Chapter 6. Kaifeng and the river opposing rhinoceros 巨野县 - 庄寨 - 开封 - 郑州

My detour to pay homage to Confucius at Qufu had taken me 100 kilometres south of the Yellow River and now I had to regain the river somehow. There were no other places of interest before the city of Kaifeng, some 250 kilometres distant, so I made a beeline for the place across the south Shandong plain. It took me two days of hard pedalling along truck-congested secondary roads. 

Along the way I stopped in unremarkable small industrial towns like Juye (巨野) and Zhuangzhai (庄寨), where the people were friendly and my Gaode app led me to craft beer outlets. This was a novel and welcome phenomenon for me in China - and a sign that the government’s aim of developing a ‘moderately prosperous’ society was permeating to the grassroots towns of provincial China. It was refreshing to down a glass of cold beer after pedalling 80 kilometres on a warm spring day, and these backyard breweries usually offered German and Belgian-style wheat beers. They also produced a range of tea-flavoured brews that were not to my taste: it was like drinking cold tea mixed with beer.

On my route I passed through smaller cities like Heze (菏泽), which seemed to consist of row after row of newly built apartments, and little sign of any historical remnants or old city. Every town would have a few major shopping malls with retail outlets for expensive brand name clothes and jewellery. It was another sign of China’s move to a middle class society that even small towns now had shops specialising in selling non-essential consumer items and services: fancy teas, wellness and beauty products and a vast array of digital gadgets. 

People here obviously had disposable incomes and the time and inclination to indulge in leisure and lifestyle pursuits that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. One example noticeable to me was the number of ‘professional’ cyclists on the roads. Riding high-end brand road bikes such as Specialized and Giant, and wearing lycra and expensive cycling helmets and goggles, China’s new cyclist consumers would give me a thumbs up when they saw me crawling along on my pint-size folding bike.

Route map: Qufu to Zhuangzhai via Juye

Zhuangzai was the last town in Shandong before crossing the border into Henan. It was here that I encountered my first hotel refusal. Despite booking online in advance, the bored-looking manager of the Homely Hotel (入家酒店, Rujia Jiudian ) told me they did not accept foreigners. I knew that government regulations now decreed that all hotels were open to foreigners, but I was too tired to put up much of an argument after a long day pedalling against a headwind. I cancelled my booking just before the 6pm deadline to get a refund, and pushed on another five kilometres down the road to stay at an ‘international’ hotel situated right next to a power station. 

It didn’t take me long to get over the rejection as I found another craft beer outlet, where the staff insisted I sampled each of their new product lines and give them a consumer verdict. And as was becoming the norm with these encounters, we took a few selfies and a video clip and added each other as contacts on WeChat. “Tell the world about our beer! And leave us a good review!” they urged me as I staggered away to find some food.

I liked the people of Shandong. They had the directness and honesty of northern China, with a bit of old-world nobility and civility. Sometimes branded as stubborn and conservative in their ways, but I found Shandong folk to be friendly and unpretentious. Salt of the earth.

I can’t say I noticed an immediate change in the character of the people when I crossed over into Henan the next morning, but I certainly noticed a change in the roads. I’d taken for granted the wide and well-built highways of Shandong during my cycling of the previous week. But the last stage of my ride into Kaifeng was along a narrow, potholed road that was swarming with trucks. The road was lined with ugly motor repair yards and tyre replacement shops and I continued to battle against a strong headwind. As if to mock me, a high speed rail line ran parallel to the road, and I dearly wished I was riding on one of the smooth white bullet trains that swished past every ten minutes.

Kaifeng, when I finally made it into the city centre, was a blessed relief from the awful Henan highway. Once within the city walls I found myself in the midst of an ‘old town’ centred around a large lake. It reminded me of the centre of Hanoi and its West Lake. I also had the good fortune to alight on a cosy family-run homestay right next to the lake, where the friendly owners pointed me in the direction of a restaurant that served up the celebrated local dish of guantang bao (灌汤包). 

These delicious soup-filled dumplings, similar to xiaolong bao, had made the news the previous year when students from nearby Zhengzhou started a trend of night cycling to Kaifeng to sample of the local dish. Popularised by social media videos, the night cycling dumpling quest soon went ‘viral’ with tens of thousands of students making the 50 kilometre journey. Inevitably, local authorities quickly cracked down on this ‘mass movement’ and imposed restrictions on Zhengzhou students to stop the rides to Kaifeng. The trend was certainly not evident at the half-empty Songdu Heyuan restaurant that I was directed to, where the dumplings were excellent and the cost a mere 18 yuan.

Kaifeng seemed to get a lot of negative reviews from travellers, decrying it as an industrial city with a fake recreated ‘old city’, but I enjoyed my day off exploring the landmarks. My homestay was right next to the lakeside Lord Bao Memorial Temple (开封包公祠), where the early morning tai chi groups were practising. I chose to have my morning latte further north at another lake, Panjia Hu (潘家湖), close to the Longting Park (龙亭共园) . 

East of the lake was a delightful warren of hutong-style back streets which I passed through on the bike on my way to see the famous Iron Pagoda (Tieta, 铁塔). It wasn’t really iron, but its brown glazed tiles made it look metallic. Built during the Song dynasty when Kaifeng had been one of the largest cities in the world, the Iron Pagoda’s tiles were imprinted with Buddhist figurines. The ones at ground level had had their faces and heads chipped and scraped off, presumably during the Cultural Revolution. But the remaining 50 metres of the tower contained a huge variety of different images that must have taken years to finish.

I visited another tiled pagoda of a very different kind on the south edge of Kaifeng’s old city. The Fanta (繁塔) pagoda was a squat hexagonal structure hidden behind a jumble of scruffy workshops and wasteland. Up close it was a wonderful example of old world China. Enclosed within a small white wall and with a few gnarly trees for shade, the stone pagoda was covered with tiles, each of which had a small statue of a Buddhist figure within a circular frame. At one time these brown tiles had been painted in lively colours, and a few had been restored to their original condition and displayed by the steps leading up to the pagoda.

There were figures playing lutes and flutes, blowing into shells, squeezing an accordion-like instrument and tapping on small drums. The Buddhist Beatles. The inscription said the pagoda had been built by hand by a single monk in the Song dynasty. It had been made as a repository of Buddha relics and later been part of a temple complex that housed 400 monks and teachers.

On a more modern musical note there was a group of local schoolgirls using the pagoda forecourt to practice their K-Pop dance moves and recording themselves on their phones. Overhead, a procession of military cargo planes were also practicing their moves , performing formation flypasts from the nearby Kaifeng airport.

To finish the day I cycled back north to seek out an obscure monument mentioned by Bill Porter in his Yellow River Odyssey book from 1991. I found the statue of the ‘river-controlling iron rhinoceros’ (治江铁犀牛) in an unattended small park on the north east outskirts of Kaifeng. Mounted on a plinth under a small roof, the ornamental rhino was cloaked in a robe and festooned with red ribbons. An inscription next to it described how the iron rhino had been installed by Henan governor Yu Qian (于谦) as part of his river defences programme in response to numerous episodes of disastrous overflows and floods that left Kaifeng wallowing in a ‘yellow soup’.

The governor built up the river embankments, installed regular watchtowers and maintenance teams and dug moats, canals and breakwaters to divert river floodwaters away from the city. He also had the iron rhino statue erected facing the river to satisfy the local legend that the floods were caused by a river monster. According to traditional beliefs, iron was a strong ‘earth’ element that could conquer the ‘water’ element. 

Unfortunately, neither the strengthened defences nor the superstitious statue was enough to prevent repeated flooding, and the rhino was washed away on two separate occasions. Nevertheless it was recovered, installed in a riverside temple and became a place where locals came to pay respect to the former governor and his efforts to control the river. 

In the 1930s the iron rhinoceros was removed by the invading Japanese army, who planned to melt it down for scrap iron to make weapons. But the rhinoceros was saved when local people banded together to raise money and pay a bribe to the officials of the ‘puppet collaborationist regime’ to have the statue saved and hidden away until after the war. For whatever reason, the Kaifeng authorities chose to leave the iron rhino as an uncelebrated monument to the city’s long-lasting efforts to resist floods - and invaders.

The next morning, before I left Kaifeng I had to make a final stop to see what I could find out about one of the city’s most unusual historical episodes - its Jewish community. There are records of Jews living in Kaifeng from the time of the Song dynasty, as early as the 12th century. At one time numbering as many as 2000 people, the Kaifeng Jews may have been merchants who travelled along the Silk Road from Persia. Some may have come from the coastal cities of China where there were also communities of merchants from the Middle East until the 16th century. 

At one time Kaifeng had its own synagogue, but it had disappeared by the 19th century as the Jewish community gradually assimilated with the local Chinese population. In recent years some Kaifeng residents have claimed to be descendents of the Jewish community and a few have even migrated to Israel based on their claim to Jewish heritage.

One of the key pieces of evidence of the Jewish presence in Kaifeng are stelae (stone tablets) dating from the 15th and 16th centuries which are inscribed with the names of Jewish residents and describing the granting of land to build a synagogue. The stelae were reported to be kept at the Kaifeng Museum, so I cycled out to far west of the city to see the recently opened new museum.

Like many Chinese public buildings the new museum was a colossal and imposing edifice, designed to impress. Set on a wide open square, it had high sloping walls and pyramid-like stone corner turrets, like something from an alien planet in a sci-fi film. However, after going inside through an airport-style security check the interior of the museum was cramped and claustrophobic. Only a few of the halls were open, and these displayed dull exhibits of pottery and diorama recreations of the ancient capital. A couple of rooms had some Buddhist statues and examples of stelae, but I could find no mention of the ones recording the Jewish community, not even replicas or rubbings. I went to the information desk to ask about them, only to be told that they had no such display in the museum.

Disappointed and puzzled, I left the museum to collect my bike that I’d locked up on the roadside outside the entrance. Next stop, Zhengzhou.

Route map: Zhuangzhai to Kaifeng (click on image to enlarge)

With a population of 11 million people, Zhengzhou is one of those Chinese megacities that most people have never heard of. It took me more than two hours to pedal through its sprawling suburbs into the city centre, passing the guarded gateways of universities and futuristic high-tech factories (they make iPhones here) and also some weird real estate developments that had wedding cake-style buildings that looked like palaces but weren’t.

There was little of the industrial haze that I’d expected of such a big city, and the sun beat down from a cloudless sky, making me uncomfortably hot in my dark ‘winter’ clothes. With little to see in Zhengzhou, I took a day off to do some housekeeping and admin. 

At China Post I packed up some of my warmer clothes and other excess items into a cardboard box and mailed it all back to the in-laws in Guilin, for which I was charged only 25 yuan. Then I took myself off to one of the many new shopping malls and bought myself a ‘summer collection’ including a light linen short sleeve shirt and a new pair of trainers. The supermarket in the basement also reflected Zhengzhou’s status as a big city, with a fish and seafood department that resembled an aquarium, and a food section offering a huge variety of choices. I got a resupply of muesli and could not resist buying one of the fresh baguettes from the bakery.

The weather was too hot for any serious cycling around the city, so I confined myself to a trip out on the Metro to see the Yellow River on the northern edge of Zhengzhou at Huayuankou (花园口). The river here was much wider than it had been in Shandong, and the road bridge was so long it seemed to stretch almost to the horizon.

The riverside park was a flat expanse of patchy scrub that was presumably at some times covered by river water. There were food stalls, donkey and camel rides and families sitting in the shade of stunted trees having barbecues. There were even motorboats offering trips out on the slow moving muddy brown waters.

There was also a small memorial at Huayuankou to commemorate that this was the ‘ground zero’ site for one of China’s worst disasters, the man-made floods of 1938. It was at this spot that the river’s embankments were breached on the orders of Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek (蔣介石). He blew up the dykes to create flooding in a desperate bid to halt the advance of the Japanese army on Zhengzhou.

The river waters poured out across the Henan plain from this location and did succeed in bogging down the Japanese army, at least temporarily. But over the next few months and years the flood waters continued to spread over a wide area and into surrounding provinces, resulting in the deaths of more than 800,000 people. Some lives were lost due to drowning but most were caused by starvation and disease as the rising waters swamped huge areas of farmland, destroying crops and displacing almost four million people. 

Breaching the embankment at Huayuankou effectively changed the course of the Yellow River for several years, with its waters flowing south to join the Huai river in Jiangsu. The river flooding - and the devastation of farmland - continued on an annual basis for almost a decade until the embankments were finally repaired in 1946.

It took many years for the lower Yellow River plains to recover from the damage caused by the floods, and there were longer term consequences. The loss of farmland in Henan meant it was one of the areas worst affected by the famine triggered by the agricultural collectivisation policies of the Great Leap Forward. In his book Tombstone, the author Yang Jisheng described how one in eight people (including his father) had died of starvation in the town of Xinyang (信阳), near Zhengzhou, between 1959 and 1961. 

When I visited the Yellow River Museum located near Huayuankou there was little mention of the 1938 floods or famines. It was an uninspiring collection of photographs of dams, a few maps and some cabinets containing shards of pottery. There was a model of a flat-bottomed Yellow River raft, but otherwise the museum seemed to be designed as an educational exhibits for school parties rather than anyone with a genuine interest in the river.

One display in the museum aimed to show visitors that Chinese president Xi Jinping took a special interest in the river. It highlighted his visit to Zhengzhou during which Xi talked about the ‘Yellow River spirit’ and how it embodied China’s history, inheritance and the links between different ethnic groups and cultures living along the course of the river.

Protecting the ‘Mother River’ was part of Xi’s grand plan ‘for the great rejuvenation and sustainable development of the Chinese nation’, the museum display stated.

It quoted Xi urging officials to ‘do a good job’ in ‘studying the river, promoting ecological protection, water conservation and high-quality development’. 

 

第6章 开封与镇河铁犀

为赴曲阜朝圣孔子，我南下偏离黄河百余公里，如今必须重返河道。在距此250公里的开封之前，沿途再无值得驻足之处，于是我径直取道鲁西南平原。

整整两日，我沿着货车拥堵的次级公路奋力骑行。途中曾在巨野、庄寨等平凡工业小镇歇脚，当地人的友善与高德地图指引的精酿啤酒坊令人惊喜——这在中国实属新鲜体验，也印证政府建设"小康社会"的蓝图正渗透至基层乡镇。春日骑行80公里后畅饮冰镇啤酒何等快意，这些作坊常供应德式与比利时风味白啤，不过那些茶味特调实在不对胃口，活像啤酒兑冷茶。

行经菏泽等小城时，映入眼帘的尽是新建住宅楼群，历史遗迹荡然无存。每个城镇都矗立着数座购物中心，售卖名牌服饰珠宝。即便小城也遍布茶叶、美容产品与数码设备的专卖店，彰显中国中产阶层的崛起。公路上不时掠过装备专业公路车、身着紧身骑行服的中国新中产骑行者，见我踩着迷你折叠车蜗行时，总会竖起拇指鼓励。

庄寨是进入河南前的最后一座山东小镇，在此遭遇首次酒店拒住。尽管已提前预订，"入家酒店"的倦怠经理仍以不接待外宾为由拒绝。虽知政府早有明文规定，但顶着逆风骑行整日的我疲于争辩，赶在晚六点退款截止前取消订单，继续前行五公里入住发电站旁的"国际酒店"。

沮丧很快被精酿酒吧治愈，店员坚持让我品鉴全线新品并给出评价。如这些邂逅的常态，我们互加微信合影留念。"向世界推荐我们的啤酒！记得好评！"他们在我踉跄觅食时叮嘱。我钟爱山东人——兼具北方的直率坦诚与旧式贵族般的教养，或许被视作固执保守，实则淳朴真挚，乃大地之盐。

次晨进入河南时，虽未觉民风突变，路况恶化却显而易见。过去一周习以为常的山东宽阔公路，在通往开封的最后路段变成坑洼狭窄的货车走廊，两旁充斥着丑陋的汽修厂与轮胎铺，我继续与强劲逆风搏斗。更讽刺的是，平行的高铁线上每隔十分钟就有白色动车组掠过，令我艳羡不已。

当终于抵达开封市中心，这座古城犹如脱离苦海的救赎。城墙内围绕大湖展开的"老城区"，恍若河内西湖的翻版。我幸运地入住湖畔家庭旅馆，热情的主人指点我去品尝著名的灌汤包。

这种美味的汤圆，类似小笼包，在前一年曾引起轰动，当时附近郑州的学生掀起了夜间骑行去开封品尝当地美食的潮流。这股骑行“饺子热”在社交媒体视频的推动下迅速走红，成千上万的学生踏上了50公里的骑行旅程。当地政府迅速出手镇压了这场“群众运动”，并对郑州学生实施限制，阻止他们骑行前往开封。我被引导到的那家半空的松都和源餐厅，显然并没有出现这种现象，那里的饺子味道鲜美，而且每个只需18元。

许多旅行者对开封差评如潮，指责这座工业城市只有仿造的"古城"，但我却享受探索地标建筑的休憩日。我的民宿紧邻包公湖畔的包公祠，清晨可见太极拳队伍在此练习。我选择在更北边的潘家湖享用晨间拿铁，那里靠近龙亭公园。

湖东侧是迷人的胡同网络，我骑车穿过这些背街小巷前往著名的铁塔。这座北宋时期的建筑并非真由铁铸成，但褐釉琉璃瓦赋予它金属质感。当开封还是世界最大都市时，能工巧匠在每块塔砖都模印了佛像。底层砖雕的佛首多已剥蚀残缺，但剩余50米塔身上千姿百态的佛像，仍诉说着当年需要耗费多少年心血才能完成。

在开封老城南缘，我还参观了风格迥异的繁塔。这座敦实的六角形建筑隐藏在杂乱作坊和荒地后方，近距离观赏堪称古典中国的绝佳标本。白石围墙内，古树掩映下的砖塔通体覆满圆形佛龛琉璃砖。这些褐砖曾施彩绘，如今部分修复品陈列在登塔石阶旁。

砖雕乐伎或弹琵琶吹笛子，或吹海螺按笙，或击手鼓——简直像佛教版的披头士乐队。铭文记载此塔由宋代某位僧人亲手建造，最初作为佛舍利供奉处，后来发展为容纳四百僧侣的寺院建筑群。

更具现代音乐气息的是，一群当地女学生正在塔前广场练习K-Pop舞蹈，并用手机录制视频。

当日行程的最后一站，我骑车北上去寻找比尔·波特在1991年《黄河之旅》中提到的冷门遗迹。在开封东北郊一座无人看管的小公园里，我找到了那座"镇河铁犀"雕像。这尊装饰性的犀牛身披红绸，安放在凉亭下的基座上。旁边的碑文记载：明代河南巡抚于谦为治理黄河水患，在加固堤防体系时铸造此犀，以应对让开封沦为"黄汤"的连年洪灾。

这位巡抚修筑堤坝、设立汛铺和护堤队，开挖壕沟运河与分水堰引导洪水远离城区。同时依照"铁属土性，土能克水"的传统观念，铸造面朝河道的铁犀镇压传说中的河妖。可惜无论是加固的堤防还是镇水神兽，都未能阻止黄河屡次泛滥——铁犀甚至两次被洪水冲走。但每次都被寻回供奉于河神庙，成为百姓纪念巡抚治水功绩的场所。

上世纪三十年代，侵华日军曾企图将铁犀熔铸武器。当地民众集资贿赂伪政府官员，才使铁犀得以藏匿至战后。不知为何，开封当局始终未大肆宣扬这座见证抗洪与抗敌历史的铁犀。

离开开封前，我专程探访这座城市最奇特的历史篇章——犹太社群。史料记载，早在12世纪北宋时期就有犹太人定居开封，鼎盛时期多达两千人。这些可能是沿丝绸之路而来的波斯商人，或是16世纪前中国沿海中东商团的分支。开封曾建有犹太会堂，但随着社群逐渐汉化，会堂于19世纪消失。近年有开封居民自称犹太后裔，部分人甚至凭此身份移民以色列。

证明犹太社群存在的重要物证是15-16世纪的石碑，上面刻有犹太居民姓名及 synagogue 用地批文。据说这些碑刻保存在开封博物馆，于是我骑车前往城西新建的馆舍。

这座典型的中式公共建筑气势恢宏，宽阔广场上耸立着倾斜的高墙与金字塔般的石砌角楼，恍若科幻片中的外星基地。但通过机场式安检后，内部展厅却逼仄压抑。仅开放的几个展室陈列着乏味的陶器和古都微缩模型，虽有少量佛教造像与碑刻，却不见任何关于犹太社群的记载——连拓片复制品都没有。咨询台工作人员干脆表示馆内从无此类展品。

带着困惑与失望，我取回锁在馆外的自行车。下一站：郑州。

拥有1100万人口的郑州，是西方人鲜少听闻的中国巨型都市之一。我花了两个多小时才骑车穿过其蔓延的郊区进入市中心，沿途经过戒备森严的大学校门、未来感十足的高科技工厂（这里生产iPhone），以及一些建有教堂般婚礼蛋糕造型怪楼的房地产项目。

这座大都市出乎意料地没有工业雾霾，晴空万里烈日当空，让我身上的深色"冬装"闷热难耐。由于郑州可看之处不多，我休整一日处理杂务：在中国邮政将多余衣物装箱寄回桂林岳父家，仅花费25元；随后前往新式商场购置"夏季行头"——亚麻短袖衬衫与新运动鞋。地下超市彰显着大都市气派，水族馆般的海鲜区与琳琅满目的食品部令人目不暇接，我补充了麦片，还忍不住买了根新鲜法棍。

炎炎夏日不适合长途骑行，我只乘地铁前往郑州北郊的花园口观黄河。此处的河面比山东段宽阔得多，公路桥长得仿佛延伸至地平线。河滨公园是片平坦的灌木荒地，想必汛期会被河水淹没。这里有小吃摊、驴驼骑乘服务、树荫下烧烤的家庭，甚至还有在浑浊缓流中招揽生意的摩托艇。

花园口还设有一座小型纪念碑，纪念1938年人为决堤造成的中国最严重灾难之一。正是在此处，中国国民党领袖蒋介石下令炸毁黄河堤坝，试图以洪水阻挡日军进攻郑州。

洪水从这里奔涌而出，淹没了河南平原，确实暂时阻滞了日军推进。但在随后的岁月里，洪水持续扩散至周边省份，导致80多万人丧生。部分遇难者死于溺水，更多人则因洪水淹没大片农田、摧毁庄稼并造成近400万人流离失所后，死于饥荒和疾病。

花园口决堤使黄河改道南流注入淮河达数年之久。此后近十年间，每年汛期都会造成农田被淹，直到1946年堤坝最终修复。

黄泛区历经多年才从洪灾中恢复，但其影响更为深远。

河南省的耕地流失意味着它是受大跃进时期农业集体化政策引发的饥荒影响最严重的地区之一。作家杨继绳在其著作《墓碑》中描述了1959年至1961年间，在郑州附近的信阳市，八分之一的人（包括他的父亲）死于饥饿。

我参观位于花园口附近的黄河博物馆时，那里几乎没有提及1938年的洪水和饥荒。馆内收藏着一些乏味的藏品，包括一些水坝的照片、几张地图和一些装有陶器碎片的柜子。博物馆里有一个平底黄河筏子的模型，但除此之外，这座博物馆似乎是为学校学生设计的教育展品，而不是为真正对黄河感兴趣的人设计的。

博物馆里的一个展览旨在向参观者展示中国国家主席习近平对黄河的特殊关注。展览重点介绍了习近平主席访问郑州期间所阐述的“黄河精神”，以及它如何体现中国的历史传承，以及沿河不同民族和文化之间的联系。

展览指出，保护“母亲河”是习近平主席“实现中华民族伟大复兴和永续发展”宏伟蓝图的一部分。

展览引用了习近平主席的讲话，并敦促官员们“做好黄河研究，推进生态保护、水资源节约和高质量发展”。