11. The sweet flavour from the past, in Pingyao, China

By Filipe Morato Gomes	Where is Pingyao?
I left Beijing and travelled by train to Pingyao, a small village on the way to Xi'an classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Wondering along the streets of Pingyao was like going back to Chinese past. Amazing! And surprisingly enough, in the heart of China, I ended up remembering the sweet flavour of a good old Port wine.

You go back in time as soon as you reach the small village of Pingyao. Just like while visiting the Douro region, in Portugal during the season of collecting grapes on the vineyards, in a time where grapes are still stamped with one's feet to make the precious Port wine.

Cooking delicious moon cakes in the streets of Pingyao, China

Mr. Queiroz, an eighty years old wine producer from Mesão Frio* came to my mind. Getting into these Pingyao walls is just like opening one of his vintage Port wine bottles, homemade Port wine, improved during decades thanks to a whole life dedicated to the vineyards. I do know its flavour. It is something really unique. And Pingyao, just like that wine, still keeps the sweet flavour of the past. Intact, like no other city in China, as people say.

I was lucky enough to meet two German girls, Mirea and Alena, and once again had some company in this journey. It was a great advantage since Mirea could speak mandarin fluently. She had been living in China for ten years, half her life. Together we hopped on a rickshaw and cycled along the top of Pingyao walls. According to the erudite UNESCO words, Pingyao is “an exceptionally well preserved example of a traditional Han town, founded in the XIV century”. As for me, coming from Beijing, a huge modern and cosmopolitan city, Pingyao was something far more simple. It was an enormous change in the landscape, in the atmosphere, and in scale too.

From the top of the walls, I realised the city was a little bit more than a small square surrounded by this significant stone barrier. Only five small entries allowed the access into the old town. However it was inside this geometric figure that the main relics of the past were kept. There were no high skyscrapers or other medium-height buildings. Just nice houses with a well defined style, undoubtedly belonging to a different era. Some of them had been obviously rebuilt, others were in their rebuilding process, but too many were still in a much degraded condition.

View from a street of Pingyao, a small UNESCO World Heritage village located between Beijing and Xi'an

There was a kind of a quarter's atmosphere, with people cooking tasty moon cakes on the street. Owners of small shops trying to attract customers. Busy barbers working hard. And golden teeth shining here and there. Old people playing cards as well as Chinese games around tables set up on the narrow streets. And smells, lots of different smells invade ourselves. An occasional “hello” coming from young kids playing on the streets. Or people sitting on the pavements smoking an occasional cigarette at their houses' door. Great, beautiful houses, sometimes!

Lots of them have got beautiful interior yards, a kind of garden located in the main centre of ancient homes. Fortunately, some of the most representative ones were transformed into museums, allowing the visitors to know in a more detailed way that aspect of local culture.

In one of those museums, I happened to meet a very kind old man who dedicated the last part of his life handwriting Chinese characters he then sells to visitors. We were shown a couple of them and he tried to explain the meaning of what was written on them. Yet, even without being able to interpret them, the Chinese dark-painted characters in huge dimensions were nearly always nice. I pointed one of the papers at random and asked for its meaning. “Even if you get rich and powerful, never forget your friends”, the old man explained. Mirea confirmed. I couldn't help myself and ended up buying it. Besides, the characters were aesthetically very interesting.

An old man handwriting Chinese characters inside a museum in Pingyao

We left the museum and stopped in a sort of tavern for lunch. Thanks to Mirea's help I learned how to say “Portugal” in Mandarin. I appreciated the characters she wrote and found out, fascinated, that they mean “grape teeth”. It's funny. I remember the colour that paints the Portuguese mouths after a good and strong red wine bowl. I felt like toasting. Cheers to the “grape teeth”. Cheers to the Portuguese vineyards. Hoping this year's grapes produce good wines.

(originally written in Portuguese)

(*) Author's note: Mesão Frio is a small village located in the heart of Douro region, Portugal, also a UNESCO world heritage site

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