A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao. Shanxi Province, China.
May 2010.
After a year teaching English in a small language school on Beijing’s northeastern fringe, the simple act of leaving the capital felt like letting out a long, deep breath. China’s roads were calling again, thus I answered with an inventive route stitched together from recommendations, maps, and guidebook margins.
Still, I knew this journey had something to prove. The bar had been set the previous summer, when I’d spent a month exploring Shandong Province — a trip so rich in texture, colour, and cultural authenticity that it still makes me smile over sixteen years later. This time, I wondered, could China surprise me all over again?
The isolated rural village of Zhujiayu in Shandong Province.
I kicked off the trip with one of the country’s architectural powerhouses: the ancient, UNESCO-listed city of Pingyao in Shanxi Province. Having bid farewell to colleagues and friends, I boarded a train that whooshed me there in a brisk four hours.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
From the moment I stepped onto the platform I could see what all the fuss was about — beyond the station rose the city’s sombre grey ramparts and tiled rooftops, an unbroken sweep of Ming-era walls and watchtowers. Like a perfectly preserved apparition of imperial China.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
With just two days at my disposal, I wasted no time: straight to the hotel, a swift check-in, bags dropped, and back out into the streets. In truth, I barely spent any time there over the course of my stay. Yet my Pingyao lodgings remain impossible to forget — a 300-year-old Qing-dynasty courtyard residence known as Harmony Guesthouse.
Visiting the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
Tucked inside the city walls on Nan Dajie (南大街) , the main commercial street, it could not have been more central. Once the private mansion of a prosperous family, the building now held a ring of simple, cosy en-suite rooms arranged around a broad timber-and-stone courtyard, a pocket of calm insulated from the hum of the street beyond.
Harmony Guesthouse.
It was over breakfast the next morning that the place acquired its human warmth. The manager, Jackie Deng, sauntered over with an easy smile.
His English was decent, his manner earnest, and within minutes we were swapping travel stories like old acquaintances. Definitely a rarity in my three years of living and roaming across China, where such encounters with hotel staff, especially men, had been few and far between.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
Along with the city walls, Nan Dajie is one of Pingyao’s main sights. Western tourists often refer to it as Ming–Qing Street, a reference to its beautifully preserved Ming and Qing architecture. It runs north-south through the heart of the walled city and positively thrums with traditional shopfronts, banks, guild halls, grocers, cafes, restaurants and guesthouses.
Nan Dajie (南大街)
Ming-Qing Street.
I loved the fact that it was a car-free zone, though I still had to keep a wary eye on the many bicycles whizzing past, some veering far closer for comfort than I would have liked.
More than that, I appreciated that the street was no mere tourist set piece, but a living artery of everyday life. Before long I’d stopped to watch two local women bent intently over their work, stitching thick soles at a handmade shoe shop.
A handmade shoe store on Nan Dajie.
A little farther along, curiosity drew me to the doorway of a funeral-wreath store. These great circular wreaths — symbols of eternity and life’s unbroken cycle — are fashioned not from flowers but from layers of folded paper.
Their colours are so bright they border on gaudy to Western eyes (mine included). Yet in China they signify honour, respect, and a celebration of the departed. I found them utterly fascinating, if not conventionally beautiful.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
A few doors down I ducked into a small store for water and bananas, only to make the elderly woman behind the counter cluck with amusement at my mangled attempt at a Chinese greeting. I’d like to think I came across as… ahem… endearing.
She’s probably still laughing.
One of the more unusual photographs I captured that day was of this man loading.. wait… what is he actually loading? They are… drum roll… cylindrical charcoal briquettes — a common traditional fuel in northern China, especially in historic towns like Pingyao.
They’re used for heating traditional homes and cooking on stoves, among other things. Note the numerous and sizeable holes, which allow air to circulate so the fuel burns more evenly and efficiently.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
Clearly amused by my baffled expression.
A number of street vendors were offering local dishes, so I decided to take a chance on one man and his Yellow Millet Zongzi (黄米粽子), a Pingyao speciality.
Stacked in metal steamers and wrapped in woven bamboo leaves, these soft, sticky-crumbly dumplings of glutinous millet arrived drenched in sugar and syrup. Tasty enough in the moment, I thought — though not something I ever felt compelled to hunt down again.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
A number of dramatic towers and gates line the street. Of these, the most impressive is surely the Central Market Tower, most likely built in the 14th century. Symbolic of the city’s once grand reputation for trade and banking, merchants would often use the landmark as a meeting point. It is exceptionally well preserved, with multi-eaved roof tiles, glazed ridges and sculpted ornamental beasts said to ward off evil.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
Another structure that caught my eye was the more understated Tingyu Tower Gate (聽雨樓), a graceful grey-brick archway whose quiet presence belied its storied past. In centuries gone by it stood surrounded by banks, the air almost constantly alive with the rapid clatter of abacus beads. Locals said the sound resembled rain pattering on bamboo — a poetic comparison that earned it the affectionate name Listening to Rain Tower.
Tingyu Tower Gate.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
An old man sleeping outside a teahouse at the foot of Tingyu Tower Gate.
Away from the main stretch, I was keen to seek out Pingyao Catholic Church — also known as Anjia Street Catholic Church. Built in the late 17th century after Catholic missions reached Shanxi, this intriguing architectural hybrid combines a local grey-brick façade with Gothic-style windows and a slender bell tower.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
It was silent and somewhat down-at-heel inside the church that day. I couldn’t help but imagine that Pingyao’s modern-day Catholic community must be very small indeed, perhaps ever dwindling. And yet, looking on the bright side, it feels something of a miracle that the building still stands at all, given how many churches across China were damaged or destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
Outside the church, I stumbled upon an unexpectedly magnificent discovery: a gorgeous sculpted wall unlike anything I’d anticipated. Known as a Nine-Dragon Wall (九龙壁 Jiǔlóngbì), this traditional architectural feature appears in some of China’s oldest cities and is closely associated with imperial power and protection.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
The number nine itself symbolises supremacy and heavenly authority in Chinese numerology. Fashioned from glazed ceramic relief tiles, the dragons twist and coil as they chase flaming pearls — symbols of wisdom, enlightenment, and cosmic energy.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
Number 9… number 9…. number 9.
I remember glancing at my phone and realising it was already mid-afternoon. Yikes — time to get up onto the city walls themselves, a staple of any visit to Pingyao.
I set off down a backstreet in search of one of the many staircases and gate towers that grant access to the ramparts. I’ll never forget this photo, not so much for what it shows as for what happened moments after I took it, when I was unexpectedly accosted by a… shall we say… enterprising lady of the afternoon.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
Thankfully I arrived at an entranceway minutes later. The walls have a staggering 72 watchtowers (called — chénglóu 城楼) — each of which symbolise the 72 sages of Confucius. Inside each one, visitors can seek out a calligraphy panel or historical plaque with an inscription of a Classical Chinese text.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
The walls stretch for an impressive six kilometres, rising somewhere between ten and twelve metres high. Almost as soon as I set off, I found myself catching my breath, drawn in by the views across the city’s tiled roofs, stone courtyards, and narrow cobbled lanes.
Up on the City Walls.
Some stretches of brickwork were a touch uneven, which meant keeping a careful eye on my footing — trickier still, I imagine, for anyone attempting it by bike. Yet beyond the beauty, what struck me most was the quiet. For such a monumental structure, I encountered remarkably few people along the way.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
Up on the City Walls.
I also enjoyed the many life-size statues scattered at intervals along the ramparts. Armoured sentries grip spears beside the crenellations, archers stand poised at lookout points, and the occasional robed officer surveys the horizon with quiet authority — all carefully positioned to suggest how the city’s defences once functioned.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
The statues are modern additions rather than ancient relics, yet they work surprisingly well, animating the long brick walkway and helping you picture the wall as it might have felt centuries ago.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
On day two, my main goal was to visit nearby Shuanglin Temple, tucked beside the tiny village of Qiaotou, about seven kilometres southwest of Pingyao. After a hearty breakfast at Harmony, I rented a bike from a local shop and set off, braving a stretch along the provincial highway S221. The temple is well signposted, so it’s almost impossible to miss the turn-off.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
I soon had to dismount, though — the leafy, narrow approach was absolutely packed with temple-goers, motorbikes and tuk-tuks, not to mention vendors hawking snacks, incense sticks and handmade crafts.
The Approach to Shuanglin Temple.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
Shuanglin Temple traces its origins back more than 1,500 years to the Northern Wei period, though most of what stands today dates from later restorations. Especially during the Ming dynasty, when its extraordinary collection of painted clay sculptures was created.
The sculptures are the main draw, which is why it remains one of my small travel regrets that I didn’t stop to photograph more of them.
Shuanglin Temple.
For reasons now lost to time, the only one I captured was this stupendous figure known as the Thousand-Armed Bodhisattva. A manifestation of Guanyin — the embodiment of compassion in Chinese Buddhism — the statue doesn’t literally possess a thousand arms. In fact, it has just twenty-six, the name speaking not to arithmetic but to the deity’s supposedly boundless reach.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
Just across from the temple, I wandered the crowded littered lanes of Shuanglin Temple Market. Once again I found my attention drawn to a local food stall.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
I shuffled forward in the long, snaking queue for tī jiān noodles, mesmerised by the cook at work beside his cauldron of bubbling water. Instead of slicing dough by hand, he pressed it firmly through a squat wooden contraption clamped over the pot, leaning his weight into it so the pale mass squeezed out in soft, irregular ribbons that dropped straight into the boil.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
Shuanglin Temple Market.
When my bowl finally arrived, the noodles were bathing in a tangy, oil-sheened broth, scattered with strips of beef, chunks of egg, soft tomato and fine shavings of spring onion. Ten out of ten.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
Less impressive, but still worth a try, was the second traditional Shanxi dessert of my Pingyao stay. This dense glutinous layered rice cake is called jujube (枣糕夹) and comes with a mashed filling of crushed nuts and red bean paste. It was ok… quite bland, if truth be told. I guess I’m just not that into traditional Chinese desserts.
A Visit to the Ancient Walled City of Pingyao.
Two days in a city is unusually brief by my standards, and something I rarely allow myself. Even so, I left Pingyao with nothing but fond memories, its exceptional history and unmistakable skyline lingering long after I’d gone. Next, it would be back onto the train for another of China’s undisputed highlights: the colossal city of Xi’an, gateway to the Terracotta Warriors.
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37 Comments
Somewhere in China might be my next trip. Need to revise your past posts again.
Hey Geoff, we are also dreaming of a return to China, but not sure if it’s something we’ll be able to pull off this year. Sadly, the vast majority of my China travels remain unpublished, but I will be getting the last of my 2009-2010 travels chalked off over the coming weeks. Cheers.
Love the fierce warrior pose Leighton. Its like you had your opponents frozen in place. Your accommodations look amazing and the friendly host certainly made the stay memorable. What an amazing beautiful city, buildings, walls complete with colourful locals, including the enterprising lady of the afternoon. I am afraid the crowds at the temple would have done me in, particularly since Covid. I must admit, I am not a huge fan of most Chinese foods, especially any dish with glutinous or sticky in the title. Me and a sticky rice pancake had a real battle of wills at a breakfast dim sum, which was preceded by a night of liquid over indulgence. The sticky rice pancake won and I had to leave. I do like good Mongolian and Szechuan fare though. Thanks for sharing your adventure. Happy Sunday. Allan
Hey Allan, yes my enemies that day were quite forgiving: all intent but no action. I am a big fan of Chinese food I must say, though in the same breath I concede that there are plenty of dishes, snacks and delicacies that I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. But the cuisine is so vast and varied that there is much to savour away from the ghastly stuff that makes you think: why, oh why, is this a food? Those Pingyao noodles were an example of the kind of Chinese food that pulls my chain. Happy Sunday!
There are so many unexpected gems in Pingyao, from the gate to the decorated wall, the life sized statues, and your hotel. This actually makes me want to return to China. Maggie
Thanks Maggie, Pingyao is one of China’ must-sees I think. I could have done with an extra day to soak up a bit more of it.
What an amazing city
Certainly is. 🙂
Sounds terrific, Leighton, maybe we’ll get there some day…!
Well worth a visit, Phil.
Pingyao sounds like an interesting place to visit, particularly the ramparts and life-sized statues. I enjoyed your interactive photos; posing with them would be hard to resist. Your description of the approach to Shaunglin Temple reminds me of arriving at the Golden Temple in Kyoto. It felt like being in Disneyland with so many kiosks and vendors lining the path to the entrance. That definitely diminished the reverence of the place. Wonderful post, Leighton.
Thanks Tricia, Pingyao definitely stands out from that period of travel, although that entire trip brings nothing but fond memories. Nearly sixteen years ago, yikes. I’m looking forward to finally polishing off those 2009-2010 travels over the next month or so.
What a vibrant city! The Wall looks like a must see for sure. Your accommodations sound great, I remember reading about your prior ones and thinking glad that wasn’t me ha!
Harmony Guesthouse was definitely among the better accommodations of that first year in China. Thanks for reading Lyssy.
I’ve never heard of Pingyao but it seems I should have done – it looks amazing! And your guesthouse looks wonderful too. It reminds me a little of a Marrakesh riad but in Chinese style.
Thanks Sarah, Pingyao is a fabulous slab of authentic traditional China and these days even faster from Beijing on the bullet train. Could even be done as a day trip.
I really enjoyed this, Leighton. The visit to the Catholic church stood out to me – that mix of quiet neglect and the knowledge that it somehow survived the cultural revolution gives the place a haunting weight. Shuanglin Temple looks incredible those centuries-old statues must create quite an atmosphere. The little food moments scattered through the day always seem to anchor a place in the senses don’t you think? You did well to blend into those amusing city walls scenes. Jackie Deng has a kind face, I think.
Thanks, James. Yes, a properly delicious meal definitely helps to solidify the feeling of a place in the old memory bank. I would love to know if Jackie Deng still welcomes guests at Harmony Guesthouse. Somehow something tells me he’s probably moved on.
Your visit to Pingyao reflects the China of yesterday, as we imagined it before the great economic leap forward that may have caused it to lose its soul. Certain scenes remind me of what I saw in the streets of Beijing in the late 1980s.
Beijing in the late 1980s must have been a blast. Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
excellent leighton. your opening description of arriving in pingyao and seeing the grey ramparts rising beyond the station immediately set the tone. some small moments that stuck with me: the encounter with jackie deng – the charcoal man and the funeral wreath shop, i have never seen anything like those coloured paper circles. as usual you have crafted a very evocative portrait of a city that clearly still carries the atmosphere of its imperial past
Thanks Stan, during my second year in Beijing (2014-2015) I actually ended up attending a funeral where I saw a number of those giant circular wreaths used during the service. Thanks for the kind words as always, there are some great locations across China coming up over the next weeks.
I’m a big fan of car-free zones. Too bad they’re not bike-free zones too though. Love all the life-size statues on the city walls and your pictures posing with them. Did you visit all of the 72 watchtowers?
I definitely cycled past all 72 watchtowers, but would say I only stopped into about 10-15. Thanks for reading about my visit to Pingyao, Linda.
What a great addition to your China posts. I love those old city gates and the watchtower. It does seem like you stepped right back in time with how well preserved it is. Those noodles must have been really excellent to have such a long line for them. If people are willing to brave a line then the food must be good.
Great history, delicious food, stunning architecture, nostalgia on tap. Pingyao ticked so many of my travel boxes, we were a match made in heaven. Cheers, Meg.
So groovy! I had no idea. A great post!
Cheers!
Lovely! I’ve not been to Pingyao, but it looks like a beautiful city steeped in long history and culture. I’ve had zongzi before (and love it), but Pingyao’s look a bit different. Yummy all the same! Thanks for sharing more of your time in China, Leighton 😊
Thanks for stopping by Rebecca. Pingyao is one of those special places that, if push came to shove, might just slip into my all-time China Top 10.
It looks like a wonderful place! The Harmony Guesthouse is really beautiful, I googled it and it looks like it’s been modernised and has some pretty fancy rooms! And with 10 out of 10 noodles on offer – what a wonderful place to experience 🙂
I’m glad Harmony is still going and has spruced itself up these past sixteen years. Feels like something of a city institution. Thanks for checking out Pingyao, Hannah.
Wow! Those are some
Walls! Looks like a very interesting place!
Brings a whole to meaning to ‘Where’s Wall-y?’ Sorry, that was crap. Thanks for reading!
🤣🤣
Loved your poses with the warriors! This looks like a less tourist traveled destination where you can get the feel of the city. The photo of the front of the market made me want to step in as well.
Pingyao is a little underrated yes, thought I’m not sure why considering what it has to offer and its proximity to Beijing. Appreciate the catch up Ruth 🙂