Chinese time machine #5

Moving back even further – though not a lot – we come to 15 February 2009. It was clear and very cold in Beijing, but I chose to venture out to Daguanyuan (大观园), which I’m not even really sure how to translate. The English maps give it as Grand View Garden, which will apparently do.

One thing about this place that is unique among all the places I’ve visited in China is that it is not old, and not only is it not old, but it was built as a set for a TV series. It’s hard to explain the cultural importance of the book called 红楼梦 (Hong Lou Meng, usually translated Dream of the Red Chamber) to the Chinese. It is one of the Four Great Novels, and you probably would be hard pressed to find a single Chinese person not familiar with it on some level. In the 1980s, China Central Television produced a series based on the book, and instead of filming it on soundstages, they built an entire compound designed to match every description found in the book of the place where the main family lives. It’s the story of a prominent family in decline, so grandeur is called for.

Here’s the front entrance.
Yeah, it was February, so prepare yourself for lots of pictures with bare trees.

At Ұ55 (US$9), the ticket is a bit on the expensive side compared to a lot of Beijing sights.

There are many buildings arrayed around various water/ice features.
Helpful signs tell you what parts of the book involve the buildings, which character lived there and so on.
As you can see, they did a very good job of imitating the style of construction you see at the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and so on.

Inside some of the buildings are figures dressed as the characters.
Most of the major characters in the story are women.
This compound within a compound is the nunnery where Miaoyu retired to a Buddhist life.

Here’s a view across the largest lake.
I’ve never before seen a sign that said “Keep off the lake” – though of course while it’s frozen solid, the meaning is correct. The Chinese is a little more verbose, and says that the ice is not safe, so please don’t go on the lake. I presume they change the sign once it’s not frozen.

Since the family in the story was highly placed in society, they had some special buildings made just for occasions when the emperor would visit.
Any resemblance to the Forbidden City is no coincidence.

Inside one building is a bunch of Red Chamber memorabilia.
These are photos of actors who have played the various parts in various productions of the story, not just the 1980s series that was filmed here.
And this kind of tree...
...is called a “Dragon Claw Tree.”

Some visitors are not impressed by elaborate buildings.
And for a price...
...you can dress in period costume and have your picture taken.

As I promised, you’ve seen lots of pictures of bare trees. It seems that such a situation is intolerable.
So the staff has provided some trees with a little help.

I guess there’s a new version of Red Chamber currently in production, and they had some promotional posters of the new cast.
I’m hoping that for the actual filming, they will have more authentic hairstyles.

There you go. I think about when I’ve visited Universal Studios, and it’s kind of hard to imagine sets like this ever being built for an American production.

Daguanyuan is in the Xuanwu (宣武) District of Beijing, not a long taxi ride from Changchunjie Station (长椿街站) on subway line 2. It is certainly not on the short list of Beijing places you must see unless you are a Chinese literature buff or maybe interested in TV production, but it was interesting, and I’ve already seen the things on the short list. There is also an underground theater at Daguanyuan where they show a computer animated 3D short feature that involves a dream in the Red Chamber. A character falls asleep and drifts through various scenes somewhat resembling events in the book. Or so I’m told – I haven’t read the book yet.

No reservations, part 3

Back to part 2.

2008-10-06

Once it was daylight, we saw we were passing through a mixed agricultural and industrial area. Corn dominated.
Around 7am we arrived at Pingyao. From here on out, we had no reservations for transportation or lodging. At the little train station, there were a bunch of taxis, which in Pingyao are mostly either open electric golf-cart-like vehicles or three wheeled things kind of like modified motorcycles. We found one and asked him to take us to a hotel in Gucheng (the Old Town), haggling for the price until he agreed to ¥2 per person. It was not a long ride, but it was really cold in the open car.
Once we passed inside the city wall, we could see why there were very few full-sized cars as taxis. The streets are very narrow and mostly dedicated to pedestrians, bicycles, and scooters along with the taxis. There are barriers preventing any wheeled vehicles from proceeding, and if you’re on a bike you have to pick it up to get past.
We paid the driver and looked at the first hotel, then three others. Actually they’re called guest houses, and are not really like a standard hotel. There are a bunch of them around the old part of town, just as there were in Lijiang.
We settled on the second place, which for no reason I could tell, was called the Catholic Guesthouse in English (the Chinese is 永庆斋客栈 Yongqingzhai Kezhan, which has nothing to do with religion as far as I can tell, something like Perpetual Festival Guesthouse), and they agreed to let us stay for a ridiculously low price.
We got two rooms like this one for two nights for a total of ¥100 (a little less than US$15). Right, that is ¥25 per night per room.
It had a Western style toilet which was a bit old and stained, but worked just fine. What we didn’t check was the hot water. Apparently they claimed hot water was available 24 hours.
These guest houses all feature at least one courtyard, and are basically repurposed old buildings.

So we checked in (and they never had me fill out the government’s foreigner temporary residence form), dropped off our bags, had a quick breakfast there, and went out to take care of our first order of business.
We rented four bicycles for the day, and rode off to the train station to arrange for the next leg of our journey.
This is us discovering that there were no seats available for any trains to Datong on the 8th. Well, there’s always buses, right? We asked direction to the bus station, and rode there to see if we would have better luck.
As it happens, bus tickets can only be purchased on the day of travel, so we checked out the schedule and prices, and headed back towards the Old Town.

We passed through what you might call Auto Row, where a bunch of new and used vehicle sales and repair shops were located.
This type of vehicle seems to be the area’s equivalent of the American pickup truck: the farmer’s general purpose work and delivery machine. We saw them all over the place, sometimes loaded with truly amazing cargoes. There are also electric versions, including many outfitted as taxis.

Aside from its Old Town, Pingyao is famous for a type of preserved beef, so we rode to the factory store for the most famous brand, but all the staff were on their lunch break and the store was closed. While we stood around discussing what to do, one of the sellers came and let us in for a look. My companions bought a couple of boxes for gifts, and I agreed to take one bag myself.

Then it was back to town to drop off the boxes at our rooms.
This is the outside of the West Gate.

Then we rode around town to get a feel for where things were, and to find lunch. Just down Nan Dajie (South Street) from the Catholic Guesthouse is Shilou, sometimes called the Bell Tower, though the Chinese just means City Tower.
Pretty soon, one of the themes for the Pingyao portion of the trip made its first appearance.
There are lots of cats in this town. It seemed that about half of the shops had one or more hanging around somewhere, even curled up in the display cases.

For lunch, we wanted to try out some of the local specialties, so we picked a restaurant and ordered some.
On the far side are some fried balls (“poms” on the menu) filled with figs and red beans, sweet and gooey and tasty, if a bit greasy. And watch out for the seeds! Then there is a noodle dish that was pretty good, and a soup with tofu and fatty pork (bacon, essentially).

After lunch, while my companions were busy haggling at a jewelry stall, I rode the short distance to the South Gate.
This was the city’s main gate in its heyday. I think the area just inside it here was where the guards were garrisoned. During the middle of the 19th Century, Pingyao was the banking center of China, with several large nationwide banks headquartered here, and that great wealth made the city a showpiece of Chinese culture at the time. However, once the imperial situation started changing around the turn of the 20th Century, the banks didn’t adapt, and within twenty years, had all failed, reducing the city to a quaint backwater. And fortunately for us today, leaving it untouched by modernization. With the troubled banking situation in the US right now, it makes me wonder...
After the jewelry shopping was done (at least for the moment), we continued our ride, and came across something not listed in the guidebook.
This Christian church near the East Gate is still in use.

Along the inside of the eastern wall, you can see that behind the brick facing is a pile of dirt.
And you can see another of the wide variety of vehicle designs in use. And speaking of vehicle designs...
These larger three-wheeled things are very common as well. You can’t see it from this angle, but the engine is between the two seats, and it uses a belt to drive the rear axle.
We rode around the inside of the wall from the East Gate around to the north and discovered that the east side of town has very few tourist attractions. Just normal everyday life over here. That’s a pile of ears of corn set out to dry.
And that’s a pile of coal in the street with buckets to carry it inside for heating and cooking.
By the time we returned the bikes, it was after dark.

For dinner, we went to a somewhat more upscale place that was recommended in a guidebook. There was a guy in an old-fashioned costume who beat on a drum and announced the arrival of customers.
You can tell it’s upscale because the dishes all match. On the left is a local snack consisting of mashed potatoes formed around a stick and deep fried. You dip them into either the sweet sauce or the spicy salt powder. Interesting, but not outstanding. At the back is a chicken and vegetable dish that was good, and nearest is a nice eggplant dish.
I had been fighting off a cold for several days (living on Sudafed and Halls lozenges), so didn’t feel like a late night (and honestly, Pingyao does not have a bar scene like Lijiang does). We went back to the Catholic and arranged for a driver to take us to a site out of town in the morning.

Continue to part 4.

No reservations, part 4

Back to part 3.

2008-10-07

The day started off with a real disappointment. While the old fashioned platform bed was surprisingly comfortable, and the two quilts kept me cozy even without heat, I discovered that I had no hot water at all in my bathroom. There was no toilet paper, which I know is common in much of the world, so I was prepared and had brought my own. They didn’t provide any towels either, which was a new one to me. Well, I wasn’t about to take a cold shower when I was already freezing and not feeling well, so there was no need for a towel anyway. I brushed my teeth and went to the lobby/restaurant to meet the others.

We had a quick breakfast of zhou (rice porridge) and hard boiled eggs at the Catholic, then hopped in a little van for the trip to Qiao Jia Dayuan, which translates as Qiao Family Mansion or Qiao Compound. It’s a pretty fair drive out of town, surrounded by modest homes and shops.
Qiao Jia Dayuan was made famous by the movie Raise the Red Lantern, which was filmed there. It’s been a long time since I saw the movie, but many parts of the mansion certainly looked familiar.
Entrance fee is ¥40.
Just inside is a long passageway with three doors on each side, each leading to a courtyard and a set of rooms with a different function. There was one area devoted to family residence, one for business, one for guests, one for religious purposes, one for special occasions like births, weddings and deaths, a garden and so on.
Unlike most of the elaborate buildings I’ve seen in China, this one was neither religious nor imperial, but the result of private wealth. The Eyewitness guidebook says the family made its fortune in tea and tofu, but one of my companions said that tofu had nothing to do with it. You can’t get rich selling tofu. Probably someone misunderstood a Chinese phrase that refers to an extremely honest enterprise as being like tofu – white and pure. Note: I've since learned that the family's business actually did start with tofu, then expand into other things like tea. Shanxi is known for a different style of tofu than found elsewhere, and the Qiaos started out selling it.
There were a number of guided tours working their way through the mansion, mostly Chinese groups along with one large French group, so we heard a lot of the details without having our own guide. I couldn’t understand much of the Chinese, but I got bits translated.
The rooms are filled with displays of varying quality, with beautiful antique furniture being used by goofy looking mannequins dressed in period costume.
One room had a long wraparound diorama showing a festival.
These figures were about six inches tall.
The garden in Courtyard 6 was very pretty.
If I understood correctly, the cost to build the place is the equivalent of one billion current yuan, or about $150 million US dollars. There are a total of 313 rooms, not all of which I saw.

That made for a pretty eventful morning. We met the driver and headed back into town. Once there, we had lunch at a guest house called Tianyuankui.
That’s some more fried poms on the left, a dish of eggplant dipped in batter and deep-fried next to it; in the back is mao’er you, or cat’s ear noodles, so named because of their shape; the big bowl is a local noodle dish with tomato and tiny bits of pork; and my soup bowl has a tofu and mushroom soup. It was all really delicious.
Another part of the attraction was this resident, along with two other cats. After I finished eating, I gave her a little scratch under the chin. She hopped into my lap and made herself comfortable. We got to talking with the place’s manager, who was very friendly and ended up giving us a discount price for lunch.

After that satisfying meal, we went back to the same bike shop, rented almost the same bikes, and bought the Pingyao General Ticket.
For ¥120 a person you get entrance to virtually every place of interest in the town. It’s good for two days. We started out with a visit to Xian Yamen, the compound that once housed the seat of the county government.
It’s a large group of buildings with many courtyards.
One of the most interesting things here is a performance that is done several times a day. It is based on historical cases from the city’s records of matters that came before the magistrate.
There was one that had something to do with a dog, I think. And one that involved some stolen silver.
It was all good fun, except possibly for the guy who was put in stocks and taken away by the guards.

After that we toured the other side of the complex.
There’s a little garden area and the place where some of the guards’ quarters used to be.

And what remains of the jail.
The cells in this relatively open area were for minimal offenders. Hard cases were someplace less pleasant.

The inside of a cell...
...is maybe not that much different from my room back at the Catholic.

After that you get to see more of the remains of the mechanics of justice in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Offenders were transported in something like this:
Or this:
Not fun at all. And I will resist any other comments that come to mind.

Next were a couple of rooms full of the implements used to question suspects. Things like iron shoes that would be heated in coals and then put on the suspect’s feet. I couldn’t get any good pictures in here, as it was kind of dark and they were behind glass.

We left the secular world of old China behind and visited a temple next.
This is Chenghuang Miao, or the City God’s Temple.
In one of the chambers were a whole bunch of carved, painted figures.
Across on the other side were a bunch of figures that looked a lot less happy about things.
I believe this depicts the torment that awaits sinners. A large variety of gruesome punishments were depicted.

Next up was another temple, Wen Miao, which is Confucian.
It’s maybe a little more austere than the Buddhist and Taoist temples.
Maybe.

Confucianism is greatly concerned with learning, and there were many exhibits explaining the Imperial Examinations, all in Chinese and not much to look at.
There was a modern sculpture in homage to learning as well.

From the upper level of the back temple, there is an interesting view over the rooftops.
You can see the cross on top of the Christian church, with the city wall behind.

That was about enough sightseeing for one day, so we made a quick trip to one of the town ticket offices to get our tickets validated for the next day, then returned the bikes and went back to Tianyuankui for dinner.
Closest to me is a basket of zao that we brought in ourselves and they washed up for us. Clockwise from there is a dish of shanyao, which is called “long yam” on the menus in Pingyao, and is in a sweet sauce. Next around is a spicy tofu dish – both the green peppers and the dry red ones are pretty potent. The next dish is a really interesting local specialty called chao mo niu, which is little bits of beef stir fried with chunks of local bread, onions and other vegetables. It has a really interesting combination of spices to season it that I can’t even describe. There’s also a simple preparation of bocai greens with garlic. And in the center is a dry wheat noodle dish with dry red peppers.

This time we had a different visitor......who was later joined by the other resident cat. We were told the black and white one is generally most popular among guests.
Back at the Catholic, we told them the hot water didn’t work, and they called the manager, who came and tinkered around with it for a long time, eventually producing a lukewarm flow that seemed tolerable.

Continue to part 5.