Zhaoxing is the largest Dong village in China and the most striking example of traditional Dong architecture anywhere in the province. Five drum towers rise above the tiled rooftops of this valley settlement — each tower belonging to a different clan, each built from timber without a single nail using joinery techniques that have been refined over centuries. The drum towers are functional meeting places: the fireplace at the base of each is where clan decisions are made, where old men play cards in winter, where village life actually organises itself. They are also, especially at evening when the lanterns inside them glow through the wooden lattice, extraordinarily beautiful.
Between the drum towers, wind-and-rain bridges span the streams that run through the village — long covered wooden bridges with pavilions at intervals, designed so that the population can walk the entire village under cover. The same nail-free timber joinery as the towers. The valley itself is narrow, with rice terraces on every available slope and forest above them, and the village occupies the flat ground at the valley floor with the same logic as every settlement built before roads changed the calculus of location.
The village has been developed for tourism, and the development is visible: entrance fees (around ¥100), a cultural performance venue, renovated guesthouses, vendors on the main street. What survives is the substance: the buildings are real, the towers are real, and the Dong-speaking community that operates the village is real. The evening performances of Dong polyphonic song — a form involving large groups singing in interlocking harmonies without instruments, which UNESCO has listed as an intangible cultural heritage — are not degraded by being scheduled.
Getting to Zhaoxing requires bus travel: from the Congjiang high-speed rail station (a stop on the Guiyang-Guangzhou line), minibuses run the 7 kilometres to the village. From Kaili, it's a seven-hour journey by bus, usually requiring a change at Rongjiang or Congjiang, and an overnight is necessary. The surrounding villages of Jitang (3 kilometres uphill) and Tang'an (20 minutes by bus) are quieter alternatives for the traveller who wants the architecture without the entrance fee.