Shijiazhuang

Shijiazhuang

　　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.