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Shijiazhuang, provincial capital, political, economic and technical center of Hebei,
burial place of martyrs of the revolution and home to the biggest People"s Liberation Army
school in China, is not somewhere that immediately springs to mind as a travel
destination. The city is industrial, fairly polluted, not overly dirty but full of the
concrete gray that so demeans many Chinese cities, meaning that the majority of people who
tend to stay are here of economic necessity, military reasons, for business or merely in
transit. A mere five hours southwest of Beijing by modern train,
Shijiazhuang was a tiny village until the railway links, that spread from the cold,
political north into the prosperous, commercial south, wound their networks through the
city at the start of the twentieth century. The city now has a population of around eight
and a half million, most of whom seem to either work on the railtracks, in the military
schools or in the numerous factories. It is the military presence that leaves the city
with its most interesting features, a highly modern international hospital and a Martyr"s
Museum. The Bethune International Peace Hospital, that was first set up
in 1937 in the Shanxi-Chahaer-Hebei military area, was moved
to Shijiazhuang in 1948. Dr. Bethune himself, was buried in the second feature, the Revolutionary Martyr"s Museum, a park to
the west of town. Of the interesting sights
in the Shijiazhuang area, by far the best is the Zhaozhou Bridge, out in Zhaocheng
County, that is both the oldest in China and also one of ancient China"s most
impressive pieces of engineering. Even this, however, is only worth visiting if you have
an architectural frame of mind. |
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