A short drive away from Beijing, you can reach the city of Datong, Shanxi. Our drive took us through the mountains northwest of the city past amazing scenes of Great Wall climbing them into coal country.
A small city by Chinese standards, Datong is a regional hub and the center of history in the area. Unfortunately, most of the historic places were lost over time. However, due to a very ambitious mayor, the old city wall has been completely rebuilt along with other historic places in the old town. Currently, the city is rebuilding the Ming-era palace. I say they are rebuilding because I don’t know how true to the originals they are doing it, so I don’t feel comfortable saying restoring.
This very expensive project of rebuilding an ancient city has been done in a very unthoughtful way. For example, inside the city wall there is a series of roundabouts with old structures. Presumably these would be bell tower or drum tower, but there are more than two. Around these circuses there are no sidewalks. It makes this town very unfriendly to pedestrians. However, it is an old town, so the streets aren’t too friendly to vehicular traffic making it extremely congested.
Anyway, the main attractions of Datong are not in the city itself, though there are a couple. Instead, Datong is the place to set up camp to visit the spectacular sights nearby.
Nine Dragon Screen
One of the original artifacts remaining in the old city of Datong is the Nine Dragon Screen that once protected the entrance to the palace. Built in the 1392, this glazed tile wall is the largest of its kind in China at more than 45 meters long.
The tradition of a nine dragon screen was spread across China. It served a purpose of feng shui acting as a barrier to not allow bad things to enter. Very few in-tact screens remain in China. That is one reason Datong’s is impressive.
We rolled into town just before the posted closing time. However, the gate was already locked. A member of our group convinced the caretaker to let us in anyway. So, we got a private viewing of this ancient masterpiece. There were no lights, but that didn’t prevent us from enjoying this lovely piece of history.
City Walls
As I mentioned, Datong recently rebuilt its full city wall around the old city. It is not an exact replica, especially since this one was designed and built with modern traffic flow in mind for entrances and exits. A park surrounds the old city allowing people to truly appreciate the wall and moat. At night it glows, until 10:00 p.m., and looks stunning. If only it were a true ancient relic. Either way, the sight and thought of the wall is impressive.
If you happen to have extra time in Datong, the wall can be visited and climbed. I think they even have bikes to ride around the top on like in Xi’an. At this time of year, they have big lantern sculptures for Spring Festival (Chinese New Year).
An Old Church and Wall
One of the highlights of our short trip was an early morning adventure. We set out around 4:00 a.m. to reach a little gem I read about in Lonely Planet a couple of hours way. It was cold and dark, but this didn’t matter much when we were standing on crumbling remnants of the Great Wall with ruins of a 150-year-old Catholic church in view as the sun rose.
The old sanctuary is down to its foundations, but the bell tower still stands. It bares artistic, Baroque details. Obviously, this isn’t a completely abandoned religious site since there are relatively new Stations of the Cross that wind around the church up to an open-air meeting space on the brow of the hill above the old church.
All of this amazing scenery is accented by old turrets and sections of ancient wall. The bricks and stone are all gone, but the compacted earth fillings still show the course of the wall run down the hill into the distance.
Another interesting thing I saw and thought about on this excursion were all of the small towns that once had their own town walls. I know this because there were remnants of the walls and watch towers. My biggest question is when were they dismantled and made useless? Was it due to modern politics or older more ancient power plays? Either way, it is always fascinating to get out and see old things that haven’t been gentrified for tourists.
