its inscription as a natural heritage. The whole area is in Danxia landform (regions with cliffs and red stones formed with the force of water), similar to all the locations inscribed in another world natural heritage site "China Danxia". Inside the Mount Wuyi Scenic Area, there are three most famous peaks that are inscribed: Tianyou ("wandering in the heaven") Peak, Yu'nü ("jade lady", used to describe beautiful young female) Peak and Dawang ("the king") Peak. You could easily access all the three peaks by the shuttle bus (70 RMB per person per day), and hike both Tianyou Peak and Dawang Peak.  Yu'nü Peak, however, is almost impossible to hike but is the most iconic site inside the national park. It is said that the peak obtained its name because of the similarity of its shape with young female, however I could not identify any resemblance. Besides the mountains, the Jiuqu Stream is also inscribed into the natural part. One could easily take a bamboo raft to raft along the stream (a total time of about 1 hour and 20 minutes). During the raft, you could see all three peaks, as well as the Boat Coffins hanging on the cliffs and the Cliff Rock with inscriptions.

The site was inscribed as a cultural site, however, more likely due to good story-telling. Mount Wuyi is a place for the birth of Lixue, a branch of Chinese philosophy first established by Zhu Xi, a famous philosopher in the Song Dynasty of China. The remaining sites of Zhu Xi Lixue, as well as those buddhist temples and taoist temples, are mostly built in recent years so they actually lack any historic values regarding the architecture themselves. For example, Zhizhi An Temple near the Dawang Peak and the Shuiguang ("the shimmering water") Rock (a rock full of historic inscriptions), is actually destroyed in 1950s and was rebuilt during 2003-2006. 

There is also ambiguity in the inscribed historic sites of this WHS. It has been said by many sources that the temples inside Mount Wuyi Scenic Area, the ancient bridge in the north of Wuyishan City (Yuqing Bridge) and the kiln site in the west of Mount Wuyi Scenic Area are all inscribed sites. However, if we refer to the maps on the UNSECO website, we will find that only four sites are inscribed as the components of cultural heritage. They are: 1) Boat Coffins hanging on cliffs and Hongqiao boards (inside Mount Wuyi Scenic Area); 2)Cliff Rock with inscription (inside the Mount Wuyi Scenic Area); 3) Ruins of Han Dynasty City (or named "Chengcun Hancheng Site", inside the Chengcun village in the south of Wuyishan city): 4) Ancient dwellings at Chengcun (inside the Chengcun village). I visited the cliff rock and the ruins of Han dynasty city. I have to say, the cliff rocks are everywhere in China, you could find similar sites in Mount Taishan, Mount Huangshan, Mount Huashan, Mount Hengshan, and many more mountains in the central and east part of China. I don't see any particular historic values of these Cliff Rocks. As for the Han Dynasty city ruins, although they claim to be "Pompeii in the east", they are actually very small in scales and are not comparable to many ancient city ruins in north and central China. If you want to visit some more valuable historic ruins in the similar dynasty or even earlier, you could easily find one in Henan, Hebei and Shandong province. For example, the Handan Gucheng of Zhao (the ruins of state Zhao in Handan, Hebei, during the Western Zhou dynasty, about 2500 years ago) and Luguo Gucheng (the ruins of state Lu in Qufu, Shandong, near the WHS of Confucius temple) are much better than this ruin.

In short, this site is good for both natural and cultural values, but its cultural and historic part is not as even comparable to most WHS in China. The transportation, however, is quite easy, as the Mount Wuyi is just on the other side of the river crossing Wuyishan city downtown.

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