Return to China

I recently returned from my second trip to China, where I spent my one week vacation. I visited three cities: Xian, Suzhou, and Shanghai. This is going to be a massive post, so brace yourself. I'll start with the most important thing:

Food

Xian has a large Muslim community concentrated in the Muslim quarter, which has been a part of the city for centuries. Muslim culture has a surprising influence on food in China, as many of the lamb dishes taste like they could be from the Middle East. Xian is famous for one particular dish which is heavily influenced by the Muslim community there: Paomo.


The dish consists of lamb and lamb broth, scallions, glass noodles, and crumbled unleavened bread. Admittedly, it is not a very "Chinese" sounding dish. It was delicious though. I ate it for lunch each of the three days I was in Xian.

The best dinner I had in Xian was at a Sichuanese restaurant where we ate at our final night. Sichuan is a province/region in China, famous for its peppery cuisine. While the food certainly is spicy, that is only part of the sensation. Sichuanese peppers leave a "tingling" feeling in your mouth as well as setting it on fire. We had a Sichuan chicken dish, with about as much pepper as chicken, and some amazing soup. The soup had a sour but savory broth and contained meatballs and sprouts.

















Suzhou was disappointing from a gastronomic point of view. Most of the restaurants near our hostel were coffee shops, and the better ones closed early. Thus we were stuck eating at the same bad restaurant for dinner each night. We did have some amazing dim sum for breakfast one day. Like most English menus in China, there were some interestingly-named, but very tasty dishes featured. The "born fried steamed buns" (below right) were fantastic. We also had a snack at a bakery/pastry shop. It was a flaky pastry stuffed with BBQ pork (below left).

















We did have one good lunch in Suzhou; my favorite dish from the meal was the shredded pork dish pictured below on the right. Despite being a terrible restaurant, the establishment we frequented twice had several intriguing dishes on the menu. I couldn't resist ordering the "shredded pork vegetarian soul." Unfortunately, "soul" was soup and "vegetarian" was tofu, so what sounded like a manly pork dish was a bland pork-tofu soup.















The dim sum place also had authentic jasmine tea (below left). While I am usually very adventurous in trying a country's potato chips (the Spicy Hot Pot Lays I tried were tasty), I did not try the blueberry Lays Stax.




















Shanghai was a return to deliciousness. The fried spareribs tasted like Americanized Chinese food back home (which I miss). My favorite vegetable in the world is Chinese long beans. They are stir-fried with tons of garlic and ground pork.















We stopped at another Sichuanese restaurant in Shanghai. The lamb dishes and Sichuan Beef were delicious.

Xian

Drum and Bell Towers, Muslim Quarter, and Shaanxi History Museum

Now that the important part is over, I will get on to the specifics of my trip. Our first stop was Xian, a city famous for the Terracotta Warriors, an underground army of hundreds of soldiers that guard the 1000 year old tomb of a Qin Dynasty emperor. I'll discuss the warriors, which are about 40 minutes outside the city, later in the post. Xian, however, is an great tourist destination in its own right. The previously mentioned Muslim Quarter is home to Xian's Muslim community and features restaurants, shops, and a millennium old mosque that blends Chinese and Islamic architecture.

Right nest to the Muslim Quarter is the Drum Tower. I was lucky enough to catch a performance.





The tower was guarded by a fierce Tang Dynasty warrior (below). After visiting the Drum Tower I visited the Bell Tower.

After visiting many of the sights it started to rain. I figured this was the best time to visit the Shaanxi History Museum. When I approached the museum, much to my disappointment, I noticed a massive slow moving line in front of the ticket office. It easily could have been a hour and a half wait. It seems I wasn't the only one with the museum idea. It was later in the day and I was tired, so I decided to go back to the hostel. Just as I turned around I was approached by a Chinese man who spoke excellent English. I have learned to be skeptical of such people, so I was extremely cautious when talking to him. He offered me a museum ticket for double the ticket office price (which was around $3). He said he'd stay with me until I got into the museum. Reluctantly, I walked up to the entrance with him, then handed him the money. I walked right into the museum and saved myself an hour and a half wait in the pouring rain for an extra $3. The guy got his extra cash, I saved lots of time, and we all were better off after the exchange. China is starting to master this capitalism thing in a hurry.

The museum centers on the era for which Xian was the capital of Imperial China from roughly 250 BC-900 AD. It contains models of the Terracotta Warriors, ceramics, weapons, and a host of other artifacts. It was a small museum with limited English labels, so I was out the door before I would have entered the museum had I waited.

Xian City Walls

By far the most impressive sight in the city of Xian itself is its perfectly intact city walls. The walls are about 30 feet high and wide enough for a four lane highway to be paved over them. The first time I visited it was slightly rainy and relatively early in the morning. After getting away from the South Gate, I had the wall largely to myself.

Great and Small Goose Pagodas

Pagodas are to China what churches are to Europe. There are at least a couple in most major cities. Xian has two, The Great Goose Pagoda and the Small Goose Pagoda. The Great One is on the left and the Small One is on the right.

Terracotta Warriors

The biggest disappointment of our trip was the Terracotta Warriors, the premier tourist attraction in Xian. A short explanation is required. Alexa planned to meet her parents in Hawaii for summer break. She booked her flight for the last week of July, only to have our school change the dates of our vacation to the first week in August. That means Alexa had to sacrifice one week of pay for two weeks off, one in Hawaii and one in China. I spent the first couple days in Xian seeing the sights on my own and waited for Alexa to make the side trip to the Warriors. After talking to a couple other travelers at our hostel, we thought we had a nice day long itinerary that got us back to the Xian train station on time for our 5:30 train to Suzhou.

When we hopped off the bus we discovered that we were a long walk away from the excavation site. By the time we found the ticket office and walked to the site, we were 45 minutes behind schedule. Even if we had known exactly where we were going, it would have taken a half hour to walk to the site and buy tickets. We did not budget an hour long "round trip" from the bus stop to the museum. Thus, we had to rush through the three pits of warriors and did not have adequate time to appreciate them.

The Terracotta Army was buried with Emperor Qin Shi Hunag, the founder of the Qin Dynasty who unified China in the 3rd Century BC. The army numbers more than 8,000 and its job was to guard the tomb of the emperor once he died. Most are infantry, but there are also carriages, horses, archers, and officers.

The first pit is the only one that is fully excavated so far, and it houses mostly infantry. The second and third pits are mostly unexcavated, but you can see some crumbled soldiers and chariots in the pit. Also in the second and third pits are some officers and chariots that have been reconstructed. We saw all of the pits, but had to rush quite a bit. On the way back to Xian, our bus had to take a detour due to construction, so we made our train by exactly 10 minutes.

Close up and panned out shots of the first pit

Reconstructed Warriors

Sleeper Train

Our train from Xian to Suzhou was 14 hours and it was an overnight train. We shared our cabin with two nice Chinese people and each of us had a bunk. For the most part the train ride was a pleasant experience, but I recommend trying to minimize your time spent in the bathroom

Suzhou

Suzhou was the next destination on our trip. They city dates from the 6th Century BC, but reached its peak during the in the era of the Great Canal, a 1,100 mile canal that connected Beijing to Hangzhou, a city just south of Shanghai. The canals are the longest man-made waterway the world has ever known. While most of the northern portion of the canal has fallen into disrepair, the canals in Suzhou and some of the surrounding towns are still intact. The town is also known for its classical gardens.

Humble Administrator's Garden

The largest and most famous of Suzhou's gardens is the Humble Administrator's Garden. It gets its name from an adviser to the emperor who retired there. Like most of Suzhou's gardens, it contains water, trees, rockeries, and buildings. It was very crowded, but other than that it was quite enjoyable.

Lion Grove Garden

The Lion Grove Garden is famous for its rockeries which look like a lion's head.

Garden of the Master of the Nets

The Garden of the Mater of the Nets was built by a fisherman. It was small, but very beautiful and not at all crowded.

Couple's Retreat Garden

While not as big as the other gardens, this was certainly a pleasant garden to stumble across.

Pan Men

The Pan Men Gate is all that remains of the city walls of Suzhou and it situated in a very scenic area, featuring gardens, pagodas, and arched bridges.

Tiger Hill

Tiger Hill is the burial site of King Helu, who was king of the Wu Dynasty in 500 B.C. The site got its name through a legend, according to which white tiger appeared to guard the tomb of the king. Unfortunately, we did not see any tigers roaming the gardens. Tiger Hill contains several gardens and historic buildings, the most famous of which is Yunyan Pagoda. The pagoda is the East's version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which the Chinese structure predates.

Canals

Many of the canals in Suzhou have been well maintained or restored, so the highlight of any trip to the city is just walking along the canals. While the city is a modern Asian metropolis satellite of a megapolis (Shanghai), there are stretches of the canal that make you forget what century you are living in. Our hostel was located on one of theses stretches. Though coffee shops and bookstores fill many of the historic buildings, the area still retained its quaint charm.

The other canal we explored was one that connected Tiger Hill to a recently restored scenic portion of the canal (below right). The first section of the canal gave us a better glimpse into the lives of ordinary people, who inhabited many of the rustic homes. Many were playing, working, speeding by us on mopeds, or operating make-shift convenience stores out of their homes.
















Our second night in Suzhou, Alexa decided to hire a boat to take us on a romantic canal ride. I don't know what the price tag on this activity is in Venice, but for us it was only $25 for 40 minutes on the canal. Our boatman even serenaded us in Chinese!

Shanghai

The last stop on our trip was Shanghai, a city most of you are familiar with. Shanghai is a futuristic city of 10 million people, so the contrast between it and our other two stops was stark. Shanghai is a relatively new city by Chinese standards. Prior to 1800 is was just a small fishing village. Following the Opium War in the mid 19th Century, Europe carved China up into concessions, or spheres of influence. Thus, out of an influx of foreign cash and quasi-imperial administration, Shanghai was born. Many parts of the city retain a European feel, particularly the Bund and the French Concession.

Shanghai National Museum

The first stop on our trip was the Shanghai National Museum, which features art and artifacts from throughout Chinese history. My favorite exhibit by far was the Chinese landscape paintings. By no means am I an art connoisseur, but I was always captivated by the mountains shrouded in mist depicted by the Chinese. To me, art serves two purposes: to be aesthetically pleasing or to make a coherent political/social commentary (I had zero appreciation for the exhibit of blank placards and the Art Institute of Chicago). The landscape paintings rival some of the most beautiful European art I've seen, despite some of them being older and not as well preserved.

The next best exhibit was the ceramics, full of delicately painted china and clay figurines. I also really liked the jade carving below (right).

They also had an exhibit on the ethnic minorities of China (which is actually an extremely diverse country). Throughout the trip, the communist PR machine was in full gear, churning out propaganda about Tibet. The overarching message was "China is proud of the ethnic minorities in the territories we occupy." That said, I suppose the only difference between the minority art exhibition in Shanghai and a Native American art exhibition in the US is about 100 years of elapsed time. So the exhibition is probably a good thing on the whole.

The Bund

The quintessential Shanghai experience is strolling along the Bund. The Bund is 2-3 blocks of buildings along the Huangpu River, all of which feature various kinds of European architecture. Most of them are banks or serve some type of other commercial purpose, so it's the facades that are the main draw. The Bund also provides excellent views of Pudong, Shanghai's futuristic skyline.

Pudong

After strolling the Bund and braving the Tourist Tunnel (an overpriced rail car surrounded in flashing lights that blares synthesized music) to cross the river, we found ourselves in Pudong. Up until 1990 or so, Pudong was one of the poorest areas in the city, wrought with poverty, prostitution, and organized crime. Around that time it was declared a special financial zone, which opened it up to foreign investment, igniting an economic explosion. We decided to go up in the Shanghai Global Financial Center (built in 2008) which looks down on all of the other skyscapers. After a sci-fi elevator ride, we were at the viewing platform, the highest viewing platform in the world.

We went up around 6:30 so we could snap pictures both in the light and in the dark. Watching the city light up from above is quite an experience.














The tallest buildings in Pudong are the Jinmao Tower and the SWFC that we went up in right next to it. The Jinmao Tower looks like it is straight out of Gotham City.

Old City

The Old City is not a pleasant place to be, save for the Yu Gardens (which were still much more crowded than anything we saw in Suzhou). Old seems like a misnomer. The place is overrun with tourists, American chain restaurants, and hawkers trying to sell you fake Rolex watches or Gucci bags. The teahouse below sells exorbitantly priced tea, but looks pretty cool from the outside. I have to confess, however, that I was an accomplice in this rampant tourist perversion. I just couldn't resist a cheesecake Blizzard...

The French Concession

The nicest, most upscale area of the city is the French Concession. This area was administered by the French during the quasi-colonial time period. It features leafy boulevards, parks, and dresses for prices you'd pay in Paris. One consequence of European occupation was an influx of European ideas. It was in the French Concession that Chinese intellectuals first met to establish the Chinese Communist Party. We visited the site of the first meeting, which is smack dab in the middle of the most bourgeois neighborhood in all of China.

That's all for China. My parents are visiting this week, and I'm about to head to the airport to meet them. Don't know when I'll post next or what it will be about.