The Hidden Valley of Dangjiacun

There exists a beautiful medieval village in China, right on the tourist route between Xi'an and Pingyao, which somehow manages to escape the attention of international and even domestic tourists. In fact when I mentioned it to hotel and taxi operators in neighboring Shanxi Province, nobody had even heard of it. And these were people working in the local tourism industry.



I have no idea how the village of Dangjiacun can remain undiscovered by tourists for so long -- the folk architecture is rustically spectacular; the farm cooking is excellent and cheap (see detailed food review below); the people are friendly; and it's only a 20 minute taxi ride from the major train stop of Hancheng. Even the government recognizes this hidden gem, placing it on China's tentative list for submission as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.



Surviving the Sino-Japanese War, Mao's Cultural Revolution, and then the rapid urbanization of the post-Deng Xiaoping era, Dangjiacun is now recognized in the 21st century as somewhat of a living fossil. This is no open-air museum, but a living medieval village with a long line of original descendants still carrying out their ancient customs. For 25 generations and 680 years, the clans of Dang (hence the name Dangjiacun, or Dang's Family Village) and Jia have expanded their sphere of influence from here, and what started out as a small hamlet had grown into a well-known trade centre along this stretch of the Yellow River by mid-Qing Dynasty. Hundreds of traditional Siheyuan courtyards were constructed through six centuries, amazingly with more than a hundred surviving to this date.



Descending into the valley from the only access road above, the visitor would enter through a maze of cobblestone paths into an 18th century time warp. The medieval village is still very much alive with its intact water well system, two ancestral worship halls (one for the Dang clan and one for the Jia clan), a village school, a Fengshui tower housed within the school grounds, and old storehouses still storing coal sludge as a primitive cooking fuel. Private in-house bathrooms remain a novelty even in 2011, and a large communal bathhouse continues to serve the entire village daily. Villagers hand-drawing water from neighboring water wells is a frequent scene -- life hasn't changed much over the past 600 years aside from having a few solar water heaters on the roofs.



Successfully resisting the invasion of large-scale tourism thus far, the villagers have been amazing at minimizing the type of development that has forever tainted many such towns. The only dedicated tourism facility here is the ticket booth that hires out local Chinese-speaking guides -- this is where the commercialism ends. The temples and ancestral worship halls are still in use and are open for all to visit. The exquisite courtyards that double as exhibition areas are mostly still inhabited by the original descendants. As long as your visit doesn't coincide with the Golden Week holidays, you're unlikely to run into even a medium-sized tour group. And most amazingly, there are still no souvenir stores -- NONE -- as of 2011. This is almost unheard-of in China.



This raw beauty of a genuine living Northern Chinese village is what really distinguishes Dangjiacun from the likes of Pingyao and Lijiang. Compared to Pingyao's expensively restored and picture-perfect courtyards, most of Dangjiacun's courtyards and alleys remain in the original, pre-restoration state they have stood for centuries. Most villagers have not yet been converted to serving the tourism industry, and the usage of their houses remain mostly private. A few houses do welcome visitors into their private space to see their collections of spectacular relief sculptures and other relics for a nominal fee (RMB 2), but even more have "Do Not Enter" signs in Chinese to ward off curious visitors mistaking them for folk museums.



Each courtyards is typically occupied by one family with its own long history and traditions. Family doctrines passing down from the ancestors still occupy the most eye-catching locations in the courtyard, and I came across my favorite one here:

Pride should not be allowed to grow;
The desires should not be indulged;
The will should not be gratified to the full;
Pleasure should not be carried to excess



The level of sophistication here is far beyond what could be expected of a remote farming village in Shaanxi Province's countryside. As a community of no more than a couple thousand, it managed to flourish as a regional cultural and educational centre for several hundred years. Per-capita-wise the villagers had incredible success in the old Imperial Court entrance exams, and to this day calligraphy plaques are still raised with great pride above many houses to recognize the families' past glory serving the Emperor.



Walking down narrow alleys here also offers a real perspective on contemporary life in rural China, beyond what can be appreciated from TV or the Internet. Heating and cooking is still dependant on the highly-polluting coal sludge, often simply store-piled at a corner outside of the family compound. Internet has arrived at most households, while satellite TV is only starting to pop up on the roofs of a few affluent houses. The free market economy of Deng, Jiang and Hu is much welcome, though the old communism giants of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Zhou are still plastered on walls and highly revered. And young kids, male and female, still run around wearing a unique type of open-bottom pants designed to ... ahem ... quickly get parents out of crappy situations in public in the absence of proper toilets.



But all this is bound to change. Dangjiacun shot to national fame in 2006 when China's Cultural Heritage department elevated it to the tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage, opening the door to precious tourism dollars for the relatively undeveloped province of Shaanxi. Where Dangjiacun now stands in terms of tourism development is probably where Pingyao used to be, a couple of decades ago. If the romance of Magome-juku or Telc appeal to you as a traveler, keep this underrated gem in your to-see list also. And see it soon, before the first hotels and souvenir shops roll in.





TRANSPORTATION
The small city of Hancheng, located just 20 minutes from Dangjiacun by taxi, is the region's transportation hub. If you're coming from Xi'an like we were, highway buses make convenient, comfortable and relatively fast connections to Hancheng, departing every 20-30 minutes from 07:30 until 18:00. Buses depart from Xi'an's East Passenger Transport Station (Chengdong Keyunzhan), cost RMB 65 as of 2011, and take only 2.5 hours (compared to taking anywhere from 4 to 7 hours by train) to arrive at Hancheng's New City Bus Station (Xincheng Qichezhan). Hancheng Train Station, located just a block away, is served mostly by the slow local trains but can be useful for making direct connections to Pingyao and Taiyuan in the neighboring Shanxi Province. We took train 1164, in a slow and crowded carriage full of migrant workers, towards Pingyao in the late afternoon.

From Hancheng you can easily flag down a taxi to get to Dangjiacun (RMB 30 in 2011). Large baggages can be left for the day at the luggage deposit on the right hand side of the Hancheng Train Station (RMB 2 per baggage). Once you get to Dangjiacun you won't find an official taxi stand, but our host was (and probably any villager who owns a vehicle would be) eager to drive us back to Hancheng Train Station in his old van. We paid him the same rate as taxi, which was much welcome.



ACCOMMODATION
With no hotels or even backpacker hostels in the village, Dangjiacun is as authentic and rustic as it gets. Spending a night here would mean staying in one of these beautiful Siheyuan courtyards and fully immersing into village life with a local family -- after all this is all they have. This also means ditching all the Westernized comfort that most visitors take for granted: all toilets, many being the squatting type, are shared; bathing takes place at the communal bathhouse; air-con and heating are rarely available, and meals are shared with the host family. As of summer 2011 rooms seem to cost around RMB 50, though they're likely even cheaper in the off-season. At the time of writing there is no way to reserve online -- have a Chinese-speaking friend (or hotel concierge) call 0913-5322776 or 0913-5322544 to make reservations.



Food Review: YI FEN LI (Dangjiacun village, Hancheng)
Address: Near entrance of village, Dangjiacun, Hancheng
Hours: 08:00-20:00?
Website/Map: None
Directions: Starting from the ticket booth, walk down to the square/parking area in front of the village. Yi Fen Li is the Siheyuan courtyard at the top left corner of the square.


We had one of the most memorable dishes of our trip right here in Dangjiacun, inside this virtually unknown eatery. At the time of writing I've never seen any other reviews in Chinese or in English, and I felt the need to give it the proper review it deserves.



Now it can hardly be called a restaurant -- frankly it's no more than a local farmhouse informally operating as a guesthouse and also serves Shaanxi Province's rustic farm cooking. It serves no more than a small number of simple dishes, but at least one of these dishes was executed as well as any formal restaurant I've visited anywhere in China.

Housed inside one of Dangjiacun's better preserved Siheyuan courtyards, Yi Fen Li is operated by a middle-aged couple named ... what else ... Mr. and Mrs. Dang. Several rooms in their courtyard can be rented as bed-and-breakfast for RMB 50 per night, and the family van doubles as a casual taxi for guests. All rooms were occupied by a production crew filming a TV soap opera during our visit, indicating that this was perhaps the most comfortable place to stay in the village.



No English menu was available, though the dishes were inexpensive even by Chinese standards. Vegetable dishes, typically salads of eggplants, cucumbers, spinach, or firm tofu, started from RMB 9 (CAD$1.4). Meat dishes including wild boar, pig ears, and yellow croaker fish cost around RMB 30 (CAD$4.5). Various noodles such as Saozi Mian (minced pork noodles), Zhajiang Mian (noodles with gravy), and Wonton were RMB 7 (CAD$1.1) for a large bowl or RMB 5 (CAD$0.8) for a small bowl.



This one dish was not only one of the best of our 16-day trip, but also one of the cheapest at RMB 9. Don't be misled by the picture -- the eggplant was actually purple but Mrs. Dang peeled the skin off before stir-frying it in garlic-infused oil. The most amazing thing about this warm salad of Suan Ni Qie Zi, or Eggplant in Minced Garlic, was the way it delivered a pronounced garlic flavor ... there was hardly any trace of garlic inside the dish! The way these simple and cheap ingredients were combined into this dish could only be described as perfection -- I have never tasted something this good costing as little as CAD$1.4.



Comparatively the Red Braised Pork Chunks (Hong Shao Da Kuai Rou) wasn't quite as amazingly delicious, but perhaps its magic was partially reduced as we asked for a non-spicy version. The chili peppers and Sichuan peppers still packed a tinge of heat and the taste was still decent, though I thought the pork was slightly dry.



To finish the meal my wife wanted some wonton, which turned out to be a huge heaping bowl of grape-sized hand-made dumplings with even more marinated five-spice tofu, seaweed and various vegetables. This RMB 7 (CAD$1.1) dish could easily serve as a meal on its own.

It was quite an enjoyable meal overall, especially considering the scarcity of choices within the village and the reasonable pricing. In retrospect I should have skipped the pork and tried a few more of their wonderful vegetable dishes. That would be my advice for any readers heading to Dangjiacun.

Bill for Two Persons

Eggplants in Minced Garlic	RMB 9
Red Braised Pork Chunks	RMB 30
Wonton	RMB 7
TOTAL	RMB 46 (CAD$7)