Jiangyong County, in the deep south of Hunan near the border with Guangxi, is the birthplace of Nüshu — the only writing system in recorded history created and used exclusively by women. The script developed here sometime in the 13th or 14th century, possibly earlier, as a way for women to communicate beyond the surveillance of patriarchal households that denied them access to formal literary education. Using a syllabic system of about 600-700 characters derived from simplified Chinese forms, women wrote to sworn sisters, composed songs of lament, and prepared "third day missives" — cloth-bound booklets given to brides on their wedding day containing poetry, life advice, and expressions of grief at the parting. The last fluent practitioner, Yang Huanyi, died in 2004. The Nüshu Museum opened in the county in 2002 and houses manuscripts, embroidered cloth, and folding fans inscribed with the script.
Tongkou Village, north of the county seat in a valley of green mountains, is one of Jiangyong's overlooked rewards. A Ming dynasty settlement that once had a lively commercial life — restaurants, teahouses, reportedly gambling establishments — it is now largely abandoned and largely undiscovered by tourists, its old buildings slowly subsiding back into the hillside. The landscape is beautiful in the way that heavily populated agricultural land becomes beautiful when the people thin out: terraced fields, persimmon trees, the sound of water.
The county is administratively part of Yongzhou prefecture and shares the culinary traditions of southern Hunan — distinct from the northern province's chilli-forward cooking, leaning more on pickled and smoked elements. Getting around Jiangyong requires either hiring a driver or accepting uncertain local bus schedules; the roads are good but the distances between sites are significant, and English is essentially absent. Hiring a guide is the honest recommendation.
Jiangyong is a genuine off-the-beaten-track destination in a province that has plenty of those. Travellers who care about the Nüshu story will find it repays the effort of getting here considerably. The county is reached by train from Yongzhou; Guangzhou is accessible to the south.