Xi'An (西安): A Chinese Paradise for Non-Pork Eaters (and history buffs too!)

March 28, 2011 - Xi'An, Shaanxi Provice, China

I got into Xi'An as the sun was setting - it looked quite pretty from the plane, as I mentioned in my earlier post. As I walked towards security, I realized that I had to re-fill a Chinese entry card because being in Hong Kong technically counted as exiting China and thus going to Xi'An constituted re-entry. Thank God I got a 2-time visa when I applied for it. But because I took some time to find a card and fill it out, the Chinese security kind of came over and hovered over my shoulder. The officer was nice, and was impressed that I wrote very clear characters but still sent me to the "special" line. I was like...uuuuuuuuuuh....did I do something wrong? Luckily, that turned out to be just the line that was free and not the Chinese government tagging me or something....I hope.
Anyways, I got on the bus to the Bell Tower and then met Wei Ningqi (or NW, as I've referred to her before on this blog). It was so nice to see her again after 8 months! We went to her apartment and cooked up some veggies and chicken and rice for dinner and just talked. It was a lovely relaxing evening.
The next day we woke up early and went to the Antiques Market in Xi'An with one of NW's friends from Shaanxi University. He's an archaeologist and he's pretty cool. We just went to look about for a bit and see what was available. To be honest, we were pretty sure that a lot of the stuff at the market were fakes (of varying degrees) but we still found some very pretty things. I personally really liked the aged wooden doors and lanterns we found in the ground floor as well as some old republican-era round glasses and the Han dynasty mirrors. I didn't get anything though I did take a lot of pictures as inspiration for a story I'm developing at the moment.







After the market, NW and I headed up to the Muslim Quarter. We walked around for a bit before deciding that we were hungry and we should eat something. We ducked into a pretty big and pretty famous restaurant that I forget the name of and ordered some xiaolongbao (小笼包) which are a kind of soupy dumplings and some of Xi'An's famous Yangrou Paomo (羊肉泡馍) which is is mutton meat soup with pieces of nan bread in it. Both dishes were absolutely delicious! I actually want to learn how to make yangrou paomo because it was so so good.



After eating, we set about to walk through a bit more of the muslim quarter. There were a bunch of really interesting things for sale. I bought some of the dried Kiwi that were intriguing me and some Chinese Shadowpuppets for my family (they were very very pretty). We also ate some really delicious persimmon cakes. SO GOOD. Probably not very good for one's health, but whatever...I'm on vacation! Here are some pictures of some of the stuff we saw:





After that, we headed over to the Shaanxi History Museum where NW works at. A bunch of other Fulbrighters were in town (did I mention NW has a Fulbright Scholarship to study provincial museums in Shaanxi, Henan, and Zhejiang provinces in China? Did I also mention she is kind of badass because of this?) so NW gave all of them and me a tour of the museum. I must say, they have a pretty amazing collection! I especially like the Chinese bronze "ding" - it is absolutely mind-blowing to me the amount of detail and craftmanship that goes into one of these. They're pretty amazing. We also got to see some real Han dynasty mirrors which I also really liked. I also discovered that I agree with NW in saying that I really don't like Qing dynasty porcelain. It is so overworked and too covered in detail! Anyways, after the tour, NW and I met up with NW's friend Cathy (who also works at the museum) and went for a walk around the vicinity of the museum. Cathy was super sweet! She helped us practice our Chinese and was very very patient with me, which helped me a lot and helped me get over the sort of speaking block I had kind of been going through up until that point. We decided to go for dinner and ended up eating noodles somewhere in Xi'An. They were, of course, fantastic. We attracted some attention from the other patrons in the establishment on the account of being foreign and being able to speak somewhat fluent Chinese. I think a lot of them were perplexed by it - especially when NW was talking. Her Chinese is really really good and she speaks it almost as fast as a local would so it often garners a lot of very confused stares by Chinese people. Which is good, in that it means her language skills are pretty awesome! After that we said good-bye to Cathy, headed back to the apartment for a bit and then went out for a drink at the Belgian Bar in the South Gate district. We met up with the other Fulbrighters that I had done the museum tour with. They're all pretty incredible and interesting people!
Also, funny thing happened. In a group of 5 Americans, 3 of us ended up being from Kansas. Just weird little incident - who would've thought that 3 Kansas folk would meet up and be the majority in a group in Xi'An, China???? Haha. We did a few toasts to Kansas and Kansas pride and whatnot. They updated me a bit on what's happened to my hometown of Wichita (apparently it has developed a Hood???? wtf?) and we laughed at stuff for a bit. Yay Kansas! :D
The next day, the beer we drank made sure we slept in unfortunately. So all we really did is fret over my new business card design and then head out for a dumpling banquet dinner at Dafacheng Dumpling Restaurant near the Drum Tower.
Oh. My. God.
Dumpling banquet!
How do I describe the deliciousness and amazingness of dumpling banquet????
Well, here are some pictures just to get a sense of what I was eating:








NW and I each got the cheapest banquet (for 130 RMB) and ate our fill of deliciousness. We then went out and walked around for a bit and snapped some pretty cool pictures of the Drum tower and Bell tower during the night:





My last day in Xi'An, I went and walked around the Xi'An city walls and then went to Calligraphy Street and bought a bunch of Calligraphy supplies (I like Chinese calligraphy a lot). Later I ventured out to the terracotta warriors site with another Fulbrighter friend of NW's. It basically took all day. They were pretty awesome, but I think that NW was right in saying that they're worth going to see, but once you've seen them once, you're set. I mean, the site isn't that spectacular. What really gets to you is the sheer enormity of it. Pit One is the best of the three pits. It really puts into perspective the scope of Qin Shihuangdi's tomb and terracotta army. Mostly because it is an airplane-hangar covering only one of pits of thousands of terracotta soldiers. Apparently, they've only dug up about 6000 but estimate that there could be up to 60,000 of these things total, most of which are still untouched underground. Isn't that nuts?!








Tomorrow I'm off to Kaifeng (another of the ancient Chinese capitals) by train. NW has bought us train tickets while I was out looking at terracotta warriors. I'm excited! Although, I will definitely miss Xi'An, I look forward to the next adventure!

Categories: chinese food, foodie, history, museum, NW, Xi'An

On leaving the Capital of the World to go to one of the Ancient Capitals of China

March 25, 2011 - On my way to Xi'An, China

And so my visit to Hong Kong (the main purpose of this whole trip I suppose) ends without much panache. Travel days are usually unexciting at first - they start out with the one day I am able (or allow myself) to sleep in, then go look for breakfast somewhere in the vicinity of the hotel. This is usually followed by checking out of the hotel and dealing with some airport I usually don't have much inclination to deal with. They end with the tiredness that comes with travel but also the excitement of being somewhere else, and somewhere new.
Today is not much different to tell you the truth. I woke up at 8:00 am, watched Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel (China LOVES the Discovery Channel - they must agree with my parents on it being wholesome and informative or something) and then I got dressed and went in search of breakfast food. I settled on a small Dim Sum restaurant a block away from the hotel (yes, Dim Sum as brunch silly westerners - and yes, I didn't know this either until I came to Hong Kong and got a few weird looks when I asked where I could find some quality Dim Sum at 8:00 pm). I had a really delicious breakfast of steamed veggie dumplings, shrimp rolls (steamed), and a pot of Pu'Er tea (my favorite Chinese tea). All of this for 33 HKD (or $3.85). Really good deal if you ask me!
The restaurant people were really nice too! When I came in and sat down, the lady warned me that this was a Chinese restaurant that didn't serve western food. I told her that I knew that - that I had come for Chinese food and that I spoke Mandarin Chinese (普通话 - Pǔtōnghuà). She was quite delighted about this and proceeded to take my order in Chinese. When she cleared my plates, she said it had been wonderful to meet a westerner who spoke Pǔtōnghuà and who spoke it as clearly and nicely as I did. High praise!!! I usually think that I butcher my Chinese when I speak it, so to have someone say that I spoke beautifully really made my day.
To be honest, I've missed speaking Pǔtōnghuà here in Hong Kong. I mean, a lot of the conferences at Filmart were dictated in Chinese (and I understood a great deal of them to my surprise) but nobody really speaks Pǔtōnghuà to you here if they can avoid it. Although the guy who came to fix my internet last night spoke Mandarin with someone on the phone. Again, I understood most of the conversation (except for words like "IP Address", but come on, I barely remember how to say toilet in Chinese sometimes, do you really expect me to know "IP address"?). The point is, part of me is really happy about going back to China where I can speak the language and read the signs on the streets.
Hong Kong has been quite an experience though. Perhaps not my favorite place I've been to soo far on this trip (Beijing takes that honor so far - but I have a feeling Xi'An might de-throne it) but an interesting experience nonetheless. I mean, I came to Hong Kong to do what everyone in Hong Kong comes here to do - work. Hong Kong is a business city. You can just see that through and through that's what it is. I mean, one of the nice things, however, is the the absence of real opulence like you'll see in Los Angeles, New York, or even Shanghai and Beijing. Especially in Los Angeles. I swear I saw as many Chanel boutiques in Hong Kong as Old Navy stores in an average American city. And the thing is: PEOPLE BUY STUFF there, they don't just like window shop. The thing is, I think they seem to like owning one nice thing. Like, they'll own a Chanel purse, but just the one and won't really buy a new one each season. Also, you won't really see any Maseratis running around town (who owns a car in Hong Kong with that unbelievably smooth, efficient, and cheap subway system anyways?) so I guess they just don't spend money on that. I like that absence of opulence though. The problem is that because Hong Kong seems to be so strictly about business I think that given my personality and my history, living in a city like that would cause me to overwork myself or become a workaholic which I don't really think that I'd like. That being said, Hong Kong is one of those few cities which I feel like I could live in for a while if I had to (unlike, say, Shanghai, Chicago, or Miami). It is because of all of this that I think that if the world ever needed a capital, I think Hong Kong would be the ideal city (and not New York...I know, SHOCKER, right?). It is just such a teeming metropolis of Pan-Asian culture --- it really is unique that way, it just absorbs different culture into its own in an effort to define itself - Chinese (southern chinese), India, Malaysian, Thai, Australian, UK, Philippines, Korean...I swear, all you need to do is throw in a few thousand latinos to Latin-Americanize the place and we're golden. I think seeing Hong Kong has helped me understand and contextualize the theme of an identity-confused city in Wong Kar-Wai's films. Hong Kong is exactly that - it doesn't quite know what it is and suffers because of it, but only makes passive efforts to remedy the situation. It is, in that respect, also the perfect symbol of modernity - growing, absorbing, but still unable to tell us who we are or what it is.
My next destination approaches.
I see the much more modestly tall skyline from the airplane window bathed in the rays of the sunset. ON towards my next adventure - to the city of the terracotta warriors.

Some pix of Hong Kong:

Categories: airplane, Chinese, Dim Sum, Hong Kong, Xi'An

Serious Work (Sort of)

So I decided that I really need to make something of myself so I'm strapping myself down and making myself finish writing my screenplay by Dec. 1. You see, there's a grant I want to apply to. It is a pretty sweet grant so I really can't miss the opportunity. My own deadline is Dec. 1 so that my editor (N from Everything Will Be Okay) can go through it, butcher it, and return it to me in time to make adjustments and send it off. Today, I've written 10 pages so far but I still need to write another 30 at least I think. It kind of feels like forcing myself to sit down and write my Chinese thesis back around this time last year. Minus the company of N and M. However, in the spirit of honoring SoCo 7 study session tradition, I've prepared myself a pot of Chai tea that is currently sitting next to Darth Vader (my laptop. Just for future reference: My laptop is called Darth Vader, my ipod is Obi-Wan Kenobi, and my iphone is R2D2...guess who is a fan of Star Wars?) and I think that later on during the night, I'll pour myself a glass of red wine to let those creative juices flow. The tea and wine studying technique was developed by my dear friends N and J back in junior year and was used to great success by every inhabitant in SoCo 7. Of course, M added the Margaret Cho YouTube study break. Which is also essential. In that spirit, I have also pulled up a few Margaret Cho videos for when I need to distract myself for a bit.
But besides all the work I need to do in the next few days, I've had a pretty good week business-wise. I got an awesome gig that has me going to Hong Kong (香港) on business in March. I'm also trying to figure out a way to buy a ticket up to Xi'An（西安）to visit NW (Wei Ningqi Does China), but I don't know if I will be able to or not yet. I'm hoping it will work out.
Also, I've been learning how to properly dance the Charleston on my own. It gave me quite a workout today! Planning to keep at it until I have mad Charleston dancing skills! :D
Anyhoo, I should probably stop procrastinating and go to work! Have a great week!

Categories: China, D, Hong Kong, J, M, N, NW, S, Script, SoCo 7, Xi'An