2025-12-20 Yanping

December 21, 2025

Last hours in Taining, a visit to an ancient village on the way to Nanping.

Off to Nanping today for the last few days in China, but first we re-visited the old city core of Taining after a lovely breakhast at our guest house and many profuse goodbyes and thankyous to our hosts over the past couple of days.

Our host at the guest house is an avid collector of rocks, and this seems to be a tradition in Taining. Pippa particularly wanted to see Shangshudi:

"Shangshudi (尚书第) in Taining, China, refers to a well-preserved Ming Dynasty mansion complex, a major historical attraction showcasing traditional Jiangnan architecture, once home to a high-ranking official, featuring intricate layouts, courtyards, and now a cultural site with Meilin Opera performances, located within the charming Taining Ancient City, near other sites like Shide Hall and Li's Ancestral Hall, with nearby accommodation like the Shangshudi Hotel for visitors.

What it is:

An Ancient Mansion: Shangshudi, also known as "Wufutang," was the residence of Li Chunye, a Minister of War during the Ming Dynasty, featuring exquisite Ming Dynasty residential architecture.

A Cultural Complex: It's part of a larger complex with Shide Hall and Li's Ancestral Hall, preserving historical life and art, designated as a national key cultural relics protection unit.

A Performance Venue: The complex now houses the Meilin Drama Troupe, offering unique local opera performances. " (from Google)

This also houses the some of the prize winners from a national 'amazing rocks' competion, amongst a lot of other things.

We also met up with two of Toby's relatives, a mother and daughter - we had met Mum at the first day's feast, and apparently the daughter wanted to catch up with Toby and meet Pippa and Isaac (probably most wanted to see Isaac!)

More goodbyes later we were on the long drive back to Yanping on the old main road that parallels the new expressway, until the turn-off to HePing, an ancient village with a well preserved core of medieval buildings.

Also known for it's tofu, we had lunch at a tofu restaurant at the back of a stall fronting the street, the common style of restaurant used by the majority of Chinese. Not only was lunch delicious, the cost for the 8 of us in the party was 50 yuan in total, about $12.50!

Wandering around some more, we went to a number of the old buidlings, including the old granary, used to feed the poor in famine times, and the old government buidling, with its torture chamber, used by the 'Department for Managing Criminals'(!).

Very picturesque, there were a number of painters daubing away on canvases scattered around the village - probably as part of an immersive art experience or class.

Continuing onwards this time on the expressway, which is a tollway, we stopped briefly at a service centre, again newly built , with it's clean modern toilets, restaurants, shop and petrol station, many charging points for electric cars and this one even had a Nio battery swapping station. I saw a Xiaomi SU7 Max being charged there.

Back in Yanping we went to Toby's parents place, picking up a young cousin (Zeilin, a 10 year old boy whom Isaac adores)) and his mum on the way. The two boys shot off into the surrounding countryside, followed by the aunt trying to keep up, while Pippa, Penny and I walked around until dinner at the local restaurant, where we were the only customers on a Saturday night.

We finally checked in late after a long but satisfying day.