travel tuesday | the walled city of Pingyao, China

Every time lightning strikes, I see the outline of the Wall.  It’s brooding, looming over me, a creature of the night so daunting it scares me. I can’t see anything else of the city. I don’t even know for sure that this is a city. Is it a town? A village? All it seems to be is a cobblestone road to the Wall. (Then again, I think this city may just be made up of roads that lead to the Wall.)

The taxi clunk clunks, and I’m jostled in the back as we drive further into the pitch black night.

…I think this is a taxi. God, I hope this is a taxi – a real one, a licensed one, one that won’t take me into the woods and leave me robbed and stranded. I should have thought this plan through. I shouldn’t have arrived at – gosh, what time is it, even? I lost track between my nap at the table I finally nabbed at that KFC back in Tiyuan and when the train arrived. It took 30 minutes to get that table, waiting for the teenagers to leave. Why were they out so late anyway? By then my food was cold. But the table felt good, like the first solid place I’d sat all day. That wait was worth it. 

The taxi clock reads 12:33am.

What is wrong with me? It’s 12:33am, and I’m in a questionable taxi and all I can see is this Wall of mythical eerie proportions every time the lightning strikes. This doesn’t feel auspicious. I should have stayed with my friends in Beijing. Most of them will leave tomorrow – today, I guess (as I glance at the clock again, 12:34am), but I could have gone on to Shanghai with the others. I could have skipped all this. But my curiosity and wanderlust always win those battles – between the rational and the irrational – between staying with the pack in the touristed areas and finding my own way through the underexplored. 

I wish I could see more than the Wall. It’s right in front of me, taller than I imagined, more ominous than the thickest historical fiction novel could have described. There’s a watchtower on top. It’s gray, or black, and tauntingly indestructible – accepting a challenge that hasn’t been issued, at least not for a century or two.

The downpour hits the stones of the Wall with such alarming force that it seems to echo. Each plunk! sounds like a clash of an invisible sword swishing through and contacting stone. God, how much historical Chinese fiction have I been ingesting?  

KABOOM! I think the ancient cannon sitting beside the watchtower took fire. I jump each time, until I remember it’s only thunder.

The taxi is slowing down. My backpack is still around my shoulders, and my right hand clenches tighter around my purse. I have the keys to my apartment in Japan - that I swear can’t possibly exist in this same universe - in my other. I heard once that a carefully, forcefully aimed stab with a key can be as wounding as with a knife. I can handle this. As long as all he wants is my stuff. No. That pisses me off. I’ve had my money and camera stolen once this year – I’m not doing it again. I will not be okay if all he wants is my stuff. If he wants the stuff, he will have to get through this key.

But we’re still clunking. We must still be on the cobbled streets inside the Walls. Surely he would take me somewhere outside the walled city, where no one could hear the loud American girl scream, if he wanted to rob me.

I’m breathing now. I guess just there before I wasn’t. My chest feels a little lighter. The pictures of this city online were quaint and picturesque. In person, in a thunderstorm, it looks tragic and haunted. I swear this storm is no average one. The sky is so black with fury it’s as though it has been scorned. I’ve never heard a storm this cacophonous, discordant, angry. I wonder what the city did to deserve this; it feels like revenge rain. What secrets does that Wall hold?

There’s dirt everywhere. I can tell that much. Outside my window the dirt washes away beneath the stones, running to find refuge. Maybe I should get out and join it. Maybe I don’t belong here.

As the train neared my stop tonight, and I stood up and collected my few belongings, an ominous silent befell the car. Every passenger’s eyes looked to me, then turned to each other and collectively, silently asked, “Why is she here?” I thought my skin color confused them momentarily, but it seems they know something I don’t.

I’m drunk off the hour and the history I’ve been reading. Don’t let the night and the storm and The Wall invent imaginary fears. I repeat that, mouthing the words, trying to believe them.

The taxi’s stopping. I can hear my heart thump thump thumping over the rain and the thunder and the cracks of lighting, and that means that it has got to be on the verge of exploding because this storm is uncomfortably loud. My hand is on the door; I notice it’s shaking. My keys are ready, poised for combat in my other hand. I know karate. Okay, I know one kata. Oh God, remember the karate. Punch high, kick low. No, that’s not right. Kick high, punch low. I don’t know.

“… guesthouse….?” I hear only a word, and it shakes me out of my damned thoughts.

Chinese. Chinese. Chinese. I’m racking my brain for the few words I know. I studied. I made a cheat sheet. Where’s my cheat sheet? I can’t reach it.

Wait. He’s talking to me. The taxi driver’s voice is nice, friendly, patient. He’s asking me, what? I lean in and close my eyes, concentrate on understanding his broken English. The hostel where I am staying. Confirming the address. No, this is not my hostel. I’m confused. I’ve never heard of this place. Where are we? I have to breathe.

“Hostel okay?”

“No, Harmony Guesthouse, please,” I plead, desperation seeping into my words. Am I in the wrong place entirely?

Lights flash on. Was that lightning? No, it’s actual lights. We’re at a hostel. He must be asking me if this hostel is alright with me, if I can stay here instead.

I watch an elderly couple in their nightclothes remove boards and unlock the door. It’s an operation, and they go through each step slowly. Finally, the guesthouse door swings open, and they’re running out into the rain. But how did they know — the Taxi Driver must have called. Yes. I remember him making a phone call. I roll down my window, the tension inside of me as thick as the rain soaking through my clothes.

“Stay here? Nice room. It’s very late!”

She speaks English!

“I’m sorry. I’m staying at Harmony Guesthouse. Do you know where that is?”

She crosses her arms and stands firm, not blinking. “No.”

No? This village/town/city is tiny. And how is she not blinking with all the water running down her face?

A quick look at the clock – it’s 12:46am, and I’m exhausted and lost. I hand the driver money I'd already carefully counted out in my pocket, having been ready to toss it and run if need be. As though if he were going to rob me, offering him our agreed upon price would change his mind. At least I had been smart enough to negotiate a price first. One thing done right.

I place the money in his hand and notice for the first time that he has a kind face. He smiles at me. “See?” it says. “Nothing to be afraid of.” And he called the hostel for me, woke them up so I’d have somewhere to stay. It probably wasn’t as altruistic as that – I imagine he gets a cut when he misdirects customers here – but still, I’m not on the side of the road missing all my belongings. All things considered, this went well.

I thank him in Chinese and pitch myself out of the cab and into the assault of rain. How did I forget to buy an umbrella? The elderly man, who hasn’t said a word, shelters me with his coat and we run inside. Along the way, I watch the woman crack a grin. Well played, I think.

Inside, I ask her how much for a single room.

“We have very nice, very big room for – “

“That’s okay.” I’m firm. “The simplest you have will be fine.”

I’m not in a position to negotiate, but she either doesn’t realize how lost I am or pretends to not, because she offers me a better price. I’ll take it. I’m relieved to be inside, out of the storm, off the road and away from the foreboding Wall.

She runs to get the key, and I notice for the first time that this guesthouse is old - with age and history, not with furnishings. Those are modern – there are computers in the corner and a desk (this must be the common area), an oversized wooden table and chairs I figure even I’ll, at 5’9″, have to hop to sit up on. And in the corner rest two couches, comfortable judging from the still warm indents, with a coffee table in between them. I peer over and notice the title of an open DVD case – The Green Mile. That doesn’t make this place any less dark.

Before I can take in more, the woman rushes back with a key and shoos me out the back of the common room into an open air courtyard. (It seems everyone runs in China. It’s the same in Japan.) She doesn’t need a flashlight, because the lightning fills the entire courtyard with a glow that seems to last long beyond each strike.

The guesthouse is beautiful, I can tell that much – seeped in history like the pictures I researched before I came. Nothing new has been built in this city in modern history. This hotel could have been a teahouse or a private garden residence or a traditional compound in another time.

She keeps us running against the side of the building; I can feel mud oozing its way across the sleeve and hood of my jacket. Why would I only bring a white coat on a 10 day backpacking trip? We race up a set of outdoor stairs and finally into a covered hallway. She stops at the second door on the left and gently unlocks it. She pulls on a hanging drawstring and a soft glow fills the room, and she asks – “Is this okay?”

It’s perfect. The large, traditional kang bed takes up three-fourths of the room. A small bathroom sits in an offshoot from the entrance and windows overlook the courtyard. She leaves me to dry off, placing the key in my hand. I wring out my jacket, using the continual rubbing motion of the cloth on itself to also scrub out my built-up tension.

I crawl into the massive bed – its dark chocolate brick base a pleasant contrast with the sharp white, down blanket. It feels like I’m covered with cotton weights, heavy like sleep and soft like sheets. I’m comforted now, breathing normally finally, my fears of earlier seeming as fantastical as they are distant. I pull out my journal and as I begin to write, finally at peace, lightning cracks so loudly I scream and the lights echo me with a flicker. I swear in the shadows I can still see the outline of the Wall.

My mind resumes the grueling task of taunting me.

It’s black now, and outside the thunder once again begins to rumble in tune with my nerves. This City feels far more Forbidden than the well-lit, ornate one that famously boasts that name. This much history can swallow a person whole; it’s threatening to swallow me whole right now. I have got to keep breathing. Deeper breaths. Slow, deep breaths.

I’m in Pingyao, the best-preserved ancient walled city in China, and I’ve learned my first lesson: The Wall surrenders to nothing and no one.

I hunker deeper into the heavy blanket, swallow my fear with a shot of pelting rain, and wait for morning to draw near.

The post The Walled City of Pingyao was edited and cross-posted from feminist-san. All rights are my own.