In Xining

10/06/2010

I am writing currently from Xining, Qinghai. Melanie, an Austrian friend of mine, and I left Monday via sleeper train from Chengdu, 24 hrs till arrival. Unbearable. On the train there were plenty of sights and sounds to keep me company. There was a native Qinghai family there with us, so we played cards and chewed the fat for several hours until my Chinese vocabulary and their patience started to run thin. But in the 15 or so hours (that’s a long time!!) that I spent talking to them en route to Qinghai, we covered a plethora of topics ranging from Buddhism (which I graciously declined to acquiesce their persistent attempts to convert me to) to consumer culture in the U.S. I would say most of the people around us were typical day laborers on their way back to their laojia 老家 (literally ‘old home’ in Chinese) and it was very interesting to get their perspectives on this wide range of topics, as opposed to those of the college educated middle class kids that I often mingle with. So, after a surprisingly smooth ride, we arrived in Xining on Tuesday morning. We ducked into our hostel for a few moments to check in and put our stuff down, then quickly made off to see the city we only planned to spend a day in.

Just to sidetrack for a moment: you see, the problem is, we have zero plan. Nothing, we just decided this morning that we would leave today. And actually that decision was under review even just one hour ago when I had gotten this fancy of camping in the middle of the Qinghai tundra near some snowy mountains for a few days and mountain climbing all day every day. Probably best that we didn’t go with that one.

But anyway, out in the streets of Xining. The vibe I got was very different. Xining, the capital of Qinghai, represents a melting pot (or salad bowl, depending on your political affiliation) of Han Chinese, Muslim Chinese, and ethic Tibetans. This has, in the past, led to serious conflicts. But generally, Qinghai is a peaceful place and is a model for harmonious coexistence 和谐共存. The standards of living in Xining were obviously lower than in many of the other Chinese cities I’ve been to. It is one of the poorest provinces in the People’s Republic. As evening fell, we wondered around the central square (西宁广场) and happened upon various large groups of (possibly competing) people singing folk songs and dancing traditional dances (not the quasi-disco ones you always see all the old ladies doing). I think there is something special about music as a method of culture preservation. The scene there in Xining Square, with the men and women, young and old, with children and without, reminded me of the time I was in the countryside of Hamburg, Germany in 2008, and went to a village classical music “show” in a barn. Much the same, old German grandmothers embraced their grand- or great grandchildren, explaining why this was important, how they did this when they were their age and so on, cultivating that sense of identity and that sense of being German in part through their preservation and nurturing of music. Through what channels is our great culture preserved? MTV?

We left Xining this evening and are currently on a sleeper bus bound for an obscure Tibetan town called Maqen. Don’t spare the horses driver! Adventure awaits!