Yulin

Yulin 

Source: CCTV.com

08-02-2006 14:48

 In north central China, there is a hidden yet unique spot. It’s where the Mu Uz Desert meets with the loess plateau, where the Mongolian cavalry clashed with the Han soldiers and where Chairman Mao Zedong’s red army regained its strength after the Long March. Join Travelogue for a journey through Yulin region, in northern Shaanxi province.

The wind blows from the northwest, sweeping up the fine sands and stirring the landscape. (Grand desert, great rivers, grotesque landscape.) When the Mu Uz desert joins the loess plateau, or the yellow earth plateau, ravines shaped by torrential rains replace endless rolling sand hills. This is where the city of Yulin survives today.

The easiest way to get to Yulin is to first take a flight to Xi’an, the city that over the centuries has been the capital of 13 Chinese dynasties. From Xi’an, a 50-minute flight north will transport you right to Yulin city.

The small city looks just like any ordinary town in north central China - motorcycles roar around its streets and chimneys quietly puff away. But Yulin has a pedigree stretching back two thousand years to the time of Qinshihuang, the first Chinese emperor to unite the country. Just four hundred years ago in the Ming Dynasty, the city was a major strategic garrison town guarding the interior against the Mongolian nomads from the north.

The city still retains its original layout from that time. There used to be six such structures straddling the main street, now only three of them still remain standing. The whole city was arranged symmetrically along the main street.

Sitting on the extended axis of the mainstreet, is Lingxiao Tower, Yulin's centrepiece. The name of the tower means something like "the pagoda reaching up to heaven”. The pagoda rises up 13 stories - altogether 43 meters - but you can only go as far as the fourth floor. For two yuan, you get the chance to spiral up the dilapidated, deserted pagoda. The experience can be breathtaking.

From here you could get a bird’s eye view of the city, especially the city wall.

The brick wall surrounding Yulin is partially restored. Altogether, it's six kilometres long and, when it was built, at least ten meters wide. I can imagine that about four hundred years ago, two horse patrols could stroll side by side right along the wall. It’s not as impressive and well-preserved as the ones you can in Xi’an, Nanjing or Beijing, but it is complete with gates, turrets and citadels.

That’s at least forty meters high. In ancient times, most of the cities in China were circled by walls. As Yulin is a garrison town, I believe it’s fortification, the wall is much stronger than the average town if its size. It’s made of tamped earth and wrapped with bricks. Like this one. It’s at least 5 to 10 kilograms. Not an easy job to build a wall like this.

If you have time, try to visit the courtyard house in the old city, a residence style brought over by the military officials from Beijing during Ming Dynasty.

The best-preserved courtyard is number 4 Dayou street. The present owner told me that it was his grandfather who bought the place. He says the home could have once belonged to a high ranking military official. It's not hard to imagine when you have a look at the way the roof has been decorated, both inside and outside.

At the time when the city was crammed with camels and donkeys, and ruled by military officials, the old street of Yulin was dominated by small business and each place had their own specialised offerings. You can still savor some of the traditions of those times. In northern China, people tend to eat a lot of food made from wheat flour and just about any little eatery has something delicious to buy. //(me buying wheat pie from a small shop. )

Still warm, just out of the stove. Look over there, people are making Tou Fu. Let’s take a look.

In this small family shop, people are making and selling Tou Fu. You can see the whole process from start to finish. In this dim but clean shop, you get a real sense of how tradition is passed on. This family business has been going for three generations and the whole neighborhood eats the Tou Fu produced here.

During major holidays, the community would invite a travelling folk opera company to stage a show. These events mainly took place around the Chinese New Year or the Spring Festival. These actors and actresses are known for having to lead a life of hardship, but also being obsessed with the lights and applause of the theatre.

The lyrics are very difficult to understand but the style is clear, it’s vigorous and bold, a reflection of the vast landscape.

Yulin boasts the Great Wall's biggest beacon tower - a four-tier, 30-metre brownstone structure built in 1607, during the Ming dynasty. It’s called Zhenbeitai, which translates to “Northern Beacon Tower”.

The Great Wall is also called the Border Wall, Bianqiang. It marked out the border between the Mongolians and Han people during the Ming Dynasty. Mongolians in the north, Han in the south. Sometimes they fought with each other over the wall, sometimes they trade stuff like cattle, salt, cloth at the foot of the wall.

Sometimes nations are just like little children, alternatively squabbling and making peace. The great wall is just like part of a huge toy they left behind. Standing on top of Zhenbeitai, you get a view of the Mu Uz desert. You can clearly see how the brick wall gradually crumbles into an earthen rampart, linking up smaller towers. The towers relayed intelligence reports to the capital of Beijing, using smoking, banner signals by day and fire lanterns by night.

For a look at the less well preserved part of the Great Wall, we made a journey northeast through the desert. The great rampart snakes its way over the Yulin region's rugged rolling terrain for about seven to eight hundred kilometers. Some people believe it’s built on the base of the Great Wall of the Sui Dynasty, which ruled about fifteen hundred years ago.

Two hours outside Yulin city and we find our destination - Jian’an bu. It is a small village of a dozen of families, living at the foot of the Great Wall. The feeling here is cinematic - like being in a Chinese movie. This small village is a former military outpost and was shielded by a one and half kilometre long wall. The villagers are mainly farmers and say their ancestors used to share the castle with Mongolians. That's a shap contrast to how historians see it - that the wall was a defense against the Mongolian nomads. Maybe the local version expresses the villagers' desire for peace. In any case, the place is an ideal spot to marvel at how times have changed and yet some things here are just the same.

From the village you could still see remains of the great wall’s watch tower, little dots, though. For hundreds of years, they’ve been watching out for each other silently. It suddenly occurred to me that if we continue trace the great wall, I could go all the way back to Beijing, where I came from. Imagine that journey. That’s all for this episode of travelogue, am Liu Changying

Editor:Chen