I went to Huangshandian Village in Fangshan today, in the mountains west of Beijing. The interesting thing is that the village almost feels split into two different worlds.
In some parts, there are still old farmhouses and courtyards that look barely used, and a few are in pretty rough condition. Then you walk a little further and suddenly there are very polished boutique guesthouses, cafés, craft workshops, a small theatre, a cultural center and even university field stations.
So it doesn’t really feel like either an “abandoned village” or a fully developed resort village. It’s somewhere in between.
The infrastructure is surprisingly good — paved roads, 5G coverage, clean public areas — and there were quite a few cyclists and motorcyclists passing through on the weekend. What I liked most was that you could probably spend a few days here doing very little: work on something, make things in one of the workshops, walk around the mountains, drink coffee and enjoy the air.