What Guilin Looks Like Through a Local Fisherman's Eyes
Chen Wei, 58, has fished the Li River since he was a teenager. He lives in Xingping ancient town with his wife and two grown children, keeps four cormorant birds, and hasn't taken a single day off from the river in 23 years. Over tea at his riverside home, as the morning mist lifts off the karst peaks, his Guilin comes into focus — and it looks nothing like the one on the postcards.
The beauty you only see when you stop looking for it
After four decades on the water, beauty here isn't what a camera catches. Where tourists see mountains, reflections, and reach for their phones, a lifelong fisherman reads the water level, the current speed, whether the fish are running near the surface or down deep. And then, maybe once a week, the mist does something unfamiliar — settling into one particular valley, catching the light in a way it never has before — and even after forty years, it stops him cold. Let that be your cue: Guilin rewards the person who watches the water, not just the peaks.
What most visitors get wrong
Most travelers think the Li River cruise is the experience. Board the big boat at 9AM, sit on the deck for four hours, take photos, arrive in Yangshuo — and assume the Li River has been seen. It hasn't. That's the surface of the river, viewed from a moving boat packed with 200 people.
The river at 5:30AM — mist low, cormorants working, nothing but the sound of the water — is a completely different place. The visitors who stay overnight in Xingping and wake early understand this. The cruise crowds never do.
The cormorants: still real, and honestly told
The cormorant fishing is real, and its story is an honest one. Chen Wei's grandfather used the birds to catch fish to sell at the market; his father did the same; so did he, as a young man. The birds dive, catch fish, and can't swallow them — a ring around the throat sends each catch back to the boat. An ancient technique, still practiced.
These days he fishes with his birds and also for the camera. Photographers pay 100-200 CNY to come aboard at sunrise and shoot him working the cormorants. It has become part performance — fishing income alone no longer supports a family, not with the river regulations and the thinned-out fish stocks, and the photography money is real. The birds are real. The technique is real. Only the motivation has shifted. That's worth knowing before you book a sunrise shoot.
The bend the boats can't reach
His favorite stretch is a bend about 3km upstream from Xingping, where a small tributary enters from the east. The tourist boats never go there — too shallow — so the water runs clearer than the main river, and in the early morning the mist fills the side canyon. He parks his raft there and simply sits.
He won't tell you exactly where. Some things, he believes, should stay hard to find — and Guilin keeps a few of those for travelers willing to look.
Where to eat in Xingping
The beer fish restaurants on the main street are fine but overpriced — his wife makes better. For the real thing, head to the small place at the end of the old town street: no English sign, just a woman and her husband cooking in the front room. Their river fish is the freshest in town because he catches it that morning. About 50-60 CNY for a whole fish.
For breakfast, the rice noodle shop next to the old well. 8 CNY. It's been there since he was a boy.
Yangshuo, then and now
Yangshuo has changed. Once a small farming town, West Street now runs on bars, international restaurants, and tourists buying t-shirts — and the fisherman steers clear of it.
But the countryside still holds the old Guilin. The Yulong River area and the villages near Moon Hill — cycling past the rice paddies, the water buffalo, and the stone bridges feels like stepping back in time. His advice, if you're visiting: one night in Yangshuo town, three days in the countryside.
What not to do
A few firm warnings. Don't swim in the Li River near the tourist boat routes — the boats churn up currents and the water runs deeper than it looks; stick to the marked swimming areas near Yangshuo if you want to get in.
Skip the unofficial bamboo rafts. Some operators are fine, some are not — the official ones carry safety equipment and trained crews.
Don't visit the Longji Rice Terraces on a weekend in October. The paths are narrow and the terraces get crowded enough that you can't enjoy them. Go on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
And never photograph people in the villages without asking, especially the elderly. A nod and a gesture is enough to ask permission.
What hardly anyone knows to do
A few things rarely make the standard itinerary. The city of Guilin itself holds two lakes — Shan Lake and Rong Lake — connected by a canal. At night the Sun and Moon Pagodas are illuminated and the lakeside path is free to walk, a peaceful 30 minutes almost no tourist takes.
Then the caves. Reed Flute Cave gets all the attention because it's close to the city and lit with LEDs, but Silver Cave (Yinzi Yan), near Yangshuo, is bigger, less crowded, and far more impressive in its formations. 65 CNY entry.
The view that isn't on the banknote
And the famous 20 CNY banknote? The most photographed image of his home is printed on money — the view comes from near Xingping, visible from Xianggong Hill, and every tourist wants that exact frame.
But the Li River holds thousands of beautiful views; that one is simply the one someone chose. It isn't even his favorite. His favorite is the view from his boat at 6AM, when no one else is on the water. That view isn't on any banknote. But it's the one he'd print if he could.
Chen Wei can be found at the Xingping waterfront most mornings before 7AM. There's no website, no posted phone number. Ask at any guesthouse in Xingping for "the fisherman with four cormorants," and someone will point you in the right direction.
