Similar Korean townships dotted across the region showcase other distinctive cultural practices but they are often unassuming and tucked away down dusty tracks.

In Yulou village, a small, humble wooden hut is home to a provincial-level cultural treasure falconry center, which protects the area's birds and falconry traditions.

Manchu people's traditional wooden houses near Changbai Mountain.[Zhang Wei/China Daily]

Guan Zhichao, the center's falconry expert and vice-chairman of Jilin Falconry Association, said the village, which is on the wetlands of the Songhua River, was a fishing and falconry hub for the royal family in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Falconry has remained a strong tradition and today 70 falconry masters live in the village, which has hosted two major falconry festivals.

Schoolchildren visit the center to learn about wild animals, protecting nature, the food chain and falconry traditions.

"It's become a very promising tourism item and goes hand in hand with environmental protection. We plan to build a complex with restaurants, accommodation and more things like that to build a tourism chain and develop our business," Guan said.

Falcon and hunter: Falconry has remained a strong tradition in the mountainous region.[Wang Wenlan/China Daily]

As local authorities plan the area's development the expert stressed that the traditional roots remained and that the community still worshiped the mountain gods every year.

This pride in traditional practices and the importance of preservation was echoed by everyone I met during my visit to Jilin, from university students learning paper cutting to a shoemaker who turned her family's craft into an international business.

Parts of the province are remote and sometimes difficult to reach but the journeys offer a chance to experience real, rural China and the rewards are like finding diamonds in the rough.