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Continuation of the previous article http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=330481

Days four thru six -  We visited two more family compounds of the Wangs and Jao 王家大院及乔家大院. The latter compound is where the famous Chang Yi-Mo movie starring Gong Li “hang the red lantern high” was filmed. The two other days we spent in the famous ancient city of Binyao (平遥古城). This is a 2000 years old city restored many times over the centuries. The hotel we stayed at was done completely in the old courtyard style with built-in brick oven bed (坑) but with all modern conveniences. The forerunner of the Bank of China ( 曰昌昇) was started here

BINYAO CITY VIEW

Binyao street

Binyao City Hall

Hotel front in Binyao

Days seven thru ten – three famous tourist sites were visited

·       Five tabletop mountains (五台山) – one of the holiest place for Buddhism with its countless number of temples. We visited so many that images of one temple began to merge into another.

·       Taiyuan 太原– the capital of Shanxi. It has a comprehensive coal mining museum and an impressive provincial museum chronicle the early rise of the Chinese civilization in Shanxi. Very new and nice except for the air polution due to cheap coal available.

·       Datong 大同– site of the famous Cliffside temple (髬空寺) and the Yunkang Cave (云冈石窒) of some 1600 years ago. These are the more well known scenic spots where you can find adventuresome western tourists.

Hanging temple nnear Datong

Yunkan Stone Caves in which many 1600 years old Buddha carvings are found.

7.    Two general observations of the Shanxi tour. – Shanxi is not yet quite ready for prime time tourism ( to use a common American phrase for the popularity of TV shows). By this I mean that outside of hotels, the restroom facilities for tourist are not quite what western tourist can accept. Secondly, the training for lst level service staff in 5 star hotels is only at three star level. It seems that they were told to respond with two stock phrases: “please wait just a bit”, “I’ll bring it to you”, but were never told the implication of these phrases. If you ask for a cup of coffee at breakfast, this is what the waiter/waitress will say. But they never follow up because they were not trained to do so and you can wait forever for your cup of coffee. The solution is to ask the second level service staff, the circulating service managers, for anything out of the ordinary. Another small example of service detail is this. In good hotels, alarm clocks are often provided in rooms for the convenience of the guest. But in our hotel room the clock is not functioning because the hotel forgot to put batteries in it. Service staff did not bother to check when they service the room everyday. However I expect such conditions to change soon if Shanxi is going to realize her tourism potentials. Just like ZhagJiaZai (张家界) back in 2000 when we first visit the place, by 2006 it was fully ready for “prime time” and featured in New York Times. I expect Taiyuan (太原) and Datong (大同) will soon join  Beijing and Shanghai as world class cities.

8.    I can’t help but be struck by the parallel between my observation above and some of the current ills of Chinese academia – excellent buildings, equipments, and hardware but lack of  “depth in software” , i.e., Do not truly encourage initiatives, only learn to answer questions and obey orders, and short term goals.

9.    There are tree farms everywhere in Shanxi as our tour bus drove along the province from south to the north. Most tourist spots are kept very clean with very little litter. . China is taking “being green” seriously.

10.          There is advantage of being “second” in development. A prime example is this. Most western hotels now have the electricity to the hotel room automatically switched off as the guests leave their room and take the room card from a special slot used to turn on the electricity when they first enter the room. This is to save on unnecessary electricity use. However, when these auto-switches were first introduced, they switched off everything. A laptop plugged in to be charged will in fact be discharged. Now in the new hotels we stayed in Taiyuan and Datong, there are never-off switches in the room for charging laptops and other gadgets. One seldom find such features in even best US hotels built in early years. This brings to mind the comparison between the Lincoln center in New York City and the new National Performance Theater in Beijing. Both are national show places. But the Lincoln  Center is over 50 years old and cannot help but show her age in comparison. On the other hand, developments in China is still a thin veneer and limited to major cities and sites. The countryside is still very poor, While the US, slums are few and far in between. There is a level of general wealth.

11.          As we conclude this tour, I cannot help feel that ours are probably the last generation of Chinese-Americans who can enjoy and appreciate Shanxi and China in depth as we did. Our children and grand children will not have the cultural background and knowledge to feel what we felt about the heritage of the country beyond scenic wonders. Such is life!