Day 17 - Friday, Nov. 1 - Beijing to Xian

Xian, view from the city walls

Up at 5 for a quick breakfast and a bus ride to the airport.  At the other end, my suitcase - which disappeared from in front of my hotel room door during the night - re-appears.  Then disappears again because Stanley will be handling luggage to our hotel.

       He leaves us in the able - though quieter - hands of Amber, who’s been a guide for 20 years and lives in Xian, so has local knowledge.  Our driver Mr. Jing steers us from Xianyang Airport, which services several cities, into Xian (pronounce shee-ang) through traffic less hectic than Beijing’s but still congested in places.  And unlike Beijing, where only a lottery allows people to have a car and few are chosen, here the government promoted car ownership by cutting the tax on cars from 10% to 5%.  But of course the population in Beijing is 28 million and here it’s only just under 10 million.
       We drive past never-ending projects of about 30-floor residential towers.  Where do all these people work?  I see one power plant (coal-fired, Amber tells me) with four cooling towers; Amber says there are two more plants in the area.  We cross a wide river bed, almost dry: the Weihe, a tributary of the Huang He (Yellow River), the second longest river in China after the Yangtze.  We’re farther west than Beijing here, but China has a “one-time-zone” policy (that of the capital), so the sun comes up at the equivalent of 7 a.m. here, but it’s still 5:30 on the clock, as it would be in Beijing.  We’re also farther south (34°N compared to 40°), so the climate is more like southern California as opposed to northern.
       Amber explains that Xian was the capital of China (as Kyoto once was of Japan) for 13 dynasties and over 1,000 years - from 200 B.C. to 907 A.D.  It’s famous for its rich culture, and the people are very proud.  It’s the only place in China that still has its complete wall around the city - a moat, a park and a wall which you can walk or bike on.  The wall was built by the Mings 600 years ago, but some parts are up to 1,000 years old.  (On a more modern note, the city is greatly expanding its subway (30 meters underground), which is causing archaeological headaches.)
       The city has a huge Muslim population of 200,000, with its own neighborhood.  After all, Xian means “western peace” (xi = west, an = peace).  We’ll visit it later.  But before that, it’s off to the museum and archaeological treasures we can touch, with the white gloves they give us.  (No cameras allowed in the room.)

       First they bring out a ritual wine decanter and wine “cup” from the Zhou Dynasty.  The decanter is highly engraved; both are oxidized.  In addition to its three legs, the cup has two posts sticking up, in addition to its handles; it’s thought they may have served to keep the drinkers’ long beards out of the wine.  Amazingly ancient, from a world we can only imagine.
      Then they bring out more modern objects... only 1,300 years old, from the Tang Dynasty.  A heavy bronze mirror with carvings on one side and smooth on the other to reflect your image.  After that a delicate silver plate that still has some shine from its original gold plating; the engraving is of two fish swimming among lotus flowers, which shows a Buddhist influence.  It’s in such good condition because it was found in a sealed jar, so no oxidation damaged it.  That’s followed by a heavy silver braided chain with a dragon head at either end, used as a lock for some cabinet; the dragons are copper with silver plating... and identical, which means they were molded or cast, not carved.
       And the treasures keep on coming.  A lovely flower-shaped cup with eight petals; on four are depicted a hunting scene, on the other four a scene with courtiers.  It too is silver with gold plating, obviously belonging to the royal family.  It was found in mud at the bottom of the palace’s lake, which preserved it.  The lake is gone, but the cup survived.  Next is a strange rectangular clay box, closed but hollow, that they say doctors of the era used to take a pulse by having the patient place a hand on it... though how they know that I can’t imagine.
       Another clay object, this one a small statue of a lion with green glaze (copper) on the head, brownish yellow glaze (iron) on the body and a white tail.  It was meant to be placed in a tomb, and as at that time there were no lions in China, it indicates trade along the Silk Road, perhaps with Persia.
       The last piece is also Tang Dynasty:  a marble Buddha head from the palace area, minus the rest of Buddha.  But before that, the next to last piece is from the Han Dynasty (2,000 years old) and it's the most spectacular:  a large jeweler’s box that held eight “coins”, cakes of 97% pure gold weighed out to a precise 250 grams (half a pound).  If it was a bit over, the correct amount was chipped off; if a bit under, the necessary quantity was added.  The coins gleam in the light, stand out against the red velvet and feel heavy in the hand.  290 of these coins were found by accident in the mud of an old brick-making factory.  Why were they there?
       The curator’s gift to us is the white gloves we’ve used to handle these amazing ancient objects.  Thanking them for the honor and the gift, we take the bus to the Muslim neighborhood.

The Muslim district

From the near silence of antiquities to the noise and lights of the oldest Muslim quarter in China, with its bazaar, hawkers and merchants calling out to us to buy their goods:  souvenirs of course, but food mostly:  fruit pressed into juice, millet cakes dipped in honey...  Amber buys some persimmon dough-cakes for us, and they’re delicious!

The Mosque

       Our destination:  the mosque at its center.  It’s only for male worshipers; women pray elsewhere.  A series of small gardens with gazebos lead to the prayer pagoda, decidedly of Chinese flair and not Arab... even the minaret.  As with other Muslim architecture, no humans or animals are depicted, except for the dragon (because it’s fictional?).  The mosque dates back to the Tang Dynasty but was enlarged under the Mings.  We cannot enter the inner sanctum, but as it has an open architecture, I see a few men praying inside.  I notice they’re facing west, not east as I’m used to in Europe and the U.S.  Mecca lies west of China, a geographical anomaly for me, just as the sun moving east to north to west was in Hiva Oa.
       We walk back through the bazaar for a delicious dumpling dinner with all the trimmings.  On our way, we pass the two early 14th century towers, now lit up in the dark:  the Bell Tower, whose bells used to signal the city gates opening in the morning, and the Drum Tower, which signaled the gates closing at night.
       Filled with dumplings, we return to our sumptuous rooms at the Sofitel and a sound night’s sleep.  Tomorrow:  the terra cotta warriors!