Traveling Alone: Old Peking Tour

I can't overstate how awesome my day was. Today I did something I have been looking forward to ever since I picked up Paul French's book Midnight in Peking. French uncovered the true story of Pamela Werner, a young British girl who grew up in Beijing on the eve of the Japanese invasion. At that time, the city was called Peking. She was murdered in 1937, and the mystery was never solved... until Paul French did just recently. Please go read his book. It's a page-turner, and you will thank me for the recommendation!

The audio walking tour is something I Googled and downloaded on my phone last night. Simple as that. I followed the directions, starting at the Beijing train station, where I coincidentally was dropped off just last week from Moscow. Paul French himself is the audio tour guide, and he explains the sites, both the general historical significance and that relative to Pamela's story.

The first tour stop is a hutong behind the train station. A hutong is a traditional Chinese living space, distinguished by its narrow alleys, communal living arrangements, and close quarters. They are rapidly disappearing from modern Beijing and are something everyone should go see while in Beijing.

Armour Factory Hutong, or Kuaijiachang Hutong, is where Pamela grew up with her father. Pamela's building is still standing! Moreover, the Werners lived on the same street as the famous Edgar Snow. I saw his residence, too, where he wrote the book Red Star over China. I'm a fan of Edgar Snow, so seeing his place and Pamela's was very moving. The hutong itself was typical and quaint. My presence attracted some attention, but the residents were kind and curious.

The next stop, surprisingly close and competely intact, is the Fox Tower and Tartar Wall. This is a beautiful corner of the Ming Dynasty wall, which used to be the outside border of the city. Today, it's in the city center. The Fox Tower is where Pamela's body was found: raped, surgically cut apart, and dragged to the tower. I walked along the Tartar Wall, on top of which Pamela often rode her bike. There is still a little building which once served as a train station, and as French says in the audio tour, it's miraculous that it's still there.

Most of the Tartar Wall has been torn down, so when I reached the end, I turned into what was referred to back in Pamela's day as the Badlands. It's Chuanban Hutong, and it was a lively place that seemed a bit more cut off from the city than the others. In Pamela's day, it was where the brothels, drug dealers, and gamblers were. Hence the name.

Next I went to Suzhou Hutong, where Pamela loved to find snacks. I had zongzi there, my favorite snack of sweet, sticky rice with prunes cooked inside! Pamela ate her last meal, a bowl of noodles, in this hutong. I did the same! Eat noodles, I mean. :)

From there, the tour took me to the Legation Quarter. A legation is the old word for embassy, so this was a very European part of Beijing. It was a quiet, tree-lined area with British, French, and American architecture. Specifically in the French Legation is where Pamela went to ice skate after eating noodles in Suzhou Hutong. Important people and events involved in the book center around the Legation Quarter, but I won't give anything away! It's a murder mystery, after all!

The tour ends at the old Beijing train station, on the corner of what is now Tiananmen Square. This really puts things in perspective, because Tiananmen is the symbol of New China. My tour took me through Old Peking - it even has a different name - so the contrast to me was stark.

Why did I love this tour? I could say that it's simply because I love the book, or I love Old Peking, or hutongs, or finding meaning in the world around me that everyone else seems to be missing. But really, I think the answer is that I feel so connected to history. That space and time and place and life are all one, and every life matters. Pamela died so young. She probably thought she hadn't yet made her place in the world. And what would she have said if she was told that 78 years later, a strange American girl would cry into a bowl of noodles in Suzhou Hutong, eating them in her memory?