Stop off at Pingyao, one of China’s great surviving old cities, a walled town in Shanxi province that still carries the shape and atmosphere of Ming and Qing dynasty China. Its city walls date mainly from the 14th century, and inside them the streets, courtyards, temples, shops and old bank buildings still follow the logic of a much older world.
For centuries, Pingyao was not just a pretty town. It was one of the financial centres of China. The country’s first draft bank, Rishengchang, was founded there in the 19th century, helping merchants move money across the empire without physically carrying silver over huge distances. So behind the dusty lanes and carved wooden shopfronts there was once a serious commercial machine.
I paid a man about three pounds for a full day tour, and he walked me through courtyards, backstreets and old buildings that felt less like attractions and more like places that had simply carried on existing. It had that rare feeling of authenticity before everything gets softened, cleaned, explained and mildly ruined by signage.
I got really obsessed with the doors.
