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.