Wandering the Four Seasons – Northwest, Westward (I)
To be honest, the Great Northwest had long been on my travel wish list, but motion sickness always held me back. In September 2021, after more than half a year of pandemic lockdowns, I finally hoisted my backpack and set foot on this land I’d dreamed about for so long. The booking site’s description turned out to be quite accurate—the coach was indeed comfortable. Sitting alone in the back row, I didn’t feel much jolting; the swaying was within my tolerance, and with a window I could open at will, it was practically perfect for a motion-sick traveler like me. With such a good start, the whole journey took on a warm, cozy feel.
Before the group tour, I explored Xi’an on my own—a kind of prelude to my northwest adventure. With only two days, it was a whirlwind tour. Back in the Tang Dynasty, poet Meng Jiao, upon passing the imperial exam at age forty, raced to see all the flowers of Chang’an in a single day. Compared to him, I wasn’t nearly as rushed.
I’ve never been keen on newfangled things—including spruced-up imitations of the past—so places like Huaqing Pool and Tang Paradise weren’t on my itinerary. In Xi’an, my main interests were the ancient city wall and the Terracotta Warriors. Even so, I still missed Dayan Pagoda, Xiaoyan Pagoda, the Stele Forest, and so on. The Tang Dynasty’s three-hundred-year glory, just one pair of eyes, two legs, and forty-eight hours—there’s simply no way it’s enough.
Since my inn was nearby, I first visited the Bell Tower and Drum Tower. I bought tickets, went up, wandered around, and asked a fellow tourist to snap a few “I’ve been here” photos—a real cursory visit. At times I tried to pause and study the carved beams and painted rafters, reading the inscriptions, couplets, near and far, pretending I truly understood them. But once back down, I couldn’t remember a thing. Now, as I write this, what I recall are the big drums in the Drum Tower, each marked with one of the twenty-four solar terms, and the view from the Bell Tower looking in one direction—marveling at just how straight the streets of Xi’an are.
It’s only when you need it that you regret knowing too little. Face to face with these ancient sites, my shallowness and ignorance were laid utterly bare.
The ancient city wall, on the other hand, got a fair bit of my time.
Coming down from the Bell Tower, I scanned a QR code to unlock a shared bike and headed south, entering the city wall through Yongning Gate, the South Gate. Once on top, I rented a bicycle and went joyriding along the ramparts. The weather was fine—September sunshine still carried some heat, beating down straight on you. But with the breeze and my high spirits, it didn’t feel too hot. I love the sensation of cycling at a leisurely pace. The wall’s surface is uneven, bumpy and a bit hard on the backside, but thinking I was in Chang’an, on the land of the glorious Tang Dynasty, I could put up with it all.
Riding to the northwest corner, I saw a couple taking wedding photos by the outer wall of Guangren Temple. The Tibetan Buddhist temple, nestled among green trees, was solemn and dignified; the couple in bright red were cheerful and radiant. The contrast was striking. Looking through my phone camera, you could see how ancient simplicity and modern fashion can collide in such harmonious, beautiful ways.
Truth be told, when we look at the city from the city wall today, we can’t find much ancient charm. Rows of modern high-rises, streams of cars on asphalt roads, colorful billboards of every shape and size—all remind us that this is no longer the Tang Dynasty at its peak. The verse goes, ‘The nine-fold heavenly gates of the palace swung wide, envoys of every land bowed beneath the imperial crown.’ Once Chang’an drew reverence from across the lands; today Xi’an still commands the world’s attention. Different scenery has its own charm, and every visitor comes away with something—and that is enough.
At Anyuan Gate, the North Gate, as I was about to descend, I saw a scale model of ancient Chang’an, with an elderly man giving free explanations to visitors. He said that not a single brick of the city wall we see today dates from the Sui or Tang Dynasties; only a small part was rebuilt in the Ming Dynasty, and the rest was restored in modern times. Hearing that, I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.
The next day I devoted to the Terracotta Warriors. At the foot of Mount Li, rank after rank of pottery soldiers stand in silence, unmoving for thousands of years. When we arrived, they remained as speechless as ever, their faces unchanged. The guide unhurriedly recounted this piece of history—the upheavals, joys and sorrows of millennia ago—in such an understated way, much like the expressions of the warriors themselves: calm and serene. This ancient Shaanxi land has seen warhorses and armor churning up yellow dust, endless green fields stretching to the horizon, and families torn apart in desperate displacement. All of this has been buried deep by time, leaving today’s visitors with only a memory that borders on speculation.
Some of the Terracotta Warriors have been unearthed, while others still lie buried underground. Gazing at those figures with their different expressions, I suddenly wondered: do they wish to be dug up and see the new world, or would they rather sleep undisturbed in the land of the Great Qin? If they could speak, at the moment they saw daylight again, would they be utterly bewildered: Where am I? Who are all these people? What do they want? These Shaanxi natives, so accustomed to the moonlight of the Qin Dynasty, could truly be described as ‘knowing nothing of the Han, let alone the Wei and Jin’—to say nothing of the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.
