This blog post accompanies my Shanxi photo gallery and Models in Pingyao gallery.
Modern day Shanxi is the breadbasket of China’s coal industry, possessing around a third of China’s coal and produces a whopping 960 million tonnes annually – for all of you non-coal enthusiasts out there, by comparison the entire nation of USA (the world’s second largest coal producing country after China) produces 922 million tonnes. Needless to say the province is heavily industrial, but shimmering away beneath the dust and smog is a rich history filled with some truly monumental sites that are completely unique in China; from Buddhist cave carvings influenced by Indian, Persian and even Greek art, a monastery built onto the side of a cliff, through to the birthplace of China’s banking system.
My first stop in Shanxi, Datong, stood as the capital of China in the Northern Wei Dynasty, which was ruled by a nomadic Turkic tribe known as the Tuoba. For fans of the Three Kingdoms era/Dynasty Warriors, this is the same ‘Wei’ kingdom that Cao Cao founded, before the Tuoba took control of the kingdom and from there the rest of China. They were an early driver of one of the institutions we immediately associate with Chinese history and culture today – Buddhism. And indeed, it was this period that gave birth to a series of Buddhist cave complexes that were famed for their art work. One of the best preserved and most impressive is Yungang Grottoes by Datong, which has 53 caves and over 5,100 statues (others include the Kizil caves near Kuche and perhaps the most famous of them all, Mogao caves by Dunhuang, both of which I would visit later). All the caves, statues and carvings were carved directly out of the cliff side, and along with the frescoes, showcase some of the best Buddhist artwork in China. The style of art here is very much a product of the Silk Road; heavily influenced by Ghandharan art, which in itself is a fusion of Indian, Persian and Hellenic (brought over by Alexander the Great) art. Under this style, depictions of Buddha came in human form, as opposed to the mystical representations of Buddha as objects or motifs found in earlier traditions. With the human form, we see Indian-style earlobes that are elongated used alongside more Hellenic features; sharp straight noses and brow, wavy hair and even togas.
Following the collapse of the Tang dynasty, another nomadic people from the north known as the Khitan would come to rule over Shanxi once more, establishing the Liao dynasty and again using Datong as their capital. Some of Datong’s most famous temples come from this era, including Huayan Temple that houses one of the largest Buddhist halls in China, as well as some fantastic Liao-dynasty wooden sculptures. The Khitans were indeed famous for their wooden architecture and art, most of famous of which is China’s oldest and tallest wooden pagoda, standing at 67m high. The most famed temple of Datong however, and one of the most unique in China, is the Hanging Monastery. It is named as such because it literally hangs of a cliff face at 50m above ground, supported by a few rather long poles. Built over 1,500 years ago, it was built onto a cliff face so that floods would not damage it, whilst the mountain peaks would protect it from the sun, rain and snow. It is also the only temple that houses shrines to all of China’s ‘Big Three’ religions – Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism – all under one roof, sitting peacefully side by side.
Modern day Datong, one of China’s most important coal cities (and unsurprisingly one of the most polluted) looks like it still lives in Mao’s China. It almost looks to have been frozen in time, but even he couldn’t stop the wear-and-tear of time and pollution, especially in the outskirts of the town. Still, I found this area interesting precisely because of this, a glimpse of what an industrial, non-‘modernised’ China looks like away from the 21st gentrification of major cities. More centrally, much of the impoverished old town has been demolished and given way to a new, (but rather bland and soulless) old town, built with Imperial Chinese architecture. It is a prime example of China’s wildly contradictory tourism policy – ‘out with the old old, in with the new old’, as the ancient Chinese saying goes (probably). However, the new old town is yet to be completed at the time of writing, leaving Datong to be a city of half-demolished, half-built construction sites engulfed by a coal-coloured, dust-filled suburb that hasn’t really escaped the shadow of Mao.
Taiyuan, Shanxi’s modern capital, is a typical modern Chinese city with skyscrapers standing next to cranes building more skyscrapers. There is nothing of real note here for the casual traveller, except for the very good Shanxi Museum which traces the region’s history from prehistoric times down to modern culture.
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to walk through an ancient Han Chinese city, then look no further than Pingyao, a walled city that looks like it’s skipped 20th century China and been airlifted straight out of the Ming and Qing dynasties. And not in the crumbling, broken condition that ruins normally come in either – this city is extraordinarily well preserved and still teeming with local life. Ancient towers, temples, buildings and alleyways are lined with red lanterns and beautiful courtyards. It is a sharp contrast to the areas of China where the shadow of antiquity in daily life is disappearing or actively being demolished. Both inside and outside the walls, I found locals dancing, flying kites, practicing tai chi, playing guitar, playing xiangqi, or simply sitting and chatting in large congregations as the rest of the world passed them by.
Beginning from the Ming Dynasty, Shanxi was famous for its merchants, who traded food supplies, mineral resources, handicrafts and other manufactured goods not only just in the province but all across China. Pingyao was one of the cities to benefit, but it wasn’t until the Qing dynasty did it really reach its lofty peaks, where it gave birth to China’s first banks and cheques as a way of transferring money without the merchants having to carry hoards of silver with them as they travelled. As such, many of China’s financial institutions were based here, before they moved towards the cities along the Eastern coast in the 20th and 21st centuries. If you need proof of the merchants wealth, then the Wang Family Courtyard provides this in abundance. One of the wealthiest merchant families in Shanxi, there home ‘complex’ consists of 123 courtyards and 150,000 square meters. To put that into perspective, Old Trafford is around 7,000 square meters.
And to round it all off, I tried to channel my inner Bruce Wayne (minus the looks, money, intellect, though not minus the secret vigilante moonlighting) and successfully talked my way into some sort of model shoot here in Pingyao. Pictures can be found on my Models in Pingyao post.
Thanks for reading, and next time, over to the Terracotta Warriors and Xi’an!
China: Journey to the West 