PINGYAO, China–Cobblestoned streets are closed to cars and filled with cyclists, some who ladle noodle soup from pots attached to their bikes. Lining these routes are hundreds of ancient government offices and traditional homes with sloped clay roofs and secluded courtyards. Three-storey dun-coloured walls made of bricks and caked-on mud encircle it all, running six kilometres around the classical city and connecting 72 watch towers.
Such well-preserved cultural remnants are rare in China, where buildings are torn down and replaced with shiny skyscrapers at an amazing rate. But Pingyao, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, somehow survived the carnage of the country's Cultural Revolution and the current onslaught of modernization. It's a place where visitors can venture back into a historic Middle Kingdom that has been bulldozed almost everywhere else.
So it's not surprising hordes of tourists from all over the country arm themselves with heavy cameras and breech the city's defences, descending from tour buses parked outside the gates to march on the souvenir stalls in the centre.
Jackie Deng, a lifelong resident who runs the popular Harmony Guesthouse, told me the city has received an increasing number of visitors in recent years."It's especially popular on weekends," he said.
Deng explained the city was built in a turtle shape, with the south tower serving as the head, four gates representing the feet and the imposing central tower the heart. For some reason, while other cities – such as Beijing – had their walls razed either during the Cultural Revolution or afterwards, Pingyao was left alone way out in the middle of Shanxi province
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