I was in awe when the first plot of rice plantation came into our view after crossing the wind rain bridge at Ping An Village; not because it was the very first one right next to me (within touch in fact) but for its supposed long history.
The Chinese characters 始祖 mean ancestral and it's amazing that the same plot of land continued to produce output given its age. Our tour guide didn't share about its age although he mentioned it was the earliest to be developed.
Curiosity got to me and i checked out the Chinese wikipedia (Baidu) for an answer; reply wasn't straightforward even though i inferred from the text that construction for the terraced fields started sometime during the Yuan Dynasty; therefore the earliest developed rice terrace should be at least 600 years!
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Check out the posting for the summarised itinerary of Chan Brother's tour package (guaranteed no factory shopping stops) to Guilin for a better overview of my trip. :)