Bagua Village 八卦村 of Licha Cun 黎槎村 Guangdong Province
Bagua Village of Licha Cun: One of Guangdong’s hidden gems is found only 200 meters from some of the drabbest scenery you are ever likely to see in China.
The road between the attractive town of Zhaoqing and the fascinating Bagua village of Licha Cun 黎槎村 has got to be one of the ugliest in China. Dusty, dirty and lined, almost uninterruptedly, with small ceramic factories, many of them specialize in manufacturing toilet bowls of all shapes and sizes. These thrones, destined for backsides of China’s growing urbanized middle class, are haphazardly displayed along the side of the road making the traveler wonder if the world is just one big toilet.
Yet, the ugliness is deceptive. Turn 200 meters down any small road leading off the highway and you enter a rural world of bucolic charm that has hardly changed for centuries. The turn off to the Bagua Village of Licha Cun is just one such example.
Bagua 八卦 The Octagonal Shape of Licha Cun
“The bagua: 八卦; literally: “eight symbols”) are eight trigrams used in Taoist Cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality, seen as a range of eight interrelated concepts. Each consists of three lines, each line either “broken” or “unbroken,” representing Yin or Yang, respectively. Due to their tripartite structure, they are often referred to as “trigrams” in English.” WikiPedia
With a history tracing back more than 700 years, the Village of Licha Cun has been built exactly according to the octagonal symbol of Bagua, a design that converts the village into a labyrinth of narrow alleys and makes orientation near impossible. It’s an incredible place.
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