【城市印象】之——陕西 ·西安City Impressions: Xi'an, Where Three Thousand Years Still Breathe

Xi'an is a city full of human warmth — an Eden for the artsy, for history buffs, for classical-poetry fans, and for anyone with a soft spot for museums.

I first got to know Xi'an five summers ago. A die-hard Kobe fan, I got lucky enough to draw a ticket to the Xi'an stop of Kobe's China tour. One day and one night in Xi'an, a record of the kind of joy and abandon that youth needs no reason for.

Xi'an sits deep in the heart of the Guanzhong Plain, backed by the Qinling Mountains to the south and flanked by the Wei River to the north — a genuine city cradled by mountain and water, with an extraordinary location: the Hangu Pass to the east, the Dasan Pass to the west, the Xiao Pass to the north, the Wu Pass to the south. Ringed by these four great passes, it's easy to defend and hard to attack. It also has excellent natural irrigation, thousands of acres of fertile fields, and the "eight rivers circling Chang'an" — a land of abundance with a flourishing agricultural economy, the top choice for emperors looking to found a capital. Xi'an has never suffered a major natural disaster, no earthquakes, no great floods. On top of that, it's a key node guarding both the Central Plains and the Western Regions — a strategic point for controlling the passage from the heartland out toward the west.

The Western Zhou, the Qin, the Western Han, the Sui and the Tang — several of the most prosperous and powerful dynasties in Chinese history all made their capital here. Ray Huang opened his book China: A Macro History with a chapter titled "Xi'an and the Loess Land," and right at the start he noted Xi'an's renown: "In Chinese history, the fame Xi'an has enjoyed far surpasses that of any other political center."

(Figure in original — a cyberpunk-style Xi'an street scene, via: 手指断了.)

Nowhere else in the world is quite like Xi'an. History and modernity mingle here: on one side, the relics and the leisurely, easygoing daily life of the old town; on the other, the round-the-clock hustle and nightly revelry of the high-tech district. Wander through the city, weave through the Muslim Quarter, and the flavor of ordinary life is everywhere. The delicate and the majestic both live here: the Jing and Wei rivers rush on without pause, the Qinling range stretches on without end.

Today's Xi'an is like a piece of jade steeped in flowing water for a thousand years — time has worn away its sharp edges without ever costing it its imperial bearing. "A hundred, a thousand homes laid out like a game of go; twelve avenues ordered like beds in a vegetable plot." No city is more orderly, or more grand, than Xi'an.

Politics

Xi'an's political standing in China is exceptionally high. Thirteen dynasties made their capital here, including the Zhou, Qin, Han, Sui, and Tang. In the Republican era it was a municipality directly under the Executive Yuan; in the early years of the People's Republic it was governed directly by the central government, one of the official ten major cities, one of the six regional centers. Its standing hasn't dimmed since: provincial capital of Shaanxi, sub-provincial city, the center of the northwest, the ninth National Central City.

In China you always have to reckon with politics. Without political standing, a city — no matter how high its GDP or how much foreign investment it draws — is just a "dairy cow," destined to pipe its "milk" to the cities with the political rank, helping them grow into international metropolises. In China, political standing decides your future positioning, positioning decides your future development, and without political standing behind it all, everything is castles in the air.

By the same token, what keeps Xi'an firmly in the ranks of major cities isn't its economy but its political standing — and the whole web of communications, healthcare, science, education, and logistics hubs that standing brings.

Xi'an's area code is 029; it's one of only six cities outside the directly-governed municipalities to use a three-digit code, the others being Shenyang, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu, and Guangzhou. Xi'an casts its influence over five northwestern provinces — Shaanxi, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Gansu — which is why the large and mid-sized cities in those provinces all carry 09×× area codes.

You can also glimpse Xi'an's political weight from the following:

Eight network-center cities of the China Education and Research Network: Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Nanjing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenyang.

Eight postal-center cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu, Xi'an, Shenyang.

Seven cities hosting the Civil Aviation regional administrations: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xi'an, Shenyang, Ürümqi.

Six major rail passenger-transport hub cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Xi'an.

Seventeen cities hosting a railway bureau: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Xi'an, Shenyang, Zhengzhou, Jinan, Lanzhou, Chengdu, Nanchang, Harbin, Nanning, Kunming, Hohhot, Ürümqi, Taiyuan.

Seven cities with final-cut film-approval authority: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Xi'an, Shenyang, Chengdu.

Nine seats of the National Land Supervision bureaus: Beijing, Shenyang, Shanghai, Nanjing, Jinan, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Xi'an.

Six seats of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Supervision stations: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xi'an, Shenyang.

Nine branch cities of the People's Bank of China (head office: Beijing): Shenyang, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Chengdu, Jinan.

Twelve branch cities of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS HQ: Beijing): Changchun, Shenyang, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Kunming, Xi'an, Lanzhou, Hefei, Ürümqi.

Seven major cities holding World Cultural Heritage sites: Beijing, Suzhou, Shenyang, Chengdu, Xi'an, Nanjing, Luoyang.

Eight communications and switching-center cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Xi'an, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu.

Four China Telecom backbone-node cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi'an.

Seven power-grid node cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Shenyang, Wuhan, Jinan.

Four cities named among the world's best tourist destinations: Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai, Guilin.

Five cities permitted to host foreign-owned travel agencies: Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Guangzhou, Shenzhen.

Economy

In 2017, Xi'an's GDP was 746.985 billion yuan, up 7.7% year on year. But in 2016 it was only 625.718 billion, meaning it added a net 121.2 billion in a single year. For a top-10 city, whose base is already large, the job is mainly holding the existing ground; a hundred-billion increment isn't much. But against Xi'an's smaller 2016 base of 625.718 billion, that's a nominal growth rate of 19.4%.

Last year Xi'an's exports were 165.98 billion yuan, up 58.8% — the second-fastest export growth in the country; imports were 105.51 billion, up 13.3%, for a trade surplus of 60.47 billion. On last year's GDP of 746.985 billion, that surplus works out to a hefty 8.1% of GDP. Xi'an is a conservative inland city, and yet its foreign trade has grown at this pace — who'd have thought. There's also an "unexpected factor" behind Xi'an's rapid growth: at the province's "Two Sessions" earlier last year, the Xixian New Area was placed under Xi'an's administration, and its GDP was folded into Xi'an's statistics.

(Figure in original — value-added growth of Xi'an's three major sectors over the past five years.)

The chart above shows the value-added growth of Xi'an's three sectors over the past five years. It's not hard to see that Xi'an's tertiary sector is strong, but its secondary sector has grown slowly — especially in the four years before 2017, when it was essentially stuck in place, and even went backward in 2015.

In 2017, Xi'an's tertiary sector share hit 61.5%, higher than Nanjing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Chongqing, or Shenyang. Beyond raw GDP, Xi'an's traditional strengths in tourism, defense industry, aerospace, R&D, and higher education remain front-rank. But an economy missing its industrial base is a malformed one, and its own advantages can't be brought to bear. Take the current push to convert military tech to civilian use: if industry is underdeveloped, there's no enterprise to pick up the good technology. Or take Xi'an's abundance of universities producing crowds of graduates: because the industrial structure is off and the salaries disappointing, the talent flows out — the peacocks fly southeast, and Xi'an ends up sewing wedding clothes for others.

In 2017 Xi'an's secondary-sector value-added rose a full 40 billion — more than the total added in any of the several prior years. The magic word: the Belt and Road. Xi'an's development and the Belt and Road build-out reinforce each other — the Belt and Road brings Xi'an its opportunity, and it needs Xi'an, as a central city, to radiate and lead. Xi'an is the single most important node on the Belt and Road, and has been since ancient times. Shanghai is the center of the Far East, its economic hinterland almost the whole of China; it's equidistant from the Beijing–Tianjin–Tangshan region, the Pearl River Delta, and Japan and Korea; it's a natural port and, as the mouth of the golden Yangtze waterway, the distribution center for the entire Yangtze economic belt.

That's geography for you.

Flip through the résumé of Xi'an's current Party secretary Wang Yongkang and it's easy to see: he governed for years in Ningbo, Yuyao, and Lishui in Zhejiang, so he knows exactly what developing industry means for Xi'an — and more importantly, many Zhejiang firms have gone "west" along with him.

Most important of all: in the west, the Belt and Road strategy is practically tailor-made for Xi'an. It's a strategy tied to China's national fortunes for years to come, its importance beyond stating — so of course Xi'an's luck turns with it.

And if you review why Xi'an declined in relative terms in recent years, you find it's very different from the northeast. Xi'an didn't go lame from lacking something — in fact it has everything, and can claim to be at least somewhat capable in all of it. Xi'an's decline is fundamentally the wholesale defeat of the planned economy by the market economy — a falling behind the times, a falling behind in mindset, a decline driven by endless internal friction.

Back in 1999, President Jiang laid out the Western Development strategy right here in Xi'an. As the center of the northwest, Xi'an set out on a fast track. And yet, amid that very wave, the northwest began falling behind the southwest across the board, and Xi'an fell fully behind the Chengdu–Chongqing pair it had once been neck-and-neck with. The root cause: the northwest is constrained by its population and its economic hinterland. Xi'an doesn't have the vast Sichuan Basin hinterland and 80-million-person market that Chengdu has, nor Chongqing's political standing and policy advantages as a directly-governed municipality, so it had no edge whatsoever when courting foreign investment.

Chengdu is the center of the southwest, Xi'an the center of the northwest — both centers, but worlds apart. Chengdu sits on the western side of the Sichuan Basin. The four southwestern provinces span 1.13 million square kilometers with over 200 million people. The geography makes travel eastward difficult and keeps vast resources from flowing out of the Sichuan Basin, so Chengdu ends up with an enormous radiating reach and hinterland. Xi'an, on the south side of the Wei River valley, anchors five northwestern provinces spanning some 3.1 million square kilometers but with a total population that barely reaches 100 million — Shaanxi alone has under 40 million — the very picture of vast land, sparse people. Market size determines city size; that's the most fundamental issue. On top of that, the Wei River valley opens up for thousands of miles, and east–west travel is easy, so Xi'an is just a transfer stop on the transit lines — the northwest's resources gather at Xi'an and then move right on through, never held. So Xi'an's radiating reach and hinterland fall far short of Chengdu's.

Add up the GDP of the four northwestern provincial capitals and it roughly equals Xi'an's alone. Xi'an trails far behind Chengdu, Wuhan, and Nanjing — its fellow sub-provincial regional centers — and even lags Zhengzhou and Changsha, whose political rank is merely that of prefecture-level cities. A good bird chooses its tree, a wise minister chooses his lord: famous foreign firms like Lenovo chose the more promising, more advantaged Chengdu and Chongqing. In the wave of Western Development, Xi'an fell fully behind Chengdu and Chongqing. Still, though its GDP is less than half theirs, factor in their populations — the entire northwest combined has fewer people than Sichuan alone — and the figure is hardly unreasonable.

The core of a modern economy is institutions, location, and population. There are several historical and present-day reasons Xi'an's economy underperforms.

1) Too many SOEs and too much heavy industry — a backward, unbalanced industrial structure

Xi'an is blanketed with state-owned defense enterprises, its economy built on high tech and on aerospace and large-aircraft manufacturing. That's a world apart from the coastal-city model built on small and mid-sized, agile firms — a huge gap, and no economic vitality. In the planned-economy era, Xi'an was a major industrial city in China's north, the big city that took in the most projects during the Soviet-aid period. It was once a nationally pivotal textile center; as the textile industry slid into decline in the 1990s, Textile Town declined fast with it. Once the market economy and reform-and-opening arrived, the eastern coast rose rapidly on the strength of its superb location and open, supportive policies, while the traditional inland industrial cities began to sink and retreat. Wuhan, Xi'an, and the three northeastern provinces were not spared.

At the same time, Xi'an has no large-scale industry like steel, petrochemicals, or autos, and no labor-intensive players like Foxconn — its industry is basically limited-scale, high-end R&D and manufacturing.

2) Backward manufacturing, no large-industry support

Shaanxi and the surrounding areas have few people and a cramped hinterland, so low-end foundational industry and manufacturing can't be built up to scale. Local firms struggle to grow big and strong, and outside firms have no interest in investing.

Xi'an's strengths are its many universities and research institutions; its shortfalls are population and the market capacity that comes with location. It's very rich in mid-to-high-end talent, but on mid-to-low-end labor it's left far behind by the east. So high-end industry develops well while low-end manufacturing lags badly.

3) Eyed warily and unloved within its own province — the friction of the "Xi'an–Xianyang" relationship

As Shaanxi's capital, Xi'an has a deeply awkward relationship with the province, full of friction.

In the Republican era, Xi'an was one of the twelve municipalities directly under the Executive Yuan. After 1949 it was governed directly by the Northwest Bureau; only after that bureau was dissolved did it formally return to Shaanxi's jurisdiction. In 1994 Xi'an was made a sub-provincial city, dominant within the province, its administrative rank only half a notch below the province itself, and its leaning toward direct central governance never let up. In 1996, as word spread that the central government was about to designate a new directly-governed municipality, Xi'an quickly joined the contest with a strong bid — which left Shaanxi feeling very much on the losing end of face. In the end, Chongqing won out on the strength of its standing within the Party. Relations between Xi'an and the Shaanxi provincial government fell to a freezing point. Shaanxi's wariness toward Xi'an — its fear of a city so big it grows too unwieldy to control — didn't ease until 2003.

Xi'an and Xianyang face each other across the Wei River, 15 kilometers apart yet like sworn enemies, long administratively split. Xianyang's officials were unwilling to give up their interests or accept an unprovoked demotion of a rank. After the national-level Xixian New Area was established, Shaanxi wanted to integrate Xi'an and Xianyang into one city but refused to let Xi'an lead it, so the New Area evolved into direct provincial management, turning two stakeholders into three. From then on it was endless buck-passing and bickering, and Xi'an sank into an endless internal grind with Shaanxi. Not until 2017 was the Xixian New Area smoothly placed under Xi'an's administration, resolving the administrative split and the question of future development land. This is also a key reason for the big GDP jump in 2017 mentioned above.

Once Xi'an and Xianyang truly integrate and the Guanzhong urban/economic circle opens up, a lot of the earlier problems can be solved at a stroke: city planning improves and expands healthily, layers of duplicate administration vanish, bickering drops, and the cost of hinterland exchange falls.

On top of that, Shaanxi has something in common with the eastern provinces: northern Shaanxi, Guanzhong, and southern Shaanxi each "go their own way," and their regard for Xi'an isn't high. To rein Xi'an in, the provincial government simply carved Xianyang out from under Xi'an's jurisdiction and set it up as its own city. And as resource cities like Yulin and Yan'an in northern Shaanxi rose on their energy industry, and Guanzhong's equipment manufacturing rose too, Xi'an's share of provincial GDP had already fallen to a third. The Shaanxi government doesn't want to bet everything on Xi'an; it wants relatively balanced development. Shaanxi has three cities in the national top 100 by GDP.

4) A weak county economy

Shandong runs a "wolf pack" economy: Jinan, Qingdao, Yantai, Weifang, and Zibo are all solid, and Jinan doesn't get much of a capital-city advantage. In terms of urban structure, Shandong — or Qingdao — looks more like Jiangsu–Zhejiang: a small central city plus a cluster of strong county-level cities. In terms of economic structure, it's a handful of big SOEs plus a mass of small private factories.

Zhejiang's best quality is a strong province and prosperous people — and more than that, prosperous countryside, with a small urban–rural gap. And the county economy: luxury cars everywhere in every county-level city, many counties with several five-star hotels, some even with world-chain premium brands like Hilton.

Zhejiang's balance also shows in how each county has its own traditional specialty: Dongyang's woodcarving, Yiwu's small commodities (world-famous), Qingtian's stone carving, Haining's leather (also world-famous), Cixi's mold and electronics trade, Zhuji's pearls and auto parts, Longquan's swords, and on and on.

Xi'an's county economy is too weak. Xi'an has 10 districts and 3 counties; count only the main urban districts' GDP and Xi'an ranks around 18th. Other economic indicators tell the same story — fiscal revenue ranking, per-capita disposable income of urban residents. But the county economy is negligible, and the backwardness of that county economy, together with the city's relatively small scale, is why Xi'an's total GDP isn't high.

Xi'an is a northern city, and across the whole vast north, there aren't many developed cities to speak of.

Xi'an is a fine city. But so many people can't help measuring it against the very best: its commerce and hinterland against Chengdu's hundred-million-person base, its high-speed rail against Zhengzhou and Wuhan, its openness against the coast, its political muscle against the capital, its air quality against Sanya. Keep "comparing up" like that and how could Xi'an ever come off well?

Population

For a city to grow strong, regional population is only part of it; the core is how well it attracts people. Take Shanghai: a resident population of 24.1527 million, of which roughly 9.6024 million are migrants. Or Beijing: a resident population of 21.729 million, of which 8.226 million are migrants — over 37% from elsewhere.

These migrant populations are an enormous force in a city's rise. (See "The Impact of the Floating Population on Urban Socioeconomic Development," http://www.kjdb.org/CN/article/downloadArticleFile.do?attachType=PDF&id=5128.)

Whether Xi'an's economy can keep improving comes down, more than anything, to its pull on people. That includes adjusting the industrial structure, raising salary levels, and improving air quality — and it's far from something a household-registration policy alone can solve.

Culture

Xi'an's culture needs no belaboring — it's formidable. As the saying goes: for thirty years of Chinese history, look at Shenzhen; for a hundred, look at Shanghai; for three hundred, look at Beijing; for three thousand, look at Xi'an. Since the Tang, Xi'an has had a tradition of residents from the Western Regions living side by side; the Tang was open and inclusive, and cultures from around the world met, fused, and collided here, leaving behind a plural culture, the traditions of many peoples, and nationally famous street food. Among Asia's culinary cities, Xi'an and Taipei both made the list.

It's no exaggeration to say Xi'an's history and culture tower over every other city in China. Its rich historical and cultural resources are its most competitive asset: a thirteen-dynasty ancient capital, the foremost of the Four Great Ancient Capitals, the heart of Han culture, a wealth of surviving relics, the spiritual homeland of Chinese people at home and abroad. No need to list it all out — Xi'an's history and culture are enough to tower over every city in the country.

On international exchange, it's a key stop for foreign dignitaries visiting China — usually Beijing–Shanghai–Xi'an. Since reform and opening, it has hosted over 200 domestic and foreign dignitaries and heads of state, second only to Beijing and Shanghai. In just the last couple of years, visitors have included German Chancellor Merkel, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Taiwan leaders Lien Chan and James Soong, U.S. First Lady Michelle, and Indian Prime Minister Modi.

Education

Xi'an is extremely rich in education resources. At the secondary level there are the famous Big Five schools: Northwestern Polytechnical University Affiliated High School; Tie Yi High School; Gaoxin No. 1 High School; Jiaotong University Affiliated High School; and Shida Affiliated High School — the Big Five together send more than 240 students a year to Tsinghua and Peking University. Beyond them there are Shaanxi Xi'an High School; Xifei No. 1 High School; Xi'an No. 83 High School; Shaanxi Chang'an No. 1 High School; Xi'an Yuandong No. 1 High School; Xi'an No. 30 High School; Xi'an Tie San High School; Xi'an No. 85 High School; Xi'an Aerospace High School; Xi'an No. 3 High School; Xi'an No. 26 High School; Xi'an No. 6 High School; Xi'an Yucai High School; Xi'an No. 1 High School; and Qing'an High School.

In higher education, Xi'an is home to 3 Project 985 universities and 7 Project 211 universities. Its number of 985 schools is second only to Beijing and Shanghai, and their quality is basically second only to Hubei's. There are 63 ordinary universities in all, over 3,000 research and technology institutions of various kinds, and 661 independent research bodies — 44 of them national key labs or industry testing centers — with 632,200 university students enrolled, over 417,700 professional and technical personnel of all kinds, more than 10,000 master's and doctoral graduates a year, and 45 academicians of the two national academies, alongside many scientists of national and even world-class standing. Xi'an's research and education muscle is powerful, with research institutes and aerospace institutes all over the city — the number of national research institutions and R&D centers here is second only to Beijing and Shanghai.

Shaanxi is China's top defense-industry province, and Xi'an, as its capital, is the top defense-industry city too: cutting-edge national-defense and aerospace research strength, 80% of the components for the Shenzhou spacecraft, the Xi'an Satellite Control Center, large-aircraft manufacturing, and 8 military academies spanning the army, navy, air force, Second Artillery, and Armed Police — a defense-industry standing of real weight.

Housing Prices

Xi'an's housing prices are the cheapest among first-tier and near-first-tier cities, bar none. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen go without saying. Hangzhou averages 30,000–40,000 yuan; Tianjin has topped 40,000; Suzhou passed 40,000 long ago. Chengdu averages around 17,000, Chongqing around 15,000, Zhengzhou around 13,000 — and Xi'an's average is only about 8,000. As an outsider, if you work at Huawei in Xi'an, your monthly income is around 8,000. A home down payment is 180,000, and with a modest loan you can buy in two years. In many other cities, buying a home after just two years of work is something you wouldn't even dare dream of.

Transportation

Xi'an is the capital of Shaanxi, the center of the northwest, the high-speed-rail capital of the west. Its rail advantage is second only to Zhengzhou and Wuhan. Xi'an Station is the only station in the country with rail access to every provincial capital and directly-governed municipality on the mainland, and its passenger flow is enormous. Beyond Xi'an Station, Xi'an North Station is one of the largest railway stations in Asia.

For inter-provincial travel, it has direct high-speed and bullet trains to many cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. Once the Baoji–Lanzhou, Xi'an–Chengdu, Xi'an–Yinchuan, and Xi'an–Chongqing lines open, Xi'an's links to neighboring provinces and cities will grow ever tighter.

Within the city, buses aren't just far-reaching but very cheap. Metro Lines 1, 2, and 3 are already running, 4 more lines are under construction, and several more are in the planning stage.

Xi'an is currently pushing an aviation-city plan, making full use of its aerospace strengths to develop international routes and build an air hub. Its public transit will grow more convenient, and its transportation advantage more pronounced.

The Xi'an Xianyang airport's throughput has held eighth in the country with high growth year after year. It's also the eighth city in the country to offer transit visa-free entry, and is planning T4/T5 and building a high-speed-rail station at the airport. This year Xi'an became China's first and only inland port, connecting to the world with its own independent port code, running the regularly scheduled "Chang'an Express" freight trains to Europe.

On expressways, Xi'an is no less impressive. It's the country's largest expressway node, the "米-character" (rice-character) expressway hub of the Baotou–Maoming, Beijing–Kunming, Lianyungang–Khorgas, and Fuzhou–Yinchuan lines.

Healthcare

Xi'an's medical resources and capabilities are second to none in the country — you could say top of the class. Its total count of top-tier (Grade 3A) hospitals is among the highest nationwide; some years it even outdoes all of Chongqing. As of 2016, Xi'an had 5,869 health institutions of all kinds, including 292 hospitals, 215 community health-service centers (stations), and 100 township clinics; 86,300 health-technical personnel of all kinds, of whom 27,900 are licensed (including assistant) physicians; and 56,300 hospital beds.

The Fourth Military Medical University's Xijing Hospital and Tangdu Hospital, and Jiaotong University's First Affiliated Hospital, all rank near the top nationally, with influence that reaches across the country.

In 2017 there were 1,331 top-tier (3A) hospitals nationwide; Beijing had 71, Shaanxi had 42 — of which 29 are in Xi'an.

Food

In one ranking of Chinese cities by street food, Xi'an came third. The top two were Taipei and Chengdu. There's endless coverage of Xi'an's snacks online — go search for yourself; I'll say no more.

Straight to the picture.

(Figure in original — Xi'an street food.)

Small Tips

1. "I will meet life or death for my country's sake — how could I flee misfortune or chase fortune?" — this couplet was written at the Lianhu District government office in Xi'an.

2. In the Republican era, Xi'an's city wall had four gates, named Zhongshan Gate, Zhongzheng Gate, Yuxiang Gate, and Wumu Gate.

3. The lake in Xingqing Park was dug out by the faculty and students of Xi'an Jiaotong University...

4. Shaanxi, Henan, and Shanxi have long argued over which has the most cultural relics — the exact counts remain unclear — but the biggest destroyer of relics in Xi'an is real-estate development. Every time a school is built or renovated, new tombs turn up. Many of Xi'an's schools are built on top of graveyards.

For example: the Chang'an campus of Xi'an University of Finance and Economics — the tomb of Empress Dowager Xia, grandmother of Qin Shi Huang.

Northwest University of Political Science and Law, Chang'an campus — the tomb of Zhang Tang of the Western Han [Zhang Tang being the archetypal harsh official of that era].

Xi'an University of Technology — the tomb of Tang-dynasty Princess Li Chui.

Xi'an Jiaotong University — the finest and earliest chart of the twenty-eight lunar mansions.

Xi'an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chang'an campus — many tombs of the Warring States and Han periods.

Shaanxi Normal University — a Tang-dynasty altar of heaven.

5. Shaanxi has "Eight Oddities": (1) they squat instead of sitting on stools; (2) houses are built with only half a roof; (3) daughters aren't married off to outsiders; (4) they wear kerchiefs on their heads; (5) noodles are as wide as belts; (6) the guokui flatbread is as big as a pot lid; (7) chili in hot oil counts as a dish of its own; (8) Qin opera isn't sung but bellowed.

6. Chang'an District has both a Liu Xiu Village and a Wang Mang Village — and for thousands of years they've coexisted in perfect harmony.

7. Xiamaling ("Dismount Tomb") honors Dong Zhongshu, who championed "revere Confucianism above all"; the Han dynasty decreed that everyone had to dismount before his tomb.

8. The Bell Tower was relocated. When first built (1384) it stood at the crossroads of West Avenue and Zhuque Road, at the mouth of Guangji Street, on the central axis of the Tang-era Chang'an. In 1582 it was moved about 1,000 meters east to its current spot. Note — it wasn't demolished and rebuilt; apart from rebuilding the base, the wooden structure is all original.

9. Xi'an's four main city gates — east, west, south, north — are named "Changle" (Everlasting Joy), "Anding" (Peace and Stability), "Yongning" (Eternal Peace), and "Anyuan" (Peace Afar). String the first character of each together and you get "Chang'an Yong'an" — Chang'an forever at peace.

10. Never say "pi gan de hen me?" to a stranger — it's roughly the Xi'an equivalent of saying "you got a problem?" in the northeast.

In one line: Xi'an doesn't shut outsiders out. It's one of the better vacation spots, and an ideal place for kids' schooling and for the elderly and children to get medical care. Livability index: two and a half stars; economic development: three and a half stars; career-hustle index: two and a half stars.