In Jianshui, the wells still work and the tofu is counted in corn

Most visitors to Jianshui (建水, Jiànshuǐ) walk the swept width of Lin'an Road and decide the town has been arranged for them. The wells one lane back keep older hours; they were sunk under the Ming, and the tofu families still lower their buckets into them before the first bus arrives.

The wells that never closed

The Great Board Well (大板井, Dàbǎnjǐng) is a stone rim worn into scallops by six centuries of rope. Four households can draw from it at once, and the water they carry off in tin pails is the same water that stiffens the town's tofu into something worth queuing for.

Tofu counted in corn

At a charcoal grill off Hanlin Street (翰林街, Hànlín Jiē), small pale squares of fermented tofu are turned until they puff and blister. The cook keeps your tally in a bowl of dried corn, one kernel dropped for each piece you eat, and you settle the bill by handing the kernels back.

You pay by the kernel, not by the plate.

The courtyards behind the kilns

West of the old town, the purple-clay kilns (紫陶, zǐtáo) turn out teapots the colour of dried plums, and the workshops leave their doors open to the lane. Behind them are the plain courtyards nobody sells tickets to — a persimmon tree, a shared tap, laundry strung above the flagstones — and the meter-gauge line still rattles out to the earthen mansions of Tuanshan (团山, Tuánshān) for anyone willing to wait on the one slow train.

临安是建水的旧名，城中文庙的规模在中国仅次于曲阜。