A chance to travel back in time today

A bird's-eye view of Pingyao Ancient City in Shanxi province. [Photo by Zhu Xingxin/China Daily]

Highlighting its many charms, the ancient city welcomes guests while meeting challenges of preservation and sustainability, Yang Yang and Zhu Xingxin report in Pingyao, Shanxi.

Three decades ago, Gong Li, a college student who grew up in Pingyao Ancient City in Shanxi province, invited one of her classmates to visit her hometown.

It was evening when they were picked up by her brother-in-law at the old railway station located outside the city. The two sat in a motorcycle sidecar, winding through dimly lit old streets and passing a few closed shops that sold daily goods and services such as smoked meat or ironware.

"My classmate said it was quite scary as if through the ancient gate, we had traveled back many years," says Gong, 48, deputy head of Pingyao's cultural center.

Hailed as the best-preserved ancient city inhabited by ethnic Han people, dating back more than 2,800 years, Pingyao Ancient City is an incarnation of historical memories passed down from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. It houses about 4,000 traditional residences from Ming and Qing, showcasing the evolution and layout of a traditional Han city.

At age 6, Gong moved with her family to the ancient city, living in a quiet alley close to the busy South Street until getting married. In her memories, everyone knew each other around the neighborhood; children played on the ancient walls; sometimes, she got lost in the mazelike alleys.

Visitors enjoy a night stroll at Pingyao Ancient City in Shanxi on Sept 19. [Photo by Zhu Xingxin/China Daily]

Pingyao has four major streets, eight minor streets and 72 alleys that, resembling the feet of a house centipede, are vividly called "house-centipede alleys".

"What's particularly interesting about Pingyao is that all the alleys intersect like lines on a checkerboard. Wherever you get lost, just walk ahead along one alley and you will ultimately reach a major street and find your way back," she says.

But now everything has changed. To better preserve the city, the schools, hospitals, governmental organs and many residents have left.

"It's more convenient to live outside, especially for young people who prefer living in well-equipped buildings," she says.

As many traditional courtyards have been transformed for commercial purposes, like in many other ancient cities in China, the streets of Pingyao are packed with various businesses ranging from ubiquitous photo-shooting tours, restaurants, guesthouses, local specialty shops selling items like time-honored braised beef and aged vinegar and Pingyao hand-polished lacquerware to shops selling snacks such as cakes, milk tea, cultural creative products and handmade soaps.

But Gong prefers a nostalgic lifestyle, an ancient city that breathes when more people live in those courtyards with modern facilities.

"When you stroll in the alleys, you can see cats lying in the sunshine, elderly people sitting against the walls and chatting, and people playing chess or poker or drinking tea. That's what brings the ancient city to life," she says.

The City God Temple of Pingyao with glazed tiles. [Photo by Zhu Xingxin/China Daily]

In 1997, Pingyao was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List as the only survivor of its kind throughout the vicissitudes of history, which has brought many tourists from all over the world.

On a Wednesday in early September, Bai Yonghong, the 59-year-old owner of the Harmony Hotel on West Street, received 38 guests from Spain. As one of the most popular hotels among foreign tourists, 80 percent of its guests came from overseas before the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the nights, sheltered by a 500-year-old Chinese scholar tree 13.1 meters tall, people from different countries gather in the three yards that connect, drinking beer and talking. Bai sits among them, ready to serve, while trying to figure out what they are saying. That is how she picked up languages such as English, French and Spanish.

"Foreign visitors like Pingyao for its authentic ancient Chinese charm," she says.

About 10 years ago, Bai purchased the residence with three courtyards once belonging to a family in the Qing Dynasty and transformed them into a hotel. Each courtyard is enclosed by two-story buildings made of mainly bricks and wood, decorated with exquisite "three carvings" that characterized the residences of wealthy families in the old times — wood, stone and brick carvings.

On top of the roofs, a cute miniature house sits in the middle, a decoration that can be seen on many roofs in Pingyao.

"It's a feng shui building (a building for auspicious purposes)," Bai says.

Unlike many ancient buildings in other areas, the traditional residences in Pingyao have taller outer walls and one-sided sloping roofs that tilt toward the yards. Sitting on the east of the Loess Plateau, Pingyao is windy and dry with little rainfall.

In a courtyard enclosed by houses on four sides, one-sided sloping roofs gather precious rainwater into the yard, while the four taller outer walls shield from the wind and cold. Since water is synonymous with wealth in China, traditional residential structures in Pingyao "gather both energy and wealth".

A common city in ancient times, the biggest value of Pingyao lies in that it is the only ancient walled city inhabited by ethnic Han people that was preserved in its entirety, says Li Jinsheng, 62, a former first-level inspector of the Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of Shanxi Province. A native of the ancient city, Li was among the experts who planned the first blueprints to preserve and restore this cultural heritage in the 1980s.

Evolving over hundreds of years, the streets of Pingyao form a pattern in the shape of the Chinese character tu (earth).

In ancient Chinese people's beliefs, the earth generates gold in a symbolic sense, which has become one of the explanations why Pingyao was home to many tycoons, especially during the late Qing Dynasty.

"Whether it's the city's turtle-shaped contour or the tu-shaped street pattern, they are essentially people's blessings to the city for its longevity and prosperity," Li says.

Pingyao Ancient City showcases the traditional philosophy about a Han city: a pivotal high point — the three-story City Pavilion dating back to the Ming Dynasty; a central axis — the South Street; the Confucian Temple on the left and the Guandi Temple on the right, which commemorates the late Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220) general Guan Yu; the City God Temple on the left and the ancient government office on the right; and Taoist temples on the left and Buddhist temples on the right.

With a maximum reception capacity of 113,000 people per day, Pingyao Ancient City is seeing its busiest time of the year.

Following the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday is the 24th China Pingyao International Photography Festival that closed on Monday with photographers and shutterbugs flocking in from all over the world.

Tuesday saw the opening ceremony of the eighth Pingyao International Film Festival which gathers many filmmakers, stars and moviegoers.

During the Spring Festival and May Day holidays, Pingyao received about 80,000 tourists per day. For the upcoming National Day holiday, it expects more visitors largely thanks to the video game Black Myth: Wukong.

The game, launched internationally on Aug 20 by Chinese developer Game Science, has gone viral online. It features temples, statues of gods and Buddhas based on real ones in Shanxi, a province preserving the most ancient pagodas and temples in China, intriguing many people to visit those historical buildings, including the Shuanglin Temple and Zhenguo Temple not far from the ancient city of Pingyao.

Booming tourism has brought not only wealth but also challenges in how to better preserve the ancient city for its historical and cultural significance and for the residents to live a better life so that it can live on.

"Overall, the environment in Pingyao is getting better and businesses are good for the residents' lives," Gong says. But she hopes for a warmer atmosphere composed of antique streets, elderly people, tea-drinking, Chinese chess-playing, and pets, facilitated by modern infrastructure — "a vibe with less homogenized commercial activities".

For urban planners like Li, the management of the ancient city is becoming more complicated and challenging since "it is a residential district, a preserved cultural heritage site and also a tourist attraction", he says.

"But ultimately, Pingyao is an ancient city where people reside. We shouldn't turn it into an uninhabited tourist spot; there should always be residents," Li says.

"The regulations for preserving Pingyao Ancient City explicitly emphasize the importance of safeguarding the daily lives of the residents."

Over the past decades, efforts have been made not only to preserve the cultural heritage of Pingyao Ancient City but also to develop it sustainably.

"We can see the ancient city has been doing well. The key is to continuously improve the living environment and preserve and restore old houses while continuing to develop emerging industries, especially cultural creative industries, such as those regarding photography and film, for example," Li says.

"Our goal is to breathe new life into this ancient city, to continue its history and to pass on its culture."