3. Xi'an
I’m writing this on the train from Xi’an to Taiyuan, a four-hour ride that swept past several stunning fields and cliffs.
Xi’an is very different from Shenzhen. While both cities have seen immense growth in the last few years, Xi’an bears a lot more history: it has been a cultural, political, and often military center since the Tang Dynasty. And the city does an impressive job of balancing its roots with its modernization. Case in point: the Bell Tower, a gorgeous five-hundred-year-old structure, stands at the center of a busy roundabout, rather like the Champs-Elysees in Paris.
I always associate Xi’an with the color gold. I was twelve the last time my family visited. We spent our nights navigating the lantern-lit marketplaces while my brother and I consumed hawthorn berries drenched in honey; at evening, a warm, homely sort of aura seemed to wreathe the monuments and buildings.
To elaborate on the food: Shaanxi food boasts tri-color cold noodles in peanut sauce, huge slabs of fragrant plum cake, mangos and papayas with yogurt and honey, beef sauteed with red peppers and scallots, colorful vegetables stewed with fish and mushrooms. I think Shaanxi does the best of balancing sweet food (Shanghai’s specialty) with the salty/sour food of the south. A word of warning, though: Shaanxi and Xi’an give huge portions.
We met our paternal great-aunt and her husband in Xi’an. She greeted us with one of the two homemade meals we had in China: steamed man tou with cinnamon, spiced cucumber, cold rice noodles in peanut sauce, freshly-caught yellow trout.
My great-aunt is very spirited: as she bustled around the kitchen with platters of grapes and peaches to welcome us, she stopped only to pinch my arm (“you got fatter!”) and to pour tea. She has an overwhelmingly youthful quality - adept with WeChat and technology, she wears eyeliner despite the humidity and comments on politics with a refreshing authenticity.
She stands in sharp contrast to my great-uncle, who reminds me a little of Master Oogway from Kung Fu Panda. He has a gentle potbelly and a stooped, lanky quality about his tall frame; endearingly, he always wears a warm wise smile.
Later, he would also remind me of the artisans we saw in Suzhou: dignified, graceful, serene. For lack of a better word, he is extremely cultured. His room abounds with rows of calligraphy brushes, carefully-shelved vases from the Han and Qing Dynasties, bamboo spiraling delicately atop his windowsill, rows upon rows of books, and drafts of art reviews from the magazines that he himself edits.
He runs two magazines - one on Chinese culture, the other profiling Xi’an’s police force.
Curious, I picked up an issue of the latter. It was surprisingly thick for what I’d considered to be a niche topic - there were passages on recent arrests and crimes, interviews with current and retired police officers, discussions of protests, history, and ethics. Despite my broken written Chinese, I got the general vibe of the magazine: it was praising the police.
Funny - although I’m far from qualified enough to comment on this, I’ve heard about the Chinese people’s discontent with police officers. I’ve read independent journalists discuss at length police brutality in China, similar to pieces profiling the goings in the United States. And I couldn’t help but think about how a magazine praising the police would never take off in Seattle.
But hey, I knew I was nowhere near qualified enough to comment on the police in China. I tried to focus on the magazine itself: it was artfully compiled.
“I run a magazine, too,” I said to my great-uncle. He gave me a wrinkled smile and a nod (he’s not a man of many words). As I pulled up It’s Real on my laptop, it occurred to me that this was the first time I’d shown the magazine to a family member in China. It also occurred to me that I didn’t know how to say “mental health,” “diaspora,” or “destigmatize” in Chinese, the key words to understanding the content of It’s Real. Was this a reflection of my culture? Or was it just a lack of vocabulary? Both, probably.
“Oh,” my great-uncle said, as I scrolled through the June issue (shoutout to Emi and Sanya for pulling through while I didn’t have wifi!). “It’s culture, right? Oh, I can’t understand English...are these poems?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And yeah...it’s about culture.”
“What part of culture? What subjects do you address?”
The question was vague enough for me to give a half-assed answer. “Just art and writing,” I mumbled.
But later, on the DD (Chinese equivalent of Uber) back to our hotel, I realized that I hadn’t wanted to explain what It’s Real was really about to my great-uncle. I’d only shown him the magazine because I’d wanted to keep talking with him, to explore a common ground that I shared with no other relative. And I’d really wanted his approval, considering how I’d already begun to look up to him.
I could’ve asked my parents to translate “mental health” or “destigmatize” or any of the words I’d needed to explain It’s Real - but I hadn’t. Why not? I kept asking myself. Had I just not wanted to bring up such a heavy topic on our first encounter in five years? Was I afraid that he wouldn’t understand, or worse, that he’d look down on me? In America, I’ve always been very proud of It’s Real: of its mission, growth, team, you name it. But in China.…
Then I started thinking of my great-uncle’s magazines. I started comparing It’s Real to Xi’an Police. It’s funny, considering how different the two publications are - one praising the police force and the other discussing mental health in a very different language - that this was the first time I’d really thought about It’s Real in relation to another magazine.
Halsey has a quote: “Artists have come to a time in politics where they have two choices: to distract the world from all the awful stuff that’s going on, or to make people aware of it. And neither choice is wrong.”
Are my great-uncle and I examples of those two choices? Him trying to distract from some of the dirtier realities of Chinese policing with a buttress of facts and details? Me trying to open up discussion about mental health? But no…the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the two publications were quite similar. We were both trying to offer nuanced and informative - but ultimately hopeful - outlooks on controversial issues. And he wasn’t exactly trying to distract his audience…he was just trying to praise the police. Would it be too simplistic to reduce our publications down to a Halsey quote?
I think I usually end all my essays with an “I don’t know,” but I really don’t have a solid answer. I guess our magazines are just too different for me to compare, and I don’t want to go into the touchy subject of publication in our respective countries.
The day we left for Taiyuan, my great-uncle and great-aunt came to say goodbye. I hugged both of them, promised my great-aunt I would come back to Xi’an and learn how to make man tou, then stepped into the car.
“Hey,” my great-uncle said. He tapped on the glass - I scrolled down the window.
In his hand was a copy of their forthcoming issue of Xi’an Police.
“Oh,” I said, surprised.
“Take it,” he insisted, pressing it into my hands. “When you learn how to write Chinese, you can be an editor.”
I grinned. “Thank you,” I said, putting the magazine into my backpack.
“Keep writing,” he advised. He had a Gansu accent - he spoke with a bit of a lisp. Behind us, a taxi honked impatiently. A humid wind slouched by. “Someday, I’ll be able to read your magazine. And I’ll tell my friends all about it.”
I smiled. Our taxi began to pull away.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’d love that.”