Operation Menu7th July 2011 Xi An. Chinese ‘ness’
Here I am at the chinese historical center Xi An. No doubt about it this is the most ‘chinese’ city in China due to the historical references.
Most tourist would expect everything to be the standard and stereotype of a chinese city. But my impression of Xi An was really a backward, ill maintained city when I first view it.
The most exciting first thing in sight was to see the Ming’s city wall spanning 13.7km I remembered. However, after entering the Gate of the city wall, it was totally an urban nightmare. No maintainence whatsoever to the entire city except for a few decent 5 stars hotel. Not surprisingly, the inner city lost all appeal and the planner start to introduce statelite city centers in all directions.
But again, the replica of all thing chinese was a distaste and disappointment. I mean, when the authority stipulate those urban planning guidelines to have all those chinese icon such as the giant curve roof, it was just purely consumption of the truely serious chinese architecture.
When one was over exposed to these replica that could be a shopping center, cinema, entertainment center or even a parking facilities, the authentic magnificient Bell and Drum towers’ could be easily been taken for granted.
The urban planner need to be really wake up.
7/8/2011 @ 1:41 pm
Open, have you ever stayed in other cities in China? Would the architecture in those cities also disappoint you?
7/9/2011 @ 1:27 pm
Xi An is different from the rest as it was almost the birth place of the ancient chinese empire.
So my expectation was high before seeing the urban condition of the city center and it was kind of anti climax.