On the grand square outside Yanjing Railway Station, six or seven rural aunts dressed in flowery clothes and old cloth shoes with thousands of floors on their feet gathered and chirped together. The unique southeastern dialect of that population was particularly harsh among the crowd.

Outside the station, a slippery little-eyed young man looked around and saw a group of unusual old ladies. He held up a big card of "chartered car" and ran up to them in three steps and two steps, introducing his chartered business to them with his half-baked Beijing film.

"Where are the aunts going? I'll tell you that Yanjing is the eldest one. It's tens...