Datong--Ancient Dust and Modern Dust

Datong—Ancient Dust and Modern Dust

Datong (大同) is the ancient capital of several dynasties starting in about the 4th century A.D. Thus, there is yellow earth dust going back thousands of years. Most of the dust, however, is of more recent origin, more black than yellow, emanating from the huge coal complex right outside of town. Thus, it is perhaps symbolic of lots of places in China where grimy, oily coal dust covers unbelievable cultural treasures. In Datong you can typically look up directly at the sun in mid-day and it looks like the moon. The first impressions are that it also has less of 2007 China's new construction and better quality housing, but I never saw the whole town. Coal powers China, but for some reason it seems to be doing less for Datong.

We arrived at the hotel in mid-afternoon and the cab driver from the bus station was very anxious to cut a deal with us to drive us all around to see all the sites of the area for a fixed price. He was very confident we could do it all in a day, probably at about 100/km/hr., slowing down a bit for some pictures, of course. He said that Datong and the surrounding counties had 4 million people and that the hotel we were staying at was (淘汰) past its prime or fallen into disrepair. I suppose he just wanted us to experience the very best of Datong, and he did introduce us to a fabulous noodle shop right across the street. In fact, the hotel was a bit run down, but there was plenty of hot water in the shower and it had a fabulous view into people's kitchens in the apartment block 10 yards across the alley through some smoke vents.

Since there was plenty of time in the day yet, we set out to see the two big Kuanyin temples, which were within walking distance. They had very nice accompanying exhibits of artifacts from the Tang, Jin and Liao dynasties. Also, in spite of the soot and noise of the city, they were very peaceful places as well as being active temples.

At the second temple, Po-lin bought a small Kuanyin statue, mostly at the encouragement of a friend in Tianjin, who has now become a very serious devotee of Pure Land Buddhism, which they also had books on. After the purchase, the sales lady, having become a Buddhist since starting to work at the shop, suggested taking it over to be blessed by the monk (for a donation, of course!) and while he was doing that I asked the her about a huge newly built Christian church sticking up not a hundred yards from the temple and whether or not there were a lot of Christian converts. She said quite a few (挺多) and I asked why. She quickly became very solicitous and started talking about how we Chinese have our Buddhism and the Moslems have their god and the Christians have theirs and it's all ok. Perhaps she assumed as a Westerner I was a Christian who needed reassurance about China's being open to Christianity. But I said that was not my concern at all. I was only curious about whether Christians were actively proselytizing (传教) and she said no. Nevertheless, there are lots of Christian converts in China compared to before, and it's a topic for further discussion.

After we got back to the hotel we had a dinner of daoxue noodles (刀削面), literally ‘knife cut noodles,' which is a kind of very fat chewy noodle made by slicing strips off of a big cylinder of heavy steamed bread or whatever about 2 feet long and 5 of 6 inches in diameter. These noodles then get slopped into greasy pork or mutton soup or whatever suits your fancy (even vegetarian—guess which one I didn't have). This is a specialty of the region and the place was crazy crowded. One had to stand with one's tray and wait for a table, but not for long because those slippery noodles greased with pork or mutton fat slide down fast.

This was still early in the week of the National Holiday, so most people were off of work and the night market was swarming partly due to decent weather (coal dust aside). There was every kind of snack and we started off with smelly bean curd (臭豆腐), which really does smell, well, pretty bad. It's first fermented in some way and then deep fried, after which it tastes, well, pretty good. In the south they serve it plain, but in north they like to serve it with sauce, which we really didn't want. Please hold the sauce. Oh, no, you have to try the sauce. It's very good. Well, ok, just put a little on the side. A little! This is typical of street vendors, all over the world probably. You always get more than you want. I want half a catty. Before you can start reaching for your money, here's one catty weighed up and in your hands. Oh, well, I guess so. Sure... Why not... I'll use it eventually.

There were various other kinds of things like fried squid, chestnuts, roasted sweet potatoes, barbecued lamb, all kinds of peanuts, melon seeds in all sizes and colors, cold vegetables, steamed corn on the cob (not sweet), pop corn, and much, much more. While we were buying the smelly bean curd, a middle aged dark skinned country woman in the next stall was trying to interest me in some roasted chestnuts. I put her off, but on the way back while finishing my squid on a stick I bought 5 yuan worth and after the usual stuff about my speaking Chinese she looks over and says, Oh, and you've married a Chinese. She seemed pleasd...maybe because I bought her chestnuts after all. She reminded me of Sandburg's fish monger, terribly happy for there to be fish (or chestnuts) and people to sell them to.

We also happened to walk past the very large Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government office building facing the square, and in celebration of the national holiday, it had huge banners of self-congratulation about CCP leadership and banners for long live Marx, Lenin and Mao, all of whom might be somewhat perplexed about what was going on in the square across the street. But maybe not. Anyway, it was interesting to see Mao so unambiguously praised given that he has been pushed into the background for some time. It seems like some kind of reassessment is going on but it's hard to get just which way the wind is blowing.

The night ended at a 3-storey jade store full of very expensive stuff, where Po-lin wanted to go in and look around. Up on the third floor there were small things going for a couple of grand USD. Preferring to be in a bookstore where prices are more in my range, I paced about silently in the distance because I had no/have no/will never have any interest in buying jade, but then somebody, looking in the foreigner's direction, said oh, too bad he doesn't understand, and I said well it's not that, I'm just not a jade shopper. Oh, he talks, he knows Chinese! Well, then, sit down, and out comes the tea and the cigarettes and more chit-chat and the whole thing took another hour. I still don't know anything about jade except that the China-Burma connection has lots to do with it, and I never expect to buy or own a piece of it in my life.