Visiting Anyang/Yinxu in Henan Province and How to Ride China's High-Speed Rail - 2025

*Since this article is written as a draft for the 2025 edition of the Kyoto University Archaeology Research Association's "New Member Welcome Magazine," details about museums and ruins, which members more knowledgeable in archaeology plan to write about, have been omitted.

By reading this article, you will (hopefully) understand what a trip from Beijing to Anyang looks like and get an example of how to ride China's high-speed rail as of February 2025.

Prologue

The "four thousand years of Chinese history"—within that magnificent flow of time woven by countless dynasties, the oldest dynasty currently confirmed is the Shang (Yin) Dynasty.This dynasty, said to have existed from around 1600 BC to 1050 BC, was long considered a legendary existence.

However, from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, a person named Wang Yirong noticed that characters were carved into "dragon bones (animal bones)" that were being sold for medicinal purposes. This led to full-scale investigations of ruins around Anyang, and the Shang Dynasty was finally confirmed to exist archaeologically. Those ruins are called "Yinxu (Ruins of Yin)," and they have now become a place that can truly be called a sacred site, never failing to captivate the hearts of archaeology and history enthusiasts.

There is no way our Kyoto University Archaeology Research Association members would miss such a sacred site. This time, as usual, we went on a trip to Beijing with a total of 11 people under the principle of "meet on-site, disperse on-site, with individual decisions on leaving or joining midway," which could be called the ultimate in freedom. Among them, two members with extraordinary passion for Yinxu had already decided early on to dedicate the final two days of the itinerary to visiting it. And, the day before the visit, their enthusiasm finally spread to the author. Half a day before departure, I received a sudden invitation, and while half-stunned, I found myself deciding to join them.

The destination is Anyang City, Henan Province, about 460 km in a straight line from Beijing.The road to the city that served as the hub of ancient China is an unknown journey, even if there are train connections. Nevertheless, the three of us carried out a whirlwind two-day, one-night visit to Yinxu. It was a decision made while momentum, passion, and shallow thinking coexisted in a complex way, but looking back, it was a two-day period that reminded me once again that there is nothing more memorable than a journey taken as guided by intellectual curiosity.

Trip to Anyang

7:00 AM, February 20th
The night before, still wrapped in the deliciousness of Peking duck and that sense of happiness, the three of us stayed up late at the hotel. After getting only a little bit of sleep, we headed to the Beijing Subway Qinghe Xiaoyingqiao Station near the hotel while still sleepy and dragging our suitcases. The scheduled departure time for the high-speed train (what we call the Shinkansen in Japan) to Anyang from Beijing West Station was 9:10 AM, but

① Beijing is vast, so it takes 1 hour by subway from Qinghe Xiaoyingqiao Station to Beijing West Station. ② China's high-speed rail has a boarding process like an airplane, so you have to arrive at the station 30 minutes early.

Because of these reasons, we had no choice but to leave from 7:00 in the early morning.

8:00 AM
Fortunately, we finally arrived at Beijing West Station on the safe Beijing subway, while almost collapsing from sleepiness multiple times. When we followed the signs to move from the subway station to the high-speed rail station, the first thing that awaited us was a security check and ticket gate. In Beijing, there are airport-like security checks every time you ride the subway, so we were used to security checks and cleared this without difficulty. We had booked the train on Trip.com, but since the QR code wasn't displayed on the app, I was wondering what to do, but I was able to pass through the gate just by handing my passport to the staff member.

This is the surprising point of China's high-speed rail (or rather, all public-related reservations I experienced this time): "All reservations are authenticated by ID (passport)." In Beijing, we visited tourist spots that require reservations such as the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and museums, but even there, tickets were not checked; we were able to enter with just our passports, and Chinese people were able to enter with just something like a My Number card. In short, for both trains and tourist spots, all reservations are linked to an ID number (in our case, a passport number), so the ID functions as a ticket. It is a terrifying system in that it is linked to a personal number for who moved from where to where and who visited where, but on the other hand, for us foreign travelers who are not fluent in the language, it felt extremely convenient that as long as we had booked online and had our passports, it served as a ticket almost everywhere we went.

Now, once you pass the first gate, you will immediately see an electronic bulletin board. It is a system where you check the number of the train you are boarding and the gate number for boarding. Yes, it's just like an airport. Since our train was displayed as departing from "Gate 9," we headed there, and sure enough, a vast waiting space like an airport spread out. Behind that was a second gate, which also had an electronic bulletin board, showing our train number along with a "Waiting" display. As the departure time approached, a long line naturally began to form in front of this second gate. The flow is that you receive a passport check again here, and only then can you proceed to the platform.

Beyond the first gate, there are souvenir shops and stores labeled "Convenience Store," so you won't have any trouble buying light snacks. I bought a meat bun at one of them, a unique shop with an illustration of Jackie Chan on the sign, and had it as breakfast.

9:00 AM
The boarding time finally approached, and a long line had begun to form in front of the second gate. A word of caution here: foreign travelers should always line up at the gate at the very end where there is a staff member. As mentioned earlier, an ID is used instead of a ticket, and Chinese people were passing through the gate by touching their own ID cards to it. However, our ID as foreign travelers, the passport, is not compatible with this gate, so we need to hand our passports to the staff member to have them manually authenticated. We lined up in the wrong line here, and even though we had lined up in a long line, we ended up having to line up all over again.

Once you pass through the gate, you can finally go down to the platform. What was waiting there was a high-speed train with an appearance similar to the Shinkansen. Since the second gate opens just before departure, there isn't much time to wander around on the platform, so we boarded the train immediately. My seat was at the very front of Car 15. You can check the car and seat in the reservation confirmation email.

Since I booked my ticket at the last minute on the morning of departure, my seat was assigned to a different carriage than the other two. The appearance of the seat was similar to the Shinkansen, but the cushions didn't look like they had been cleaned, and honestly, it felt dirty. Still, there was space to put my suitcase in front of the seat, and the security felt good enough that I could take a nap (though, of course, one should be careful about pickpockets and the like).Above all, "the dirtiness of your own seat isn't visible as long as you are facing forward" (by my companion T), so it is bearable for now.

While heading to Anyang, the train stopped at several stations, and people got on and off each time. Sitting on the aisle side, I was concerned about the movement of passengers and, honestly, couldn't sleep much.

During the ride, and again when we arrived in Anyang, I was reminded that this high-speed railway issurprisingly punctual. At the very least, the trains I used for both the outbound and return trips arrived exactly on the minute at the scheduled arrival time shown at the time of booking. I have experience riding trains in Europe several times, but honestly, I was quite surprised by this level of punctuality.

11:30 AM
After a little over two hours of being rocked by the train, we finally arrived in Anyang. The in-train announcements were made in both Chinese and English, but fortunately, it was not a major barrier for us as we share the common foundation of Kanji. Also, thanks to the local version of "Baidu Map" accurately showing our current location instead of Google Maps, which is almost completely dysfunctional within China, we were able to determine the timing to get off without any issues. Since it wasn't the terminal station, there were surprisingly few passengers getting on and off.However, the station building was so huge that it didn't seem like it belonged to a regional city, and when we left the station, the view was filled with uniform, high-density apartment complexes like those often seen on television economic news.

When we went down from the platform to the floor below, a strangely spacious area was quietly spreading out, disproportionate to the small number of passengers.The density of people does not match the scale of the space, making it feel like an art museum in the early morning.Continuing on, we finally reached the ticket gate. The two companions were having a bit of trouble at this gate because they had booked their tickets at the same time, soit might be better for those who booked together to go to the ticket gate at the same time.

After that, we headed to the China Character Museum (which was nearby for some reason) to take a DiDi, also known as the Chinese version of Uber, to the James Joyce Coffitel where we were staying.Here is a note regarding hotel reservations: when booking accommodation, you need to be careful not to book facilities that only allow Chinese citizens to stay due to local ordinances and the like.My companion once booked a facility where only Chinese people could stay, and we had to rebook.

When we arrived in front of the museum, it turned out that the hotel was further away than we had imagined, so we decided to walk for about 15 minutes. The area was lined with orderly high-rise apartment complexes, and contrary to the large number of residences, there were few pedestrians, and a somewhat serene atmosphere drifted about.

On the way, a traffic scene that looked fresh to our eyes was spreading out. Compliance with traffic signals by vehicles was not thorough, and the rules regarding the right of way seemed to have a flexibility that was slightly different from Japan. In particular,I couldn't help but laugh when many small electric bikes I saw lined up in a row from the other side of the crosswalk and headed toward us.

At the hotel, it seemed rare for foreigners to visit, so the front desk staff were flustered while helping us, butwe were able to check in without any problems using our passports and a translation app.At this time, we didn't go into the room but just left our luggage and decided to head straight to the tourist spot.

Museum, Public Security, and Winning by Persistence

Now, in this city where the subway is not developed, how to get around is an important issue for travelers. Locally, small electric bikes are widely used as a daily means of transportation, and it was impressive to see how they naturally blended into the flow of traffic. However, due to restrictions as foreign travelers,we decided to use the ride-hailing app "DiDi" as a more realistic means.

DiDi is a very reassuring presence for those of us who are not used to Chinese. The system, which allows you to complete everything from setting your destination to payment on the app and move smoothly while minimizing face-to-face conversation, greatly expanded our range of activities in an unfamiliar land.

I used DiDi many times during my stay, and in doing so, I noticed a common atmosphere in the hairstyles of the drivers.A crew cut. Almost all the drivers had crew cuts. Is it popular?Such casual observations might be one of the pleasures of traveling.

1:00 PM
Our first destination is theYinxu Museum. As soon as we got out of the DiDi, we could see a huge museum with a bronze ware motif.

According to information I had obtained in advance, the word was that 'tickets are apparently free,' but when I actually proceeded to the entrance, there was no such sweet deal, and I was properly asked to present a ticket.There was also a security check, and public security officers were stationed at the entrance.

When one of them noticed that we didn't have tickets, they immediately and kindly guided us on how to purchase them online.Even when an error occurred due to an unstable connection, they suggested other methods and provided helpful support, allowing us to enter safely. It was a moment where kindness was conveyed even without a common language.

It wasn't just this officer; many of the people I met throughout this trip were extremely kind and left a lasting impression.For example, while riding the Beijing subway, someone sitting nearby spoke to us, and a light conversation was born through a translation app. I felt a certain warm tolerance and friendliness in their attitude of naturally speaking to a stranger and traveler, transcending cultural and linguistic differences. Regarding this 'friendliness,' the difference from Japan is quite significant, and if I were to dare to use an analogy, I think the gap is about as large as that between Southern Europe and the rest of Europe.

I will leave the details of the exhibits to my companion, who will surely write about them in detail in another article, but regardless, the scale and content were overwhelming. It introduced everything from the political, religious, and daily life culture of the Yin civilization, explaining what kind of ruins Yinxu are and what kind of social structure the Yin civilization had, in a thorough and comprehensive manner. It might be difficult to find an archaeological museum in Japan with such a systematic and rich collection of exhibits.Just coming here made the visit worthwhile enough.

The captions were mainly in Chinese, but using a translation app was not a major hindrance and was sufficient for understanding the content. Since the world's largest bronze vessel unearthed at Yinxu is on display at the National Museum of China in Beijing, visiting that as well would likely make your understanding more three-dimensional.

If I had to mention something unrelated to the exhibits, it would be the 'Budget Surplus Room,' the Oracle Bone Script Latte, and the legendary card game 'Oracle Bone Script Match-Match-Match.'

The Budget Surplus Room is, as the name suggests, a huge, somewhat meaningless room with full-wall displays that can only be described as having a surplus budget. There are multiple such rooms in this museum, and I experienced the emptiness that accompanies massive public works projects.

Next is the Oracle Bone Script Latte. At the cafe on the top floor, a rare latte with an oracle bone script pattern was being sold. I forgot which character it was, but I believe it was an oracle bone character representing some kind of animal. Since I had been moving around since early morning and was just starting to get tired, while listening to the very noisy interior construction work going on nearby, I was able to have an elegant cafe time. The staff's service was also very polite.

Finally, I would like to introduce a card game called 'Oracle Bone Script Match-Match-Match'. While my companion, an archaeology major, was engrossed in books at the bookstore corner in the museum, I, having nothing to do, happened to pick up this product. Attracted by the fact that it was based on oracle bone script, I bought it without checking the details, but its true value became clear after returning to the hotel.

When we tried this card game to settle the 'bed allocation problem' that arose from the situation of three people and two beds at our accommodation, the content was truly simple—it was structured like a face-up concentration game where you find cards with the same oracle bone script. In short, it is a basic teaching material for becoming familiar with characters, and the target age is clearly much younger than us.

When I read the box description carefully, it turned out to be an educational toy for local toddlers to become familiar with Chinese character culture. It might be well-made as an educational toy, but when we actually played it, I was let down by its extreme simplicity. Nevertheless, for three adults who had been moving since early morning and whose brains were no longer functioning, it might have been just right to take seriously while betting on the beds.

4:30 PM
There were various things, but in any case, because the Yinxu Museum exhibits were more fulfilling than expected, we stayed much longer than planned, and our departure for the next destination, the Palace Ruins, was delayed. The final admission to the Palace Ruins is 5:00 PM. Although we headed there in a rush, we arrived at the ticket counter at 4:55 PM, of all times.

When we rushed into the building with the counter and made eye contact with the staff member, she ruthlessly closed the curtain of the counter and tried to shut down the ticket counter.

No, no, no. I won't let that happen.

Determined to stop them just as they were about to close up shop, we immediately rushed to the counter.The official closing time is 5:00 PM. We had to persuade them and get our tickets before then, no matter what.

We had only a few minutes left for negotiations. There was no time to pull up a translation app. Just as I was thinking that, they wrote the time on a piece of paper to show us what time it was.Yes, this was the moment to unleash the true power of the Kanji cultural sphere!

And so, a conversation through writing from the soul began...!!!

Me: 'Can enter?'
Staff member: 'Tomorrow'
Me: 'Tomorrow morning return early'

We continued our negotiations through writing in this manner. If we let them brush us off until 5:00 PM, we would be giving them justification to close the ticket counter, and our time would be up. We persisted under that tension, but they kept making the ridiculous claim that the last entry was at 4:58 PM, andfinally, 5:00 PM arrived, and we were defeated. Yes, we lost the argument.Regrettably, we had come all this way only to be unable to enter the main Yinxu ruins.

We left the counter in tears, and while feeling down, we took a picture at the entrance gate of the ruins. However, before we could even soak in the feeling of defeat, we encountered a strange couple who kept pestering us, and exhausted, we retreated to a nearby park.

Since it was still early, we were strolling through the park when we came across a scene that caught our eyes. A medium-sized dog, which appeared to be a stray, was chasing a small pet dog nearby and acting as if it were going to attack it. The owner of the small dog immediately picked it up, butright after that, for some reason, they were seen swinging their hand down at their own pet dog, which left me quite confused.Furthermore, that medium-sized dog was effortlessly lifted by an elderly man who appeared out of nowhere onto the footboard of his scooter and was taken away just like that(a medium-sized dog riding on a scooter is quite an interesting sight).

Already exhausted, and since the museums and ruins were already closed, we decided to go back to the hotel to rest before going out for dinner, so we took a DiDi back to the hotel.

The Awakening City and Home Town

6:00 PM
We had only dropped off our luggage when we checked in at noon, so this was our first time being shown to our room. We took a mysterious elevator where the buttons for the 2nd and 3rd floors didn't respond, and when we headed to our room on the 6th floor, a very beautiful room was waiting for us.If this costs 8,000 yen for three people, it's definitely a great deal.

While we were resting and playing games like 'Oracle Bone Script Matching,' we suddenly heard a sound like firecrackers from outside. Wondering what had happened, I glanced out the window and saw that the main street in the next block was sparkling and shining. When we arrived at noon, this city looked like a ghost town, so I wondered what had happened... but as it was getting dark, we decided to head to what looked like a downtown area in search of dinner.This is just a hypothesis, but I wonder if this city of Anyang is a bedroom community.Since everyone goes to work in other cities during the day, it might have looked like there were few people relative to the number of residences, but at night, the residents might have returned, bringing the city to life.

While pondering such thoughts, we took a DiDi to the downtown area of Beidajie.By the way, we were able to find out where this downtown area was thanks to making full use of the Chinese version of Instagram, Rednote.If you search for the city name along with 'travel guide,' high-quality information within China comes up. Not only that, but the content of the posts that simply flow by is interesting, and there are fewer stealth marketing accounts than on Instagram, so it's good for mental health and is a fairly enjoyable social media platform. This is also entirely due to the benefit of having grown up in a cultural sphere where we can somewhat understand the meaning of Chinese posts from the meaning of the Kanji characters.DiDi, Baidu Maps, Alipay, WeChat Pay, and Rednote are probably the five essential tools for traveling in China.

We left the hotel and, after another ten-minute ride in a DiDi driven by a driver with a crew cut, we arrived at Beidajie.As soon as we got out of the taxi, loud Chinese EDM blasted into our ears, and the flashy neon lights stimulated our eyes.Welcome to Beidajie, the central downtown area of Anyang.

After passing through an area that looked like a parking lot, we entered a main street that seemed to be a pedestrian paradise? The reason I put a "?" on pedestrian paradise is that there were food stalls and crowds of people, and it was clearlythe atmosphere of a pedestrian zone, but motorcycles for food delivery and the like were speeding through the gaps in the crowd. It was genuinely dangerous. But I liked the chaotic feeling of it.It would have been nice to eat while walking around the stalls, but (perhaps overthinking it) I was a little concerned about the hygiene, so we decided to walk around a bit before going into a restaurant.

In this city, we might have been the only Japanese people—no, perhaps the only foreigners at all. With that faint conviction, and wrapped in a special feeling akin to exhilaration, we walked down the street with light steps. Since the cost of living is so low, we talked about how we should just buy shoes here, stopped by a shoe store only to be intercepted by expensive shoes and retreated, got excited by motorcycles rushing toward us, danced to loud EDM, and looked up the legal age for driving a motorcycle in China after seeing the shocking sight of a child driving one (it was naturally illegal), andit was, in any case, a dizzyingly fun night.

8:00 PM
When our pace began to slow, we found a hot pot restaurant on the edge of North Street and ended up going in. Since foreigners rarely come here, the staff initially treated us as if we were Chinese, but once they realized we didn't understand anything, they used a translation app to carefully teach us how to order.This was actually our first proper meal of the day.

A bold drink order of one large bottle of cola. Thinly sliced meat like beef and lamb. It was a very delicious and satisfying hot pot, and the price was quite cheap.We forgot we had ordered vegetables, and the hellish time of eating nothing but spicy Chinese cabbage for the last 10 minutes was just part of the charm.

We ate until we were full and wanted to go home, so we called a DiDi and returned to the hotel. We had been moving around a lot since early morning, ate a lot at the end, and now all that was left was to take a shower and go to sleep.

We returned to Beijing the next morning, so this travelogue is nearing its end, but here I would like to introduce"Home Town". Home Town is a convenience store (called 'bianlidian' in China) that was across from the hotel we were staying at in Anyang,which looks like a FamilyMart.

It was really close to the hotel, so we stopped by 3 or 4 times within a few hours that evening,and while we were paying at the register, the clerk asked us via a translation app, "Did you come from Japan?", and for some reason, my companion ended up exchanging WeChat contact information with her.Setting aside the question of why we exchanged it here,to repeat myself, this friendliness is one of the good things about China that I felt on this trip.

Late at night, I asked that clerk if she was still on her shift, and two of us (the other one was asleep) revisited Home Town and took a picture together. There was someone who looked like the owner at the shop at the time, but they kindly accepted our selfish request to borrow the clerk on duty.This place had truly become our "Home Town" in Anyang.

Before this revisit to Home Town, talking with my companion in the hotel lobby in the middle of the night about the future, our club activities, and various other things is also a good memory. After everything was over, I went back to my room,and fell asleep while immersed in sentimentality, fatigue, and a sense of fulfillment, thinking, "It's hard to believe we only decided to visit Anyang just 24 hours ago, yet it was such a fulfilling day."

Farewell, Anyang

6:00 AM
The next day, we were scheduled to return to Beijing on a high-speed train departing around 9:00 AM and fly home that afternoon, so we ended up waking up at 6:00 AM, having barely slept. After hurriedly packing our bags and finishing checkout, we called a DiDi to head to the station.

It was a February morning, so it was chilly outside, but the air still felt crisp and pleasant, and I clearly remember feeling that the clear, cold air unique to early winter mornings is refreshing no matter where you are.

After a few dozen minutes of being jostled in a DiDi, I returned to Anyang East Station, where I had arrived the day before. Entering through the massive entrance, I began the same boarding procedures as the day before.

Just like when I arrived, there was a passport check and baggage inspection, which correspond to checking in for a flight, and then I waited at the gate until boarding time. When the train was announced, I headed to the gate and showed my passport to board. As usual, everything is linked to the passport, so there was no need to show a ticket at any point, but I had booked this trip via Trip.com as well.

I accidentally lined up when the previous train was called and was gently (truly gently) corrected by a staff member who said, "It's not your turn yet," but regardless, I was able to board the high-speed train, which was accurate to the minute, and return safely to Beijing. After arriving back in Beijing, my companion headed straight to the airport, but I stopped by the city to buy jasmine tea leaves, as if to prolong the trip just a little longer, before heading to the airport myself.

In the end, I only stayed in Anyang for about 24 hours, but I was able to spend such a dense and fulfilling time there that I didn't feel the brevity of it.Needless to say, it was safe, and the warmth of the people was truly alive even amidst the chaotic atmosphere of the city, which was different from Beijing, and the somewhat ambiguous, gray vibe.I think the scenery and atmosphere I hadn't encountered in Beijing, along with the interactions with the local people who treated me kindly as always, made this trip even more meaningful.

Epilogue

I had written down only the beginning of this article—the scene of taking the high-speed rail to Anyang—shortly after the trip ended, but the rest was written about two months after the trip. Nevertheless, the events and scenes of that time came back to me immediately, making me realize once again how intense those two days were.

My first trip to China. Honestly, before I left, I couldn't imagine what it would be like and felt anxious and confused, but when I actually visited, I was blessed with more attractive places and warmer encounters with people than I had expected.It is true that we tend to form our own images of places we have never been to, but there is no experience more certain than actually visiting a place, seeing it with your own eyes, and feeling it for yourself—I think this trip taught me that.

It might sound pretentious, but perhaps travel really does change the contours of oneself just a little bit.

Finally, I would like to conclude by expressing my heartfelt gratitude to the friend who planned this Beijing trip and the two people who invited me to visit Anyang. Thank you so much.