Lost in the Ancient City (8/21)

As mentioned in the last post, the closed door of the cancelled Jazz Course became the open door of a little tourist trip to a different part of China. Pingyao in the Shansi Province, to be exact. Three hours on the bullet train and stepped off into a different world. 

 

Somehow Pingyao escaped the Cultural Revolution’s purge of the old and now is a heavily touristed city with a history dating back over a couple of thousand years. The Ancient City (like the European’s Old Towns, but much older) is enclosed within walls and is built from one-story stone houses and larger temples. The streets are narrow and filled with pedestrians dodging the open-air mini-buses and motor scooters. My host Cao Li and I longed for some pedestrian car-free streets and then found some and that was much more pleasurable as we wandered through the city, sometimes map in hand, sometimes just following our nose. 

 

The first place we stopped in was a Temple, but unlike others I’ve been to in China or Hong Kong, there were no signs of Buddha. We concluded that it was an older temple, either Taoist or Confucian and indeed, it was a bit strange to enter the first building and see whole walls of 3-D sculpted battle scenes. Indeed, much of the temple was celebrating the valor and bravery of great general warriors. (Photo). I missed the peaceful Buddhas.

 

Back to the streets, we passed some shops where girls and young women were made up in old traditional costumes and then went out walking to display their beauty. There didn’t seem to be any comparable shops for men and I wondered what would happen if a drag-queen entered and requested to be made up. 

 

For a fee (but free for people like me over 60!), you could ascend one flight to walk along the wall, kind of like a miniature Great Wall of China. It was a relief to rise above the hustle and bustle, no cars and for some stretches, no one else in sight. We circumnavigated much of the perimeter and delightfully so.

 

Upon descending, Li noticed her phone was almost out of charge and went to a machine that had a device where you could charge yours for a fee. A new technology in this ancient city. On we went to a noodle and pea shoots dinner and then began the adventure of finding our way back to the hotel. On her charging phone, Li was following her Google maps, but it kept sending us down dark deserted alleys. Something was clearly off. We finally made our way back to a more populated street and hopped on a mini-bus, only to be joined by 8 very drunk men shaking my hand and trying to talk to me. The driver finally indicated the street to our hotel a block away and 6 hours and 6 miles of walking later, we finally returned home. 

 

This just my kind of travel. Walking, wandering and wondering what’s around the corner. Getting a bit lost and with the help of people (not GPS!), figuring out how to get home again. Some deep metaphor there.