Xi'an

Last week was Golden Week, the celebration of China’s establishment as the republic it is today. A nice present that came with it was a five day weekend. My friend from high school days of yore, Will suggested that we go to Xi’an. At first, I was a bit reluctant to travel during the holidays, but seeing how empty the fridge was, I caved in and bought my round trip tickets on ctrip.com for 2000 RMB. We stayed in Xi’an from October 2-5. I’m glad I went.

10/2

On the morning of October 2, I traveled to People’s Square to eat breakfast, before taking the bullet train (Maglev) to Pudong International Airport. The train ride was quite a cool experience. A one way ticket costs 50 yuan, but with a plane ticket it only costs 40 yuan (still a bit steep as subway fare is usually 3 kuai a trip). Between 0900 and 1700, the train transports passengers at a maximum speed of 430 km/hr. It was quite a rush to accelerate up to that speed and watch Shanghai flash before my eyes. The whole trip didn’t take more than 10 minutes. After waiting awhile, I boarded a China Eastern plane.


I touched down in Xi’an about two hours later and met up with Will at the airport. Upon exiting the airport, the first thing I noticed was that the air quality was actually a lot worse than Shanghai. That was surprising, as I read that tourism was Xi’an’s main industry, not manufacturing. We then took the one hour shuttle bus to Downtown Xi’an. We arrived in Downtown Xi’an in the late afternoon.

Background

Xi’an is China’s old historic capital. The city from which the brutal and efficient Qin Shi Huang Di (Emperor of Qin and the First Emperor) dominated the warring states of China to establish a unified state for the first time. As evidence of this, the city still possesses some of its military heritage. The ancient city walls still stand to surround the rectangular city. Four main roads: north, south, east and west form a cross, with the east and west roads being longer. At the centre of it all is the Bell Tower, a monument which remains to remind the city of its heritage. Aside from visiting Yu Yuan, an ancient courtyard area in Shanghai, this was the first time I saw ancient buildings in China, and I was thoroughly awed. However, I was not awed enough to line up for an hour for admission. Xi’an is more representative of a typical Chinese city than Shanghai is. There was no subway in the city, only a bunch of underground tunnels for people to cross the street (I called it the human powered subway). In terms of economic development, it still has some ways to go but the signs that it is catching up were everywhere.


Will and I proceeded to find a hostel, using his hand drawn, not-to-scale map with limited landmarks and questionable accuracy. My impression of Xi’an’s regal nature quickly dissipated. Because it was a national holiday, the city was flooded with tourists, both foreign and domestic. Even worse, they had even less of a concept of personal space than people in Shanghai. I felt like a blocker trying to herd bison as we navigated the streets. The worst thing though, was the kids. In general, I love kids. Not in Xi’an.

I have developed an economic development coefficient to rival The Economist magazine’s metrics. It is called the How Many Kids I See with Slit Pants Coefficient (HMKISSPC). In Xi’an, the coefficient was 0.95. I’ve read that due to costs, Chinese kids don’t suffer diapers and go readily in the street. In Shanghai, I didn’t see or notice this much. In Xi’an, every other street some kid aged 2-and-under would start squatting in front of me. At first I had no idea what they were doing, but I quickly came to my senses.

Hostel

We eventually found our place of residence, the Xi’an Bell Tower Youth Hostel. As the name indicates, it is located opposite to the Bell Tower and is in the centre of town. The entrance was a hole in the wall beside a Nokia store. We walked up the dirty stairs to the reception area. We mentioned we had reserved a two person room for one night (we wanted to try it out first), all the while pretending that we didn’t understand Chinese (Will is fluent). The girl at the counter replied that we had never confirmed with them. It turns out they had copied down my friend’s number wrong by a digit and therefore called someone with an inactive phone. Thus, she had given our room away, leaving us possibly homeless. Welcome to Xi’an!

We contemplated our options. It was already evening and we knew many hotels were booked solid because of the national holiday. The ones that still weren’t full engaged in predatory pricing. But we decided to try our luck and scouted out some establishments in the area. We found two proper hotels that gave us rates of 500-600 kuai per night. Ridiculous. The hostel charged 180 per night. After an hour and a half, we swallowed our pride and went back to the hostel to see if they had anything available. They did have beds after all, but it was in a 10-bunk room. At 40 kuai a night, it sounded like a good deal. We walked upstairs to drop our stuff off. The rooms were seriously sketchy. The lights were encased in these orange lanterns, which gave the whole place a cheap, crackhouse ambience. I thought I would contract diseases from touching the doorknobs. There were already some dudes passed out in the room when we entered to drop off our things (really rough night?). We locked our stuff in lockers and decided to grab dinner.


Will informed me we would go to the Muslim Street for dinner, as there were lots of restaurants and we could try the local food. As that street would indicate, Xi’an has a large Muslim population, so there aren’t as many pork dishes offered in the restaurants (pork seems to be the most consumed meat in Shanghai). There was a thriving tourists’ market set up there, and a sea of people trying to move down the street. Eventually we arrived in front of a restaurant that had a large line up outside. We figured if people were lining up, it must be good. After a 15 minute wait, we were in. It turned out the restaurant served tons of xiao long bao (lamb, beef, chicken and shrimp, but no pork). Will and I each stuffed ourselves with two plates and also tried the lamb, which was served in an oily broth. It was all quite good.


Afterward, we went to see a water fountain show in the south part of the city. The show went off for about half an hour. We got bored and decided to head back to the hostel for a “good” night’s rest. No offence to the veterans, but that night I felt like I was a POW (prisoner of war). People came in and out throughout the night, and five or six mosquitoes were having a field day with us. I managed to get some sleep but Will didn’t get a wink. The next day, we woke up at 0800 and went to see the Terracotta Warriors.

10/3 - Terracotta Army

We took a bus to the transfer depot and there were already what seemed to be a thousand people in line. However, the line didn’t take too long as there were plenty of buses coming, and in an hour we got to the site of the Terracotta Army. We spent a good portion of the day there.

To be honest, without commentary the site would have been a bit boring. Just three pits with lots of stone statues (of people, horses and palaces). Fortunately, we bargained awhile and got a Mandarin speaking guide who gave us some good background history. The Terracotta Warriors from the beginning was constructed for the Qin Emperor’s burial. It is located in Xi’an even though the Emperor was not born there because apparently the feng shui is exceptional in the area. The Emperor instructed the site to be built when he was just a teenager. The site took 720,000 people 38 years to build. The people who were involved in the construction came from three categories. They were poor, criminal, or artisans (in which case they were paid for their efforts). When the site was completed, all of the people involved in its construction were killed to prevent information on the area, which stored all of the Emperor’s earthly treasures, from being leaked and attracting grave robbers. On top of that, a lake of mercury was erected in the area, which poisoned the surrounding environment and left the lands impossible to farm. Over the generations which followed, information on the site disappeared as the select few entrusted with the secret died off. It was not until the 1970s that some farmers discovered some artifacts and sent them for verification that the site was rediscovered. To this day, the portion that has been made public (pits 1,2 and 3) is only a tiny portion of the entire monument, as archeologists are concerned about damaging the other areas without sufficiently advanced excavation technology. Traps and the toxic mercury also discourage them from pursuing further excavation.


In light of this amazing history, the construction of the Terracotta Army was an amazing undertaking. Not only were all of the warriors originally painted (this faded off due to oxidation), all of them sported different faces and were each individually unique.


The old dude who discovered it was there to sign books on its discovery (Tim mentioned this). However, when we asked the guide to show us a picture of the farmer from the books, she couldn’t so that made us suspicious. We left the area in the late afternoon.


We went back to the Muslim street for some food. Will’s mom had visited previously and mentioned there was a restaurant that served really delicious pao muo (broken bread served in oily soup with lamb meat). We found the place she mentioned, but found the dish to be disgusting. It turned out that we went to a copycat of the restaurant with the same name. We bailed on our food and went back to the place of the previous night to eat baos. Fortunately, a two person room freed up that night at the hostel, so we changed rooms. The new room was okay, a little dirty. What was weird was that bathroom had partially frosted glass walls, so that weirded us out. Will and I agreed to turn the other way whenever one of us used the washroom.

10/4

The next day, we went to Shaanxi Province History Museum, which offered free admission for out of town visitors. By the time we got there, there were already tons of people lining up there. Since it was noon, all the staff were eating lunching and nobody was admitting visitors, so we waited in line for an hour. While we were in line, we met a guy from Guangzhou, who spoke Cantonese and was married to someone from Xi’an. We asked about any other interesting sites to visit. He told us that basically there wasn’t much besides the Terracotta Army. We also asked him about any good restaurants for local food. He said the local food was “very hard to eat”. Well, at least we tried.


After waiting an hour, the line still had not budged and there was a daily limit on the number of visitors allowed. We decided to cut our losses and left for the mall.


The malls in Xi’an were quite large. I think one was over 12 stories high. Most of the stores were clothing stores, sporting Western lookalikes (Clio Coddle = Lacoste?). We spent most of our time in the food court and the arcade. We each ate 4-5 things, with each item priced at 6-12 yuan. Afterward, we went back to the hostel for dinner. Seated at a table beside us were two American girls with a Bulgarian dude. The server asked them to pay for their meal when they ordered (customary in China at cheaper restaurants). One of the American girls said that they never did that back home, and said they would only pay after finishing the meal. The server grudgingly accepted. Halfway through the dinner, the Bulgarian guy left and stiffed the two ladies with the bill. He didn’t come back. When the server came back to request payment, the girls refused to pay for his meal and promised to talk to reception (little good that was). Oh Americans!

10/5 - City Wall

The last day, we went to the Muslim street again. I wanted to buy some souvenirs and bargained with the vendors a bit, but didn’t manage to get the discounts I wanted (70% discounts). I think the vendors there are spoiled by all the business and not inclined to do much bargaining. We went to eat Star Ferry Restaurant (a Hong Kong style restaurant). We both had the baked pork chop rice, which I really missed having. HK café type food has been very hard to find in China so far. I even had authentic HK milk tea! Afterward, we went to the Xi’an city wall (admission was 50 kuai). We were planning to go for a bike ride around on the wall, but unfortunately I was running out of time and had to get to the airport soon. The city walls were quite interesting and I wished I spent more time there. It gave us great views of the city. I can only imagine what it was like to be a soldier standing guard on those walls back in the Qin Dynasty.


Will and I parted our separate ways at the wall, as his flight was the next day. On my way back to board the airport bus, I saw a luxury mall that sported Prada, Louis Vuitton, Zegna and a host of other international brands. I suppose a new king has captured the hearts and minds of Xi’an’s people.


If you plan on visiting Xi’an, I would say four days is plenty to experience the city. It was interesting to be in Xi’an, but I suppose once in a lifetime is enough.

Dialogue

- Free, no Wikipedia here- just a labour of love. Dinner with Mr. Chung was excellent. He took me out for Thai food, which was delicious. I'll forward some pictures of his area to the group later. He's definitely living it up here and where he's staying has a lot of history. The roach was flushed, but I have a feeling his family will want revenge.
- Tim, thanks for the heads up on the old dude signing the books. I did end up buying miniatures, but they were cheap.
- Jeff, you should still come over and check it out for yourself, but after this post you have another city you could potentially skip.
- Jess, you should tell me about some areas to check out. Maybe I can grab a few "then and now" pictures for your dad.
- Em, I hear the slipper toss will also work with Cher. Although I believe Cher could weather a nuclear war with no issues...