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Published: March 7th 2007
Big Buddha
Yungang's largest carved Buddha figure, the 18-metre high statue in Cave No.5 Which puts it in the top 20 worldwide. I had heard that the city was pretty grim, but I wasn't exactly sure
how dangerously high levels of toxins in the air would present themselves: would there be a grey smog over the place, or would it smell like turps, or would everyone be wearing gas masks? Now, after eight hours here, I can tell you: breathing the air here, my throat feels like someone has run a nail-file up and down it. I seriously feel like I have smoked two packs of ciggies. The fact that half the people in this stuffy internet cafe are smoking real ones right now is not helping things at all.
You see, Datong is the centre of the coal industry in Shanxi province, which provides China with something like a third of its total coal needs. That's a lot of coal, and also a lot of mines, power stations and factories to support
A Buddha, but no cave
The huge Buddha in Cave 20 sits exposed, as the cave has eroded and collapsed long ago. It now serves as a shrine for worshippers at the site the industry. Thus the huge levels of toxic emissions.
On top of that, Datong is also something of an ice-box. Consulting the weather online, I find that today's maximum was -2 celsius. Tonight the mercury will dip to -13 or so. Datong sits just over the passes that lead into Inner Mongolia, China's window on the frigid Gobi Desert. When the wind blows from that direction (as it often does), the snow and ice whips into Datong like a breeze through an opened door.
Oh, well - at least the cold means the skies have been blue and cloudless today, allowing some of the grotty pollution to dissipate.
I left Pingyao two days ago, with the aim of getting straight here, but due to the hordes of people returning home from Chinese New Year holidays, I got stuck in a city called Taiyuan for a night. I stayed in the cheapest hotel in town, in a room that looked like it was used for dodgy heroin deals. I was awoken in the night by a fierce banging, and screaming at the door. Confused and alarmed, I opened the door (with the security chain safely on). No need
Buddha in Cave 3
The huge seated Buddha carved out of the wall at Yungang's Cave 3 to worry, it was just the friendly hotel prositute seeing if I needed to avail myself of her services. I politely declined.
My bus to here was headed on to Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia, and so it was full of Genghis Khan lookalikes. It dropped me on the edge of town, next to a power station with 8 cooling towers. As I said, this place does pollution well.
My reason for stopping over in this drab, grimy city of 3 million was, as usual, to see something touristy. This time it was the mind-blowing Yungang caves, about 15kms west of Datong. Built over a period of centuries since about 400AD, the caves were carved into the cliff-face by industrious and enthusiastic Buddhists. There are a total of 45 caves, containing - get this - 51,000 individually-carved Buddha statues. These range from a few inches in height, to one monstrous 18-metre example in Cave 5. Everything - the caves, and the Buddhas, pagodas and bas-reliefs within them, has been carved straight out of the rock. Nothing has been made away from the site, and then placed inside. It's pretty amazing stuff. No less amazing is the fact that
Little and large
The carvings range in size from tiny figures carved in the wall, to statues over 10 metres tall the caves and statues still exist: erosion is a huge problem, and pollution is the major cause of it. This could have something to do with the fact that there is a massive coal mine just one kilometre away from this UNESCO site, and the smoking chimneys are visible as you stand in the caves. Only in China.
Which brings me to a random part of this post: my 'only in China' list. When you are stuck on interminable bus journies, you start pondering stuff like this, and constructing silly lists in your head. This is the one I was working on yesterday and today:
Ten unique things about China
1. The only place where you will see an elderly man in a suit exercising on the monkey bars at the local children's playground. Yesterday, I even saw an old guy shuffle up to the apparatus on his walking stick, slowly place it agaist the frame, and then jump up for some swing-in-the-air action.
2. Toddlers don't wear nappies: they all wear tousers with huge slits in the bum, so when they need to poo, they just stick their butt out and do it. Wherever they happen
Yungang caves
A small section of the Buddhist caves at Yungang, near Datong to be.
3. Such is the love of tea, that hot water is free, and available, everywhere. Every bus, train, room, shop, cafe, restaurant, house, hotel room has a thermos or urn with piping hot water in it. Chinese people all carry a supply of green tea in a sealable cup, so they can just add water.
4. All long-distance buses play karaoke at full volume on the TV screen. They also proudly advertise this service on their vehicles. Worst of all, people actually sing along.
5. If someone says something to you in Mandarin, and you say you don't understand, they will sometimes write down what they are saying in Chinese characters. When you say you don't undertand this, they write it again - in western characters, but still in Chinese.
6. People smoke, and spit, everywhere. I have even seen people doing both while crouched on the toilet. Which brings me to...
7. ...the public toilets. Some of the worst I have seen. Sometimes, it is just an inclined trough, with a few cubicles seperated by partitions about a metre high, with no doors. You walk in to the smell and sight and sound of three guys, squatting,
More Buddhas...
Some of the Buddhist statues in one of Yungang's 45 caves smoking, chatting, and having a crap. The trough inevitably leads down into...the women's loo, so the poor ladies get all the men's waste passing through their facilities. Wondrous stuff.
8. In some places, the beer is as cheap as - or cheaper than - water.
9. People count from one to ten on one hand. Very confusing to the uninitiated, but a closed fist means 10.
10. The old people: yep, the stereotypical image of the hunched old Chinese person, with hands behind their back, wearing a Mao-style jacket and hat, is strangely common.
To close: Chinglish. My favourite yet. My four-bed dormitory tonight is billed at the reception as a 'Foursome Room'. Sadly, I am the only member of the foursome there tonight. Any takers?
Next stop...Beijing...
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Martin
non-member comment
trainspotting
I enjoyed the description of the toilets but would appreciate more detail concerning the smells and sights.