Yangquan is in Shanxi, in North China.
Home › Destinations › Shanxi › Yangquan
Shanxi · City Guide
Yangquan, a Coal Town Where the Three-Body Problem Was Written.
Overview
Why Go
Liu Cixin worked as a computer engineer at the Niangziguan power station here for about twenty-five years and wrote his major novels in that time, including the trilogy that made Chinese science fiction internationally known.
Niangzi Pass is the sole Great Wall gate named after a woman. Tradition says a Tang princess garrisoned it with a female force; that part is legend, but the stone gate, the wall and the gorge behind it are not.
The village at the pass sits on springs that run under and between the houses, driving old water mills and coming out as waterfalls into the river. Water this abundant is unusual anywhere in Shanxi.
The Orphan of Zhao, set at Cangshan in this prefecture, was the opening Chinese play translated into a European language. Voltaire reworked it and staged it in Paris in 1755 as L'Orphelin de la Chine.
Pingding has made unglazed sand-clay cooking pots for centuries, listed as intangible heritage. They are cheap, black, porous and are still what Shanxi households stew in, not a craft revival item.
See
The stone gate and wall above the gorge, with the spring-fed village, waterfalls and water mills below it. Both the fortification and the water are the visit. Half a day, and it is on the Hebei line.
Stone houses stacked up a slope without mortar, said to be around five hundred years old, with just a handful of elderly residents left. A steep walk in. Half a day, and go quietly.
An inner-line wall of stone with a pass gate, a stretch of old road with cart ruts worn into it, and a climb along the ridge. Less visited than Niangziguan and steeper. Two hours.
Temple halls built against a cliff in a wooded gorge, dedicated to the story of the orphan of Zhao and the retainer who hid him. Walkways climb the rock face. Half a day.
A small Song timber hall on a hill outside the city, one of the older wooden buildings in the region, with heavy brackets and deep eaves. Rarely open without asking. Half an hour.
A wooded hill above Pingding with a Yuan-founded academy, cave study rooms and inscriptions cut into the rock. Used as a park by the county town. Ninety minutes.
On the Map
Approximate locations of the attractions above, across Yangquan.
Eat
Short noodles pressed through a perforated plate straight into boiling broth, so they cook in seconds and float. Bean and wheat flour together. A Yangquan dish and quick enough to be a street breakfast.
Meat, tofu, vermicelli and cabbage stewed in the local unglazed clay pot, which is porous and holds heat for a long time. The pot is sold in every market here and is the point of the dish.
Dough pressed paper-thin between hot iron plates until it snaps like a cracker, plain or with sesame and pepper. It keeps for months, which is why miners took it underground.
Red Sichuan pepper grown on the Taihang slopes at Yuxian, dried on mats in the yards. Northern pepper runs more fragrant and less aggressively numbing than the Sichuan kind. Sold loose by weight.
Do
Water runs in channels under the houses at Niangziguan and comes out of the cliff as falls. Follow a channel from where it enters a yard to where it leaves; the whole village is plumbed that way.
A stretch of the old road through the pass has ruts worn deep into the stone by centuries of carts. It is the clearest evidence anywhere near here of how much traffic this gap carried.
The village is a walk up from the road and there is nothing sold there. A few elderly residents remain, so treat it as somebody's home rather than a ruin. Take the rubbish out.
Pingding pots cost very little and are sold in the county markets in every size. They need seasoning before initial use and they crack on a sudden temperature change, which the seller will tell visitors.
When
Mild and green, with the gorges at their peak and the springs running full. The strongest window of the year.
Hot below and cooler in the Taihang valleys, with the summer rain that makes the waterfalls at Niangziguan worth seeing. Watch for road closures.
Clear, cool and the pepper harvest in Yuxian, with strong colour on the Taihang slopes. The other good window.
Cold and bare, with ice on the falls, which some people come for. The village roads get difficult after snow.
Explore More
Yangquan is in Shanxi, in North China.
Themes with places in Yangquan
Related
Share the travel dates and interests, and PreeChina's local team will design a route that fits.
Plan My Trip to YangquanSee Private Tour Prices