2015 China

16 April, Datong to Pingyao
Harmony Guesthouse 258CNY

Our (electric) motor pedicab driver saw us coming! We exited Pingyao’s railway station, hand luggage and guidebook in hand, and showed him the name of the guesthouse we had reserved just inside the south gate of the old city wall. He drove us to a gate in the wall which offered no access to vehicles, held his thumb and index finger a centimetre or two apart in the classic it’s-not-far gesture, took his money and departed. It was only once we entered the old city and could not locate Harmony Guesthouse that we discovered he had dropped us, not at the south gate as promised, but at the west gate located considerably closer to the station. Luckily it was a beautiful sunny day and Pingyao’s grey-paved old streets are a delight to walk.

We had reserved a twin room at Harmony. When I confirmed this with the receptionist, she nodded, a secret little smile at play on her lips. The reason? Our room did not in fact have two beds. Instead it sported an ENORMOUS “kang”* bed, built onto three of the four walls in the room. On top, bedding for two and a traditional wooden tea tray. Who needs two beds when two can sleep just as well in a bed suited to a large family?   

In the late afternoon we took to the streets, snacking on barbecued meat-on-a-stick, admiring Pingyao’s version of the Nine Dragon Screen, and falling in love with the Temple of the City God, its halls and temples and courtyards built originally in the Northern Song dynasty (960-1227), but undergoing since several major renovations. Wikitravel: “Unlike most City God temples, this one honors not just the City God but also the God of Wealth and the Kitchen God.” I was particularly taken with the statues of 40 “land managers” in the Land Temple. Unfortunately we entered the temple near closing time, not realising we would want to spend more time than this allowed. By the end of our visit we were being pursued by the key-keeper, an elderly gent with a formidable set of keys on a large metal ring who clattered the keys to chase us from each hall we popped into, locking doors behind us and doggedly following us to the next room. Most doorways in ancient Chinese buildings include a raised threshold**. At the Temple of the City God, the thresholds were particularly high. Thoughtfully-provided wooden blocks on either side of these made access easier. They were labelled: “The Elderly Channel”.  

* Wikipedia: “The kang ... is a traditional long (2 metres or more) platform for general living, working, entertaining and sleeping, made of bricks or other forms of fired clay and more recently of concrete in some locations. Its interior cavity, leading to a flue, channels the exhaust from a wood or coal cooking fire, usually the fire would be fed from an adjacent room which serves as a kitchen, sometimes from a stove set below floor level. A separate stove may be used for controlling the amount of smoke circulating through the kang, maintaining comfort in warmer weather. Typically, a kang occupies one-third to one half the area of the room, and is used for sleeping at night and for other activities during the day. A kang which covers the entire floor is called a dikang (literally: “ground kang”).”

** Courses.cit.cornell.edu: “The threshold, typically raised 3-5 inches to help control rainwater, must be stepped over upon passing through this doorway. This brings the act of entry into the conscious thoughts of the person entering. It impresses upon the visitor an awareness of the privilege of their entry into the property.