Yuhu Village is the last village in the Lijiang Basin at the foot of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
The houses were made of a unique stone called "monkey head" by Naxi people. The stone is something between stone and mud. With the reflction of the stone on the snow mountain, houses made of :monkey head" look even more natural and beautiful.
There is a Yuhe Lake beside the village. Water in this lake comes from he melted snow in the mountains. The holy water from this holy mountain of the Naxi makes this small village very mysterious.
That is why Joseph Rock chose this place to live in when he came in 1922. He lived in Lijiang for 27 years. We can still find houses and things that he used when he lived in Yuhe Village.
From 1924, a great number of photos and articles that he had taken and written about Lijiang were published in National Geography, an authorative magazine in the U.S. He took Lijiang as center and center, and continuously introduced the wonderful scenery of west Yunnan to the western countries.
Rock loved Lijiang very much. He wrote to his friends before his dying 1962 that he'd rather die in the flowers of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in Lijiang than lie alive on the sickbed in Hawaii.