GET OUT
Datong
A Historical City in Flux Worthy of a Weekender By Tom Arnstein
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weekend jaunt. Entering the city, the first of many ersatz sights to behold is the newly built city wall, a massive and foreboding structure that follows the path of its Ming dynasty counterpart, circumscribing a modest area of just over 3sqm and making it almost always visible from anywhere in the city center (dust permitting). The Mickey Mouse old town, which is slowly enveloping the south and west sections of the city at the expense of the once lived-in charm of the now empty and crumbling hutongs, is home to Huayan Temple, one of the more impressive of the city center’s dozen or so sights. Originally built in 1038 during the Liao dynasty, the sprawling complex boasts the biggest Buddhist hall of its time and is suitably decorated in brilliant and ornate murals. From here you can also climb the accompanying wooden pagoda and get a decent view of the surrounding demolition. However, it’s outside the city where Datong’s most famous historical destinations lie – the Hanging Monastery and the Yungang Grottoes (RMB 125 each)
may/jun 2017
photo: tom arnstein
ocated an hour’s flight or a 4.5-hour bus ride west of Beijing and bordering Inner Mongolia, Shanxi province’s city of Datong is, putting it bluntly, a hard city to like. Without its numerous center-city temples and historical sites dotted around the perimeter it would most likely be entirely unremarkable save for its more modern designation as China’s “coal capital.” That latter title has also unfortunately afforded the city its fair share of pollution, a factor that is made worse on the ground by the immense construction that has suffocated the city over the past few years. The dust that swirls even throughout Datong’s shiniest districts is borne from the city’s previous mayor’s resolute pledge to rebuild the city center from scratch, resurrecting relics of the past and leaving 40,000 displaced households in its wake. Now that he’s gone, the construction slowly drags on. That being said, Datong’s proximity to Beijing and its rich historical importance to China as a whole make it an easy, if not particularly luxurious, destination for a