Pingyao – It doesn’t half Ming
Monday, May 15th, 2006My first experience of trains in China was definitely a positive one. I arrived at Beijing West Station (the biggest train station in Asia, ‘Record Breaker’ fans), in rush hour traffic. It seemed as if the entire population of Beijing – and remember, this is a city the size of Belgium – was on the move for the weekend. I gazed in bewilderment at the departures board, entirely in Mandarin (I wouldn’t expect it otherwise), and nabbed a friendly looking operative to point me in the right direction. At least I hope he was an operative and not just a random person in a uniform, of which there are many in China. He pointed me to platform seven, using the finger sign (no, not that finger sign – in China they have a special sign for all the numbers, just using the fingers on one hand. Hold your second and third fingers to your thumb and, hey presto! Seven. What’s wrong with using two hands I haven’t quite worked out yet). I went through to the waiting room, and joined the already massive queue. The system here is that you’re not allowed on the platform until the train is in and ready to be boarded, which can make for one almighty crush, so it’s best to be prepared.
My Mandarin-speaking dorm-mate in Beijing, Heather, had told me that I was in carriage 10, berth 22, and it was a huge relief to find out that this was in fact the case. I plonked myself there on my allocated middle bunk, and zonked out pretty quickly. The train seemed full – well, every train seems full here. I was conscious I had to be awake pretty early, as I had been told it was a nine hour journey from Beijing to Pingyao, getting me there at about 5am. The system here on sleepers is that you exchange your ticket when you board for a token, and the conductor then comes and wakes you up about 30 minutes before your train. So I was a tad concerned when 5am came and went and we were still not at Pingyao, or at least nothing I recognised as Pingyao, but frankly, too sleepy to care. I figured if I ended up in Xi’an, I was heading there anyway, no bother. I can get alarmingly apathetic when I’m tired. Actually, not just when I’m tired, sometimes when I really… oh, I can’t be bothered to type the rest.
Anyway, turns out that we’d stopped during the night for no apparent reason, so we ended up getting to Pingyao round about 7.00, which was far more civilised. A girl in my compartment (there are six beds to each compartment, it’s called Hard Sleeper but is just fine) who spoke great English was telling me it was her dream to go to Pingyao – I will comment on this in a few weeks when I am elsewhere (sorry this is more a note to myself than anything, I’m sure you don’t mind me using this as a mental junk bin).
As I was waiting for the train to get in, I had one of my moments of spectacular stupidity. The berths all have metal bars on the side to stop you from falling out and getting too familiar with the person across from you. I was packing the last of my stuff on my bed, when I sneezed, my head went forward, and I went lip-and-tooth first into the bar. The pain and the blood certainly took my mind off what I was going to do in Chengdu at that time in the morning, I can tell you. Fortunately the damage was just to my lip, not my teeth (I don’t fancy trying to find a dentist here), and it just cut the inside, albeit badly. Eating spicy food for the rest of the day was NOT fun.
Getting off the train, I got talking to an American guy, James, who fortunately for me spoke good Mandarin. We both headed to the ticket office – he wanted to go back to Beijing that night, I was heading south to Xi’an – and he helped me buy what I needed without my having to resort to sign language, which has been my usual method so far. It’s amazing how many different ways you can thing to pronounce a place name without ever hitting on the right way, and all the poor train station people sit and look at me like I’m crazy. I’m probably insulting their grandmothers or something. Unfortunately, the only seats available for both our journeys were no seats at all – unreserved, aka sardine class. Still, putting this out of our minds, we set off to see Pingyao.
Pingyao is an ancient city which is pretty much untouched since its days as a major Ming banking centre. It has walls surrounding it, which makes it feel quite cozy and small, and the old alleyways are apparently still haunted by Ming Dynasty ghosts, who can navigate round the unchanged streets with ease (although, frankly, even if they were changed, I’m thinking a ghost could handle it, having no physical body and all). The whole city is made out of grey bricks, and it’s kept quite quiet as no cars are allowed inside the city walls, though plenty of motorbikes are.
Because we were there early, we were able to watch the place wake up as we strolled through the streets and got our bearings. This is always one of my favourite things to do – many years ago we used to get the coach down to Lourdes, taking over a day, but I loved being awake early and travelling through towns at that time in the morning. You always get such a different perspective, the people aren’t armoured up for tourists, they’re just doing what they need to do. Quite a magic time.
First stop, as always, was breakfast, and it was great to discover that James enjoyed the same kind of food I did, that is, any food at all. We had a real feast, dumplings, noodles, soup, all washed down with bucketloads of free tea. I spent the time alternately slurping, and then gasping as the chilli hit my gammy mouth sore.
We decided what order we would see the sights in. Most of the places in Pingyao consist of preserved houses and businesses. Even though after a while (ok, after the first one) they all started to run into each other, it was still amazing to see how the other half lived, back in the day. Most of the places were based around banking, including the head banker’s house which was gorgeous, all courtyards and east wings and second son’s wings and things like that, and, my personal favourite, the first bodyguard agency in the country. This was set up by a dude called Erba who, from all accounts, was the man – he wrecked this monastery but the monks were merely surprised rather than, say, furious, and invited him to live with them and set up a bodyguard business. Something may have got lost in the translation from Chinese to English, but that was the jist.
After another delicious meal, it was time to say goodbye to my new friend James, who will be part of my happy memories of the lovely town of Pingyao, and head to the station. I was befriended by a couple who spoke no English, but seemed concerned about my unreserved ticket, and made it their responsibility to make sure I got on the train with no problems. When the train pulled in, it was as jam-packed as they fear, and I was perched in the doorway sitting on my pack, not relishing the thought of a nine hour journey to Xi’an. When the conductor saw my plight, we managed to have a conversation all through sign language and the basic phrases in my guidebook, whereby he asked me if I wanted to upgrade, I said yes please, so he told me to get off at the next station, run up the platform, and get on at a different carriage. We then managed to convey my name, my occupation (ok, I lied and said ‘teacher’, but you try acting out ‘well I was in Human Resources but I didn’t enjoy that so now I’m having what I guess you’d call a sabbatical to decide what I want to do when I grow up’), the fact that I wasn’t married, and how long I was in China. At the next station I did as instructed, was met by a charming train worker lady, and thankfully collapsed into an available bunk for the long haul to Xi’an.
Suzanne