Gongtan is an old town with a history of over 1,700 years, and it is located on the bank of the Wujiang River, one of the branches of the Yangtze River. The old town is in the region of the Three Gorges Project. Fortunately, the small beautiful town will not be overwhelmed by the Reservoir.
    The old town is characterized with its diaojiaolou buildings (a style of building supported by wood columns) and its 3-mile-long street paved with flagstones. Wood is the only material for a diaojiaolou building. The diaojiaolou buildings are usually dependent upon mountains and adjacent to waters. A diaojiaolou building is supported by three or five columns, and it has two or three stories. When you enter the old town, you will find the well-preserved buildings constructed in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and you will also find windbreak walls and fireproof walls in the buildings. All of them were telling us the old legends in silence.
    The tradition of hanging lanterns under the eaves has a history of several hundred years in Gongtan. And this tradition is the most interesting custom of the people in the town. When the sun is setting and the evening is coming, diversified lanterns under the eaves of the buildings in the old town are lighted. The merchants and sailors are leaving the boats berthed at the bank of the river and walking on the lighted streets of the old town. The eaves lanterns in the old town are playing the role of the street lamps in the cities: they give the pedestrians light and they make it convenience for the people in the building to observe the street, in addition, a person who intends to steal others might be frightened by the lanterns and stopped from carrying out stealing.
    Half a century ago, a lantern under the eaves includes a cubic framework made of wood chips, and the framework is covered with a piece of transparent and windbreak paper, and a lamp of tung tree oil or pine tree oil is fixed in the framework. But nowadays, the wood chips are replaced with the bamboo chips, and the lamp of tung tree oil or pine tree oil is replaced with an electric lamp.