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Published: June 24th 2010
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I've been meaning to blog about this for months, unfortunately I've had camera problems. So now feast your eyes and minds upon the glories of Xi'an!
Halfway into the Two-Week Chinese New Year (mid February of 2010), I took a trip up to Xi'an to meet my good friend ChinaMike.
I couldn't get a sleeper, so this was my first Chinese train trip on a seat. Luckily, not many people travel during the so-called "Spring Festival", so I had plenty of room. Additionally, people are more friendly when you sit, especially to a foreigner. The cost of my 16-hour train ride?
68 RMB.
I met a young man on the train and had a very basic conversation in Putonghua. "Where are you going, where are you from, what is your work?" ect. More abstract topics were discussed through drawings. At one point he said "fa-qi-sa", and then drew a picture of a swastika to illustrate. I said,
"bu hao" , and he agreed.
When we started getting close to Xi'an the next day, I noticed how dry and mountainous the land is. The villages I saw looked awfully poor. I see now that Jiangxi
province trades overly-humid air and hard rain for lush vegetation. For a farmer, it is a good deal.
I arrived in Xi'an and met ChinaMike, who had arrived a few hours earlier from Beijing. We stayed in a hostel close to the Drum Tower. The plan was to stay in Xi'an for two days, and then head into the countryside.
We ended up staying for 5 days.
On our first day we wandered around the Muslim quarter. There was great street food and a relaxed vibe. Sometimes it's nice to be in an area mostly populated with minorities in China- the culture, the faces, and the food is different. Although for Hui (Non-Uighur Chinese Muslims), the language is still the same.
Maybe something in the food hit ChinaMike in a bad way. The next day he had stomach problems. Still, we managed to wander around the city. Central Xi'an is enclosed in impressive and very old city walls. We found a mysterious poster of Nationalist leader Chang Kai-Shek, and for a moment wondered if we had entered an alternate universe where the Enemies of the People had won China's civil war. Then we remembered that Xi'an
was the capital of the
fangeming (counter-revolutionary) Chinese nationalists during the civil war.
The next day Mike felt much better. We went to see the famous Terra Cotta warriors. They were built by Qin Shi Huan, the first Emperor of a united China, in order to serve him in the afterlife. The statues themselves were impressive. What was not impressive is the Disneyland-esque atmosphere and the 65RMB entrace fee. For a rich foreigner, not bad. But what of a simple farmer or worker who wants to see his country's great history? There really should be price discrimination at China's historical attractions. They should be expensive for waigouren, 10RMB for Chinese (the first time they go).
(I was explaining why I love India to a Chinese friend and showing her pictures from Varanasi. Her English is not excellent, so I pointed to the Ganges and said "Sacred river". We looked up "sacred" and then she said, "Oh, I understand. You pay money, and then you can go to the river.")
That night we walked along the city walls. There was a great light display and dancing festival to welcome the Year of the Tiger. The height
and width of the walls is incredible. 50 foot soldiers could easily march along the top in formation.
The next day ChinaMike and I missed the once-a-day bus to Hua Shan ("Flower Mountain"). Oh well, there is lots to do in Xi'an during an extra day! We visited some holy sites- first the Xi'an Great Mosque- the oldest Mosque in China. The original structure was built in 742 AD, (or the year 120 in the Islamic calendar). It looks nothing like any mother Mosque I have ever seen- it reminds me more of a Daoist or Buddhist temple inexplicably decorated with Arabic script. At any rate it has a very interesting historical vibe.
Many people in the West do not realize how linguistically, religiously, and ethnically diverse China is.
I bought a copy of Mao's Little Red Book for 10RMB. ChinaMike helped me by walking behind the woman I was negotiating with and saying (in Chinese) "10RMB, it is a good price, don't you agree?"
Later we went to visit the Wild Goose Pagoda. It was built in 652 AD to house the Buddhist sutras brought to China from India by the sage-saint Xuanzang. There is
Tourism
Tourist trap near Terra-Cotta Army. a large statue of this ancient adventurer and scholar overlooking a horribly cheesy, overly-commercial and blatantly materialistic shopping district.
Xi'an is the only place in China I have seen with double-decker buses. Also, there were Russian-hat-wearing faces made of ice cream on sticks for 1RMB. There were lots of buskers (all guitars, no clarinets), and some of them were pulling in excellent hauls.
Xi'an gives off a great vibe. The ancient and the modern coalesce to define China's potentials and predicaments. It is much bigger than Jiujiang, but much much smaller than Beijing or Shenzhen. If I had to choose a place to live in China that was not my beloved Nine Rivers, I would probably choose Xi'an.
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Ellen
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amazing photos
I love these says El