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Our journey is encouragingly local. We have heard that Shuanglang has become more develop lately, and has lost its character. But our bumpy journey sees a variety of handsome locals board and exit. There is no touristy feel. A woman dressed in beautiful blues and pinks rides in the front. A middle aged man stands in the middle with a straw hat wrapped with a large white ribbon proclaiming with brand like proudness ‘Made in China’. As the bus fills, the stools as used up.

The bus stops next to a rubbish heap. The bus conductor, a woman, and the driver, both leave and go to the back to help a passenger unload their cargo. Cigarettes. 10 full boxes, half on top of the bus. A handsome woman with long platted hair loads the boxes into her little rackshaw. Her child comes over and looks inquisitively at me as I watch from my vantage point at the back. The bus begins filling with flies. Finally the boxes are loaded and we are on our way.

The sunset is beautiful. Light floods through a cloud obscuring the sky. Stripes of shadow extend over half the horizon like dark fingers, mirrored by rays of gold and yellow, reflected in the dusty evening light. Our hostel is a oasis of guilty comfort in an otherwise ordinary countryside village by the lake. Modern villa like architecture extends our over the lake, promising clean white rooms, deck chairs, and beautiful flowers.

We set off after breakfast to wander the village. It is getting hotter in the sun, but the breeze is cool. The shops are very local. One shop contains only a singleobject – a machine for pressing oil from oil seed, and a man working it all day and judging by our encounter with him the previous night, late into the night. One barrel sells for 3000 CNY, about $500. Up the street a loud banding noise sounds. An old woman of seventy, beautifully dressed and with a weathered look, works a machine which beats chillies into course power. She does not look up as we stand watching, fascinated. A man sits at a table in an open shop full of half repaired CRT TVs, soldering. I strike up a conversation with him, saying how it is sad we don’t repair things anymore, just by new ones. He and his wife look puzzled. I tell him most of our new TVs are made in China. He looks even more puzzled.

While pausing at an alleyway, contemplating whether to wander down to the lake, an short, stooped old woman approaches us and beckons us to follow her down the lane, without saying anything. Reminded of a fateful scene in Harry Potter, we nevertheless follow. Is she going to invite us into her home only to demand money? Is this a scam? She is walking very slowly. Our hearts ignore the warnings and we follow her to the end of the lane, to a lake side home.

She gestures at her house. It is a small inn. She tells us to go in. “No, no, we aren’t looking for anywhere to stay tonight, thank you!”, we exclaim. “Ayo, ok. Come and have a look anyway!”. Movingly absent is the glazed, emotionless look that usually follows a rejection of someones business in this country. We follow her under the arch and into the courtyard. She explains all the specialities of the rooms, about how she has four children and eleven grandchildren, where the all are, and that she is building an extension to the inn next door. Her mandarin is mixed with a local dialect we dont understand, but a lot of gesturing and repetion gets the message across. Her name is Mr Li. Alice takes a photo with her.

At the top of the street, behind a small market square, stands a publicly funded traditional theatre house. At the foot, on the wall, is a large plaque with all the names of th contributors, and the amounts they contributed, ranging from 20 to 500 RMB. Their names, quaint and amusing to Alice: Little Orange, Water Six, Eight Pillars. Above, old men appear to be playing games. Curiosity gets the better of us.

Upstairs I quietly grab a stool and sit among them. It is the old people club morning. A few look up, but most continue playing their majiang. Noone cares that I am foreign or can speak Chinese. Finally, after weeks of travelling, we are in the midst of something so genuine and poetic we might have walked into a movie set. The taxi driver in Dali was so wrong. Here, there is magic. Here, etched in the strikingly distinct faces, is life. We sit amongst them, watching them play. Each face is so distinct, heavy with years of work and sun, eyes sunk into their faces. Yet there is something familiar in each one, echos of people from my life that I know,in each man.

One of the men talks to me, in heavily accented mandarin. He knows some English too, and is keen to etch out what he knows using a pebble onto the stone floor. One of his grandchildren is in the Europe. There are links between us after all. I am touched by simply being able to communicate a little with them.

Suddenly, right in front of me, a man of seventy something with an ear patch falls dramatically off his chair, toppling a foot and a half to the floor onto his side. A few gasps from his fellow players, and we help him up. Ten seconds after his fall, as I brush some dust from his clothed, he is already playing majiang again, chatting away with his friends. Another ten seconds and it’s a if nothing whatsoever had happened. There is no geering or lingering laughter, noone is bothered, just like noone is moved by our presence. Alice and I sit with the group for a few more minutes, guiltily stealing photos of the wonderful scene, before taking off.

There is magic in this town, still, despite the influx of outsiders coming to enjoy the peace and view of the lake. How long it will remain, is difficult to say. Shuanglang has the definite feel of a town in transition. There are half built villas and inns everywhere. Outsiders and local government are investing hard to profit from outsiders interest in the little town. A half built bridge to carry an expressway that looks set to change everything looms in the hill over the village.

But hope lingers in the people thrown together in this dance of development. The happy locals aren’t pushy or looking for a quick profit, like so many are in China. In fact they seem remarkably unperturbed by the development happening around them, less worried, perhaps even than us. And the people who visit, aren’t looking for things to do, or ‘play’ as they say in Chinese. XiaoPeng, our jolly laid back innkeeper from Hebei province, says some guests come expecting special local attractions and TVs in their rooms leave after one night, disappointed. So as long as the magic is still here, while there is still life, like that of the elders playing majiang, while outsiders respect and enjoy the town for what it is, hope lingers. Maybe we’ll come back one day and see for ourselves.

双廊的照片 Shuanglang Photo Gallery>>

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