While equally late as my previous post, this post shall not be as wordy. This one will mostly be picture post, because that’s really the only way to do it justice.
The last two days of the week we visited Qufu, we stayed at a hotel in the Tai’erzhuang Ancient Town of southern Shandong province. In 1938 during the Second Sino-Japanese War (known here as the War Against Japanese Imperialism) the district of Tai’erzhuang witnessed an incredibly bloody battle between the Nationalist Chinese and Japanese forces and the town was flattened. While more than 20,000 Chinese died during the battle, it was the first major Chinese victory against the Japanese during the war, and thus a significant morale boost for the Chinese people.
The town, along with the surrounding sections of the Great Canal along the Yangtze River, was rebuilt in 2008 in preparation for the Olympics and accompanying tourism boom. Since then, Tai’erzhuang has become a cultural historical domestic – and increasingly international – tourist location. As such, it’s still in the process of renovation and expansion to accommodate the increased traffic.
However, the purpose of this renovation-expansion is not urbanization in the modernization sense, it’s more like active-historical-cultural-preservation*, as the name bears witness to.
Tai’erzhuang is now best described as something of an historical resort town. It’s managing to combine historical-cultural elements, from the stunning Ming and Qing dynasty architecture and canal-street layout, to the historical reenactments of WWII-era battles alongside traditional shadow-puppet shows and Imperial processions.
Unfortunately our group split up, so while our professors witnessed the Imperial reenactments, none of us students got to see it – though I’m pretty sure we all heard the music, because the town is only about one square mile all-told. In our wandering we did catch the ending and cleaning up of the shadow puppet show, but we completely missed the WWII reenactments, which were location-locked to a bar and a small square. If we’d stayed an extra day we could have caught them, though, because the reenactments happen on a schedule (and, of course, if there’s enough people to compose an audience).
A few of us stopped to get a fish pedicure! First time ever. It’s… interesting.
A shot of the aforementioned bar:
The town also boasts a few Christian churches and a very prominent Islamic mosque, though the mosque was undergoing repair while we were there and thus we couldn’t visit.
Here’s a shot of one of the churches:
The other is tucked at the end of an alley and faces out onto the beautiful Great Canal, and I will fully admit I didn’t get a picture of it because I was distracted by the Canal.
Tai’erzhuang by night is equally beautiful. Colorful paper lanterns and strings of electric colored lights illuminate the streets. As we visited in the off-season, (though I’m guessing the mild rain was also a factor) light-pollution from shops was limited, which was pretty fantastic – even though it makes me curious as to what this town would feel like at full-bustle.
With that, I leave you with (horrendously formatted? sorry!) pictures.
*I say that with full attention to the multifaceted meaning of the word “preservation” as it applies to culture, because that’s what’s going on in Tai’erzhuang.