Layers of History Part 1

Generation after generation of Xi'an's residents have lived amongst history and given historical places new meaning and new stories as time has past. Just 75 years ago, Xi'an's city walls protected the city's commercial areas, government offices, and important cultural sites. To me, Xi'an is a constant lessons on the reorientation people and cultures make as time moves forward.

In the past, city walls were not only a sign of power and urbanity. In their purest form city walls were actually an expression of the Chinese relationship with the cosmos. Xi'an was planned as according to the world view of an ancient agricultural people and thus we can read the city like a book to glean knowledge from it.

Xi'an was first laid out in grid patterns, into four parts representing the quadrants of heaven. Each side of the square was enclosed by a city wall which could be identified by the daily position of the sun or one of the four seasons. The royal palace sat at the center of the grid and represented the polar star, a metaphor designating the emperor at the center of the nation.The main North-South Street, today named Chang’an Lu, represented the celestial meridian with the city walls and gates oriented around it to the cardinal directions. This focus on the cosmos in city planning is parelled by its importance for coordinating plantings and harvests in agriculture.

The South, the direction facing the sun, was the most favorable direction thus palaces and important sites were oriented towards it. Also now the smaller number of northern gates compared with the south. (For more info on the Urban Asia refer to Kim Wing Chan's work the Cities of East Asia)

Modern Xi’an still utilizes this ancient urban pattern. Four main roads emanate out from the Bell Tower in the four cardinal directions. In early Silk Road times, the types of goods being sold were determined by the position of the market in relationship to the center of town. In the western division, imported goods were sold while in the eastern division domestically made goods were sold. Today the Chinese word for things, dong xi, literally translates to East-West since the East and West combined amount to all of the things you could buy.

Today the city walls, like most ancient sites in Xi’an, are primarily used as tourist sites. You can pay 20 yuan and the wall is yours to walk in its entirety. It provides an elevated position to look down small back alleys on the inside of the wall and the never-ending viewscape of high-rises on the outside. It is a view into two different worlds. Modern Xi'an is a city of skyscrapers and within many are posh Japanese restaurants, Hagen-Daz ice creams shops, and Gucci boutiques as well as the international businessmen and government officials who frequent them. Many here can afford luxury SUVs a status symbol signifying not just wealth, but also physical/social mobility, and surprisingly cleanliness. In a country where the streets are littered with debris and sight is limited by an almost daily haze, the look of a polished black BMW SUV mirroring your reflection is truly striking symbol.

On the inside of the wall buildings don't usually top 5 stories. The mix here is equally as as enlightening. 20 years ago a campaign was started to change the exterior of buildings along the southern section of the wall to the Tang dynasty style. The inner road directly on the wall is now a cobble-stone walking park free from commuter traffic and lined with vendors selling goods of all kind. Bars, hostels, and restaurants sit in the shadow of the 20 meter high wall and the vision of an ancient China is sold to all who want it.

But along its less frequented sections a lives different kind of resident. Some of the poorest of Xi'an's people live within sight of the wall. After most of China's state owned enterprises were shut down many of the unemployed people disassembled the brick factories and made makeshift homes. For years, these people have lived in this condition and it is not always squalor. Yet the land they live on is now too valuable. New development is pushing them out and many of their questions about their futures remain unanswered- their lives clouded and mysterious.

For me the value of the wall is that it gets me off of the ground to a place where I can get a longview. But when I ask locals about the wall they say that they almost never visit. They do not need to seek a higher position to understand the life in this city. They live their lives within its shadow.