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Wednesday 2004-07-07 - Xi’an, China
Relaxed metropole
After our long train ride of yesterday, Carla and I make a late start today with a nice plate of noodles for breakfast at the little restaurant around the corner from the Jie Fang hotel. Then we set out to walk to the center of the old city of Xi’an. For a city of millions (6.62 is what I found), the atmosphere here is surprisingly relaxed, reminding me somewhat of Damascus, our first city on this nine-week trip. Traffic is lively, with a wide variety of public transportation ranging from buses (quite a lot) to little red motorized open carts for two to four passengers, a bit like bike taxis except they’re motorized. But no one actually seems to be in a hurry; people don’t walk fast either, the right strategy in this climate since it’s quite hot here. We haven’t walked 100 meters yet and I like Xi’an already.
Although people do look at us strangers, they don’t stare, obviously used to foreign visitors. Still only a few people approach us to speak English to us; very few actually know enough English for a chat, it seems.
When we arrive at the Bell Tower, marking the very center of the old city, we find it’s in scaffolding and closed for restauration. As an alternative we make a short visit to the huge modern department store at the corner of the square: a nice contrast between ancient and modern China. It’s easy to spend half a day or more here, but we have other plans.
After a short rest with some fruit juice in a sort of food court in the basement we leave super-modern China behind for a while and walk on to the Drum Tower. No scaffolding here but although supposedly the tower is in use again, we see no activity. The tower is also a gate building, marking the entrance to the old muslim quarter of Xi’an.
Along the main street, especially near the Drum Tower, there are many souvenir shops and tourist restaurants but when after a while we turn left into a smaller street, in search of the Great Mosque, this abruptly changes: We’re in a normal street in an old town now, a street where people live and work and have businesses catering to locals rather than tourists. This feels like the ‘real’ old Xi’an. I’d like to roam around more here, but my painful foot doesn’t agree.
Relaxing in the mosque… again
Now that we’ve arrived in the ‘real’ old town of Xi’an, we don’t actually see many signs that this is a Muslim quarter: only a few of the men and women we see actually wear their traditional Muslim headdres, but most don’t (even though most people here may actually be Muslim). Chinese Muslims, although ethnically mostly Han Chinese, are called Hui and are recognized as a separate ‘nationality’ in China.
In Kashgar the Hui go to the Id Kah mosque together with the Uyghurs; this mosque, with all its poplars in the large courtyard, is very Uyghur in style and atmosphere. Here, in Xi’an, there are no Uyghurs (although we occasionally see people from other minorities in the streets). So now, after all the mosques we visited on our long trip, through predominanty Muslim countries, we’re curious what a Chinese mosque will be like. Maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised, but when we finally arrive after a somewhat roundabout route avoiding most of the tourist shops, the surprise is how ‘Chinese’ it looks. It’s actually more like a Buddhist temple than a mosque: we miss the architectural pattern we’ve become used to, with a large central courtyard and a central fountain or pond for ritual washing.
According to historical records carved in stone tablets presrved here, the mosque was set up in 742 AD during the Tang dynasty, and restored and further expanded during the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Not surpisingly, the complex boasts a rich variety of architectural styles in the many buldings, platforms, pavillions and prayer halls arranged along five consecutive courtyards. In the fourth courtyard is a kind of pagoda with an octagonal roof serving as a minaret (unlike any we’ve seen before); instead of a central fountain or pond for the ritual washing there is a separate building dedicated to this purpose to the side of this courtyard. The large prayer hall, not accessible to non-muslims, is at the end of the fifth courtyard. Instead of wide open places, the four first courtyards are actually lush gardens; between the old trees and lots of flowers and shrubs there are many places to sit and rest, and enjoy the quiet: here, shielded from the bustle of metropolis all around it, one hears no traffic — only the chirping and birdsong of the many birds living here. In fact, sitting in the shade in this nice peaceful atmosphere, we find it actually hard not to doze off.
We hang around for quite a while, before braving the tourist shops to shop for some presents to take home.
Handicapped in China
There’s no way I’m going to walk back all the way with my by now tired and painful foot. A taxi would be nice — one of those little open red carts we’ve seen even nicer. But apart from ordinary taxis there’s nothing near the Drum Tower. I decide I can still make it to the Bell Tower; but there’s nothing there either, nor along the main street where we see only buses. Finally, we turn right and at the next corner we find a (very) little red cart.
The driver turns out to be handicapped, with two crutches propped up beside him in what is essentially little more than a motorized wheelchair with a backseat that will hold two passengers (just). I show him the hotel card: yes, he can take us there for 10 Yuan, he says. That’s probably too much, but I agree without bargaining: let him have a good day — I’m certainly not going walk much further. So we squeeze ourselves into the little seat and off he goes. We have to hold on to our hats, but it’s fun! He’s fast and very agile in the busy Xi’an traffic, narrowly but surely avoiding taxis and bikes; when the light changes at one crossing even zooming diagonally across to the parallel road on the left. At the same time he takes care to avoid potholes and bumps in the road, giving us a smooth but nonetheless exciting ride back to the hotel — and a very different view of Xi’an.
Our fun drive in the back of a motorized wheelchair makes me think about the position of people with a handicap in China. We’ve seen other carts like this one (most a little larger) serving as taxis, some with a sticker on it with the international “wheelchair” symbol on it; but not all of them carry this symbol — maybe not all of these taxi drivers are handicapped but some clearly are: it looks as though they can get a special license to operate a taxi like this and thus obtain an income.
I don’t have any more hard facts but did make some more observations which suggest that in China handicapped people aren’t totally left to their own devices (as is the case in many other countries I’ve visited). Whether they have (or can have) some sort of social security isn’t clear to me though. I’ve seen people begging, too, although this is officially forbidden. On the other hand, on the corner near the hotel last night was a street musician: a Chinese albino, obviously blind as a result of his condition, drawing quite an audience with his music. Again, at least that’s a way to obtain an income — but could he live on it? One more observation: the sidewalks along (at least) the main streets in every Chinese town and city we’ve been in now are not only paved nicely with tiles, but also have ridged tiles to guide the blind, as well as curb cuts in the sometimes very high curbs: something that wasn’t the case yet in for instance Kashgar two years ago. So maybe things aren’t yet as good as they might be but there’s definite and visible progress. Still, by the time we’re back in the hotel I’m left with more questions than answers about what it’s like to be handicapped in China.
