Water Wheel, Lijiang Old City. The Old City of Lijiang, ancestral home of the Naxi people, was totally destroyed by an earthquake in 1996, and rebuilt thereafter in Disneyland fashion: a Chinese tourist town, that consists of miles and miles of wandering cobblestoned lanes that are lined on either side by faux-old shops to trap the unwary visitors. Nevertheless, some good things have been reconstructed from the old town, such as this water wheel that spins merrily, albeit without any modern purpose, in one of the several streams that feed the old town's canals.