Dingzhou

Only thirty kilometers from Quyang is Dingzhou, a city on the railway that links Beijing to Shijiazhuang. The minibus from Quyang dropped me off at the train/bus station in Dingzhou, both on opposite sides of a chaotic square. I immediately got in line for train tickets at the station, and tried to buy tickets for the evening, but alas, they were sold out. I settled for a 7:45 morning train back to Beijing. Since I had to stay overnight, I found a hotel that was right next to the train station. It was a real shithole, the second-worst hotel I have ever stayed in. The bathrooms were dreadful and had no partitions. However, they were at least clean. The room was clean, but very basic. The owner, an old man, was very friendly to me. He obviously had little contact with foreigners; as he was taking me up to my room, we passed a guy who said ‘hellooo’ is a mocking way. This is typical Chinese behavior towards foreigners. The old man asked me if I knew him. No, I explained, I do not. But a lot of Chinese people like saying hello to foreigners.

My whole reason for going to Dingzhou was to visit the Liaodi pagoda, China’s tallest premodern building. The ride through the city to the pagoda showed that Dingzhou looked the same as every other Chinese city: dusty and ugly. Featuring horrible bathroom tile buildings of grotesque dimensions, Dingzhou was not easy on the eyes. Even in the ‘old quarter’ where all the historical attractions were, the city was hideous. In the hutong area behind the pagoda, I counted one building that looked more than sixty years old. As usual, it was in an appalling state of repair.

On the bright side, the pagoda was delightful. It was beautifully restored, and you could climb to the top. I enjoyed looking down on Dingzhou at the top, and saw some historical sights from the air. In a display of historical pictures in front of the pagoda, I saw that in the 1880s, a quarter of the pagoda had collapsed, revealing an interior ‘core’ pagoda. Very interesting.

Next I went to the Confucian Temple which was new, but nice. While there, a group of soldiers walked in and wanted me to take their picture with them. When I finished in the temple, I heard an old man outside ask someone about me. “That’s a foreigner, right? Not Korean or Japanese?” This is what you get in the boonies of China.

Quyang

I wanted to visit a town way off the tourist path, and Quyang was that town. Unlike Zhengding and my next destination, Dingzhou, Quyang is not even connected by railway. Apart from a large temple and a crumbling pagoda, Quyang has nothing for tourists. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Quyang, but was moderately surprised to see old-style buildings in the temple area. Apparently the local government wishes to attract tourism.

Quyang is not very well developed. Unlike the massive apartment towers in Zhengding, Quyang, had squat little apartment blocks, and I didn’t see a KFC there. Having a KFC is the mark of a city in China. Quyang’s claim to fame is its sculpture industry. Before I left on my trip, I did a quick internet search of Quyang and found a reuters article about the sculpture industry. It seems as though the economic downturn has severely affected Quyang, with orders drying up for the Greek style sculptures. Not surprisingly, there is little domestic demand for these kind of sculptures, so they sit in the workyards of Quyang. On my way out of town, I passed tons of these workshops filled with garish statues.

Overall, I quite enjoyed Quyang. The Beiyue temple was spectacular, and it was kinda fun stumbling across a decrepit pagoda in the midst of hutongs. People were very friendly to me in Quyang, which was nice, and no one tried to cheat me. I got a lot of stares but thankfully no hellos.

Zhengding

This weekend I visited Zhengding, a town located in the central China plain, just fourteen kilometers north of the Hebei capital Shijiazhuang. Nevertheless, Zhengding feels like a town in the countryside, far removed from the modernity of Shijiazhuang. I would estimate that massive development only began here a few years ago. In the north part of the city, four massive apartment buildings were under construction. A couple of other apartment buildings have been completed, along with a mall. I'm not entirely sure what the main industry is here, apart from tourism.

Happily for the town’s historical preservation, the massive development is quite removed from the old quarter. Development is so limited in this part of the city, that farmland is still present within the walls. Even so, there was actually very little that was actually ‘old’ in the old town, apart from the pagodas and temples. The main street in the old town was built in old style, but none of the buildings were really that old, including the dwellings in the many hutongs. Unlike the beautiful courtyard houses in Beijing, these hutongs had ugly brick houses. The city wall has not been pulled down, but is crumbling away.

I saw three other foreigners in the time I was there, but Zhengding still has a lot of work to do to make the city friendlier to tourism. It felt more like a frontier town than a real city. Pains should be made to beautify the surrounding hutong neighborhoods, and not build ugly modern buildings. Better hotels should be built that are up to international standards.

The historical sights within the city are very well-preserved though. Perhaps a few halls could be reconstructed to create an actual temple with worshipers. The Kaiyuan Temple, in particular cries out for a reconstruction of its two destroyed halls. Having a living, breathing temple with monks and incense creates a better atmosphere than a sterile historical site. This can be seen in the comparative popularity of the Longxing temple over all the other sites, despite its higher admission cost. I think Zhengding has a lot of potential to become a premier tourist attraction, but more work needs to be done to beautify the city and expand tourist’s amenities.