The Religions of Xian

Xian's location at the terminus of the Silk Road resulted in it becoming a melting pot not only of cultures, but religions as well.

Xian religious site #1- Giant Wild Goose Pagoda

This pagoda, now part of a Buddhist monastery, had historically served as a repository for many ancient texts.  During the Cultural Revolution, however, most of these texts had been destroyed.  The seven-storied structure was also a popular site for parents to bring their children, as it was said that taking a child to the top of the pagoda would ensure them good scores on their exams.  Perhaps because of this, the pagoda leans slightly to the left, so unfortunately we didn't get to make the ascent to the top and instead spent the morning meandering around the courtyards and rooms surrounding the pagoda.

 Imitating the Chinese tourists

group photo

 

The structures surrounding the pagoda were being rebuilt according to their original plans, but in a sign of the times, these traditional buildings were occupied by Pizza Hut, Subway, and their ilk.

For lunch we stopped at a restaurant called "Ding Ding Xiang," which roughly translates to "best aroma."  It was the best Mexican food we had in China.  Even though Ding Ding Xiang purported to be a Chinese crepe restaurant, with flour and spinach crepes to wrap around grilled beef and chicken, the wraps there tasted as good as any fajita I've ever had!

Xian religious site #2- Great Mosque
Xian is also home to a sizable contingent of Hui Muslims, who largely reside in the Muslim Quarter, a district of the city bustling with food vendors, souvenir salesmen, and a variety of shops.

The Great Mosque of Xian merges a Chinese architectural style with the Muslim faith, and looked less like a mosque and more like a traditional Chinese settlement than anything.  A few men were praying in the main room of the mosque, which was a haven of tranquility amidst the bustle of the surrounding city.

 

Once we exited the mosque to the Muslim Quarter, it was time for Goal #4- find Jia San, a Xian landmark ostensibly serving the best xiao long baos in the city.  Sadly, it was not to be.  While my sister and mom went to bargain with the hello people, my dad and I ventured out to Jia San and ended up taking the long way and and going completely around it.

 According to Google Maps, after hotels the most common thing in this part of Xian is KFC

And thus, the comedy of errors continued.

Random China link:  Panda-Fertilized Tea

Into the Furnace

Quote of the Day:
Me (reading a wall placard at the Temple of Heaven): "Oh, Nixon visited here."
My sister: "Why??"

After a quick jaunt through the Temple of Heaven, we bid adieu to the Northern Capital (Beijing) and headed to the city of Western Peace, Xian.

As a minor sidenote, Beijing was the only place where I had managed to find the address of any Dr. Fish, and with our departure came the sad, subtle failure of Goal 3.

Water calligrapher

Temple of Heaven

Not much about this 700 year old structure had changed in the past 3 years

Everyone was still trying to get a picture on this giant Frisbee

Xian had been the capital of China for many years prior to Beijing holding that title, and was the Eastern terminus of the Silk Road. Because of its cultured history, Xian is often deemed "the China of the past." Yet this seems to be somewhat of a misnomer, as this same city which houses the ancient terra cotta warriors and historic mosques and pagodas is also a quickly growing city home to 3 million residents.

My Chinese teacher at Brown used to tell us Xian had another nickname as well- "The Furnace City"- due to its unbearable temperature during the summer months. Ironically, we would have welcomed a furnace in our Xian hotel since we had arrived during the odd period of time when temperatures were still low but it was illegal for hotels to turn on their heaters.

Xian is also noteworthy for being home to the Xian Incident- the fateful alliance of the previously opposed Nationalists and Communists to take down their common Japanese foe. Because the alliance provided a critical lifeline to the struggling Communists from which they positioned themselves into dominance, one could argue that Xian is also the birthplace of modern China.

The fusion of old and new at our hotel restaurant

Saturday morning we ventured off to Xian's primary attraction, the terra cotta warriors, but not before making the obligatory stop at a factory. This particular terra cotta factory boasted its own army of terra cotta warriors. To be honest, the factory bettered the terra cotta museum in two ways- you could actually get up close and personal with these warriors and you could even get a warrior sculpted in your own image (for a price).

 Our bus dropped us off a few hours before noon at the terra cotta warrior museum, which has earned the distinction of being a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Once inside the museum entrance, our Xian guide Connie explained the layout of the museum and the three different pits where the warriors had been found.

As we listened to Connie's description of the terra cotta warrior museum, a Chinese college student spotted our group of foreigners and began snapping pictures of us. Realizing his conspicuity, he positioned his friend between our tour group and his camera and continued snapping away in an almost farcical routine.

 Temporary tour guide

 Connie, before the lone paparazzi discovered us

 Pit 1

Over 1,000 soldiers and horses have been unearthed thus far in Pit 1, which was fortuitously discovered in the '70s by a farmer trying to dig a well. That farmer now has a cush job at the gift shop, signing autographs and angrily pushing away people who try to take pictures of him... that is, unless they've paid the requisite fee.

What was arguably even more remarkable than the enormous scale of this terra cotta endeavor was the fact that the majority of the warriors had been found broken into many pieces and had needed to be painstakingly reassembled by archaeologists.  It seems that Pit 1 had fallen victim to a rebellion against the Qin Emperor, wherein peasant farmers had torched the pit and caused the roof to fall in, crushing the warriors below.

 Shards of warriors

 The Chinese- inventors of paper, gunpowder... and planking

The wonders of the world that tend to amaze me the most, however, are the gastronomical ones, and it turned out Xian was known for two foods in particular- noodles and dumplings.  For lunch, we dined on the former and had the option of choosing from homemade noodles in soup or sauce.  Suffice it to say the noodles did not disappoint.

As a brief interlude to our sightseeing tour of the architectural and cultural wonders of the Middle Kingdom, our group visited a cave home.   This type of dwelling is apparently not altogether uncommon, especially for farmers, and consisted of a main room with a bed, table, and countertop, and a more rudimentary, unfurnished room behind it.  Before we could feel too bad for these humble dwellers, though, Connie informed us that farmers in the area received healthcare for virtually no cost, thanks to a government-funded program.

  The cave house that in some ways reminded me of Kyrgyzstan

The dinner menu that evening initially sounded promising- a dumpling banquet offering unique varieties of dumplings, Xian's second culinary specialty.  To be honest, I don't think I've had worse dumplings in my life.  The dumpling chefs certainly earned points for visual style and aesthetics, fashioning the bite-sized morsels into ducks, fish, and other creatures.  If only they had expended the same efforts on the dumplings' taste as they had on their appearance.  After a Tang dynasty entertainment show, jet lag began to take its nightly toll and we all headed back to the hotel to gear up for our last day in the furnace.

 

Cabbage and goldfish dumplings

 

 

The Outskirts of Beijing

Quote of the Day:
(During a discussion of the Chinese legal/political system)
Lucy (our tour guide): "We have much freedom here in China."
Nina (a member of our tour): "Good, because I wasn't sure about that."
"Random" China link: Freedom House Ranking of China



The following morning saw our group headed for another Beijing site I'd missed out on in 2009, the Ming tombs. More specifically, we were headed to the Sacred Way of the Ming tombs, a path to the tombs of the Ming dynasty rulers lined with human and animal guardians. Apparently during the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guard had pushed all of the statues depicting courtiers and officials down. Thus, all of the human statues bore distinctly whiter and newer noses.

Perhaps the most interesting creature was the qilin, a beast that seemed to be the result of the interbreeding of a dog and a dragon.

The area was vaguely reminiscent of the royal tombs in Gyeongju, Korea, which led me to reflect briefly on how interconnected all three of the East Asian cultures have been historically. Before I could ruminate too long on the matter though, our group was whisked away to the jade factory.

Our jade factory guide eagerly briefed us on all of the jade essentials- the jade-carving process, how to differentiate jade from glass- before giving us time to peruse the large jade samplings. While the women in the group oohed and aahed at the rows and rows of jade bracelets, sculptures, and trinkets, the men headed to a nearby table for some tea.

jade ball within a ball within a ball within a ball in its many incarnations through the carving process

Whoever could lift this boat on his/her own was allowed to take it home free of charge

As we headed to the second floor for lunch, a few of our group members stopped by the plate of food in front of the Buddha statue, snacking on the tasty morsels of Buddha's offering.

Following our noon meal, we headed off for the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. Staring out into the barren and brown countryside on the way up, I couldn't help but recall how lush the same route had looked as I had traveled down it in August 2009. Somehow, living back in Southern California (aka the land of perpetual sunshine) has helped me to forget this phenomenon called "winter," which occurs in some remote parts of the world.

Even on the road leading up the Great Wall, we couldn't escape the "hello people." At every tourist site we stopped at, the vendors hawking their wares descended on us tourists like hawks on their prey, and the Great Wall was no exception. And these vendors had apparently all learned the same method of selling, namely inundating their potential customers with the phrase "Hello [insert product here], hello."

Cries of "Hello Rolex, hello" co-mingled with "Hello t-shirt, hello" and other fun phrases rang out as we walked by. Once I realized that these people were not just sad, lonely folk who had resorted to talking to the products they were selling and actually wanted our attention, it became much easier to ignore them.

wannabe pandas

lift up to the wall

Leaving the hello people behind, we got on-board a gondola for our journey up to the wall itself, traveling in the same method as Bill Clinton had when he had visited. Even in the all-enclosed vehicle, my sister and mom expressed some trepidation about our car dislodging from the cables overhead. Nevertheless, we made it to the top in one piece and reconvened with our group.

"Can we take the toboggan down from the wall?" I asked, gesturing toward the riders gliding down the metallic slide on plastic go-karts to our right.
"No, it's MUCH too dangerous," Kevin, our guide, admonished.
"Why would you want to kill yourself??" my sister asked.

Since I didn't want to die,
Goal 2 = failure

Some maniac with a death wish taking the toboggan down from the wall




obligatory jumping shot

The rest of the afternoon we explored the wall, which thankfully didn't suffer from diminishing returns and was perhaps one of the trip's major highlights. We spent the evening at the Bird's Nest, site of the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony, flying kites and enjoying the beautiful gray fog...

Beijing Revisited

Quote of the Day:
(As we walk through Tiananmen Square) My sister: "Wait... is China Communist?"

My response

The night we arrived in Beijing and met our Beijing guide, Kevin, and our main tour guide, Lucy, who would accompany us throughout the entirety of our trip and who was our go-to person should any problem arise. After boarding the bus, we traveled deeper and deeper into the rings which comprise the city of Beijing, finally arriving at the Beijing Marriott City Wall, just a few blocks from Tiananmen Square. It was a bit jarring to stay in such luxurious facilities, considering the fact that this was China.

Beijing Marriott City Wall lobby

Bathroom in Yunnan in 2008...

...and bathroom in Beijing in 2012. Gotta love 10% annual GDP growth.

Luckily, real China lay just outside the hotel's perimeter.After exploring the nearby sidestreets and train station, immersing ourselves in the perpetual cloud of smoke and near-constant hawking of loogies, it was official- we were back in China.


Having previously visited Beijing in August 2009, I knew that this leg of the trip had the potential to be a case of deja vu, and therefore devised a list of goals to freshen up this return visit:

Goal 1) See Mao's body in Mao's Mausoleum
Goal 2) Ride a toboggan down the Great Wall

Goal 3) Visit Dr. Fish

The morning after we arrived in Beijing, our first stop was the great Tiananmen Square. During my last visit, many of the attractions in the square had been covered in scaffolding in preparation for the 60th anniversary of the PRC, and luckily this time around everything was obstruction-free.

Sadly, our guide Kevin told us our tour didn't have time to stop at Mao's Mausoleum, and thus we missed out on the chance to wait three hours to see a wax replica of Mao's body for five seconds. Maybe next time.

Goal 1 = miserable failureIf my first trip to Forbidden City had demonstrated the law of diminishing returns with each new courtyard looking like a near replica of the one which had come before, this visit to Forbidden City exemplified diminishing-diminishing returns.



Nevertheless, the highlight of Forbidden City has to be Chair #1. Without fail, there always seems to be about fifty Chinese tourists pushing and shoving to see the Emperor's chair in the first main room of Forbidden City... despite the fact that there are about ten more exactly like it throughout the palace. Submitting oneself to the de facto mosh pit crowding around the chair always makes for a good time.

The infamous chair

Upon exiting the Forbidden City, we took a pedicab ride past Houhai, a lake I'd stayed near on my last visit, to a hutong.

Traditionally, hutongs have been alleys housing many a Beijing resident, but in recent times, many have fallen to the wrecking ball to make way for new development or have been turned into souvenir shops. The hutong residence we dined in, however, had been spared because the government had decided to intervene in an attempt to preserve a piece of Beijing history (and bring in more tourist revenue, of course).

Our guide Kevin with the owner of the residence

One of the major Beijing sites I had missed out on in 2009 was the Summer Palace, which we stopped by following our lunch. Apparently the palace had quite the tortured history, suffering a number of attacks through the years, until Empress Dowager Cixi spent the funds intended for the navy on the reconstruction of the palace.

A giant rock in the palace which ostensibly brings good luckMarble boat for the Empress to relax on

Bypassing the more famous Quanjude and Da Dong for Peking duck (北京烤鸭), our group finished the day by dining at a restaurant called Hua Jia Yi Yuan. While the duck here may not have been quite up to par with Quanjude, the variety of dishes certainly made up for it and provided some much needed sustenance for the coming day of tomb-raiding and wall-scaling.

Random China Link: Family Living in Bathroom





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