Sunday 18th

Dropped at Beijing Station at 08:30 to catch the 10:28 high speed train to Pingyao.  We were told that we had to leave that early because even on a Sunday the traffic can be very bad.

Like most transport places here, there is airport-style security to get into the station.

Boarding was a bit of a scrum till you reached the platform and then it became very calm.  The train moved off at 10:28 precisely to the second for the 4-hour journey.  It cost £30 per person in standard class where we are.  There’s a first class with fancy lie-flat seats.  There’s great leg room where we are but the seat width is not for the fuller figure.

We got up to a cruising speed of 298 km/h though we briefly touched 301 km/h.

A great train but not quite up to the comfort or style of the Japanese bullet trains.  For example, on a Japanese bullet train, when the guard enters your carriage he/she bows and the same when they leave.

The train TV shows various exercises you can do on-board.

£6 for a ready-meal on the train which was completely tasteless.

All along the route you can see just how much construction there is going on.

But they are all utilitarian concrete blocks that look really boring.

We were warned that the train would stop for exactly 2 minutes at our station so we had to be ready to get off.

We expected we would get off at a remote mountain destination but that wasn’t the case.

Pingyao is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the only city in China whose city walls are completely intact. It’s famous for paper-cutting and antiques and noodles.  Noodles because Pingyao is in the middle of an arid plain so unable to grow rice.  Buckwheat noodles are therefore a staple of the area.

Our guide, Jonathan, took use to the Yide Hotel which is great.  An old merchant house that has been converted into a hotel.  The rooms really feel like what it was – apart from the radiator, aircon and TV!  We were offered the choice of 2 rooms.  We have had this before where one room has a double bed and the other has 2 single beds.  But no, both rooms and double beds.  Never judge a bed by its cover!

 The bed is on a brick base and there is a hole underneath where they used to put coals to warm the bed and the room.

 A quick walk round the town before getting back to the hotel.  Our guide, Jonathon, has persuaded to see the Youjian Pingyao (a show) this evening.  Looked it up on TripAdvisor and it gets good reviews.

Collected by electric rickshaw (or a golf cart as we now call them) and driven to the theatre.

 (There is a police golf cart which is painted blue and white - this is true.)

This is immersive theatre and the audience walking between 6 areas of the theatre as the story unfolds.  (Apologies for some of the photos but flash wasn’t allowed.)  Jonathon gave us a running translation throughout the performance so here goes.

Mr Wong, a wealthy Pingyao merchant, has traveled with his family (including his 6-year old son) to Russia to do some business leaving his lavish home under the care of his housekeeper.  Something happens to them (didn't catch this part) and the housekeeper asks the leader of a group of bodyguards to go to Russia to bring them back.  The leader rounds up 232 bodyguards.

The women of Pingyao wash the bodyguards to ward off evil spirits

The women then bite the bodyguards so that on their return from Russia they will know who they are – a sort of tattoo.  For luck the bodyguards ask the women to bite them again....

....and then head off for Russia.

Fast forward 7 years and nothing has been heard from the expedition.  We see scenes of everyday Pingyao life including, the butcher, weaver etc.

There is an announcement that the expedition is returning and great excitement in on the streets of Pingyao.

Unfortunately, when the party returns, it is only Mr. Wong’s son, now aged 13, who has made it back.

The ghosts of the bodyguards tell of their longing for Pingyao and their families before disappearing.

Mr. Wong’s son needs to get married to continue the blood line and a competition is held to select a wife.  Various Pingyao women are judged on different attributes including their:

Foot size – their bound feet must be small enough to fit into a bowl.

Waist size

Hands – an ink print is taken of their hands to judge this

The size of their behind – needs to be big as a sign of fertility

And face.

They were also judged on their belly buttons but you get the idea.

As each attribute is judged, women are eliminated until the winner emerges who marries the son.

The woman has a son but dies in childbirth and the story fast-forwards to the present day.   

The descendants of the son and the bodyguards speak of their love for Pingyao and how every Chinese New Year they return to Pingyao from wherever they are in the world, to eat noodles and remember their ancestors.  Then follows what I call the noodle dance (involving a lot of flour) or what David calls the homo-erotic sequence.

 Finally, the closing number exhorts the audience to know who you are and remember your ancestors.

This could all have been super-tacky but was really well done and the audience loved it.  And at 90 minutes, the west end could certainly learn from this.

Back to the hotel – which seems to be staffed entirely by women – for a meal with our first bottle of Chinese wine.  A cheeky little Chardonnay which wasn’t at all bad.

And so to bed.