Brian Linden shares bread during garlic harvest. The American runs the Linden Centre in Xizhou township, Dali. Mike Peters / China Daily

Get out of the city center and it's even easier to blend into the local color.

The nearby old town of Xizhou, 18 kilometers away, is both a treasure trove of old Bai ethnic architecture and a pastoral escape into the near-countryside.

"It's not on the way anywhere," says Brian Linden, the outgoing American who runs the Linden Centre in Xizhou with his wife, Jeanee. "You can come here and just let yourself be absorbed into the rhythm of the community around you."

If you're a little shy－or language-challenged－the center can be your social launching pad. The Lindens operate a boutique hotel, a culture center and a study-tour education center for American high-school kids in three well-preserved and refurbished homes once inhabited by Bai nobles. The hotel is lovingly furnished with art and antiques with sleekly integrated modern bathrooms.

We spent a charming morning roaming the nearby produce market, a literal bazaar of fresh vegetables, tropical fruits, live chickens, dried spices, and vendors pressing pomegranates into fresh juice and rapeseed into cooking oil. Weston, our guide from the Linden Centre, also took us for leisurely strolls through a tie-dye market, a cheese-making center and a small noodle factory.

On another day, we followed Brian Linden and a visiting movie star to see local antiques dealers before joining a group heading for a family dinner to welcome home a returning student who had been studying in the US for a year. The center also offers small-group hikes to a nearby temple, a tea plantation and a 10-hour day hike up to a yak meadow on a nearby mountain.