The Muslim Quarter

Xi'an is widely considered to be the eastern terminus of the Silk Road. This makes it interesting for multiple reasons, but the primary one in my mind is its expansive Muslim Quarter. Islam came to China in the mid 700s by way of spice traders that traveled thousands of miles over Asia, the Middle East, and even into Europe. Since then, Islam in China has developed into two ethnic forms, Hui Chinese, who are found virtually throughout China usually fulfilling the social roles of merchants and traders, and Uyghurs, who are found at the very Western edge of China, and are more Kazakh and Turk than Chinese. Asking a Uyghur if they're Chinese usually ends with you having fewer teeth than you started the conversation with. Still, they are considered by the PRC to be a Chinese ethnic group.

Xi'an's Muslims are Hui. Their section of the city is loud, dirty, and utterly fascinating. It's easy to get lost, as every street looks the same, with fruit vendors, shops selling dried nuts, butcher shops and food stalls all squeezed right next to each other, making traffic, both foot and wheel, an inescapable nightmare. I was once trapped in a single 100 meter section of street for nearly ten minutes because the taxis, pedicabs and pedestrian traffic were so thick that you literally could not move. Eventually I just stepped behind one of the stalls and watched the problem sort itself out. The owner looked at me sideways until I bought a few baoza – dumplings filled with whatever the vendor has handy at the time. They're almost universally delicious.

These are really what has brought me here. My first question once I was settled into the hostel was, "Where's the best food in the city?" I had been trapped on a train for roughly thirteen hours and was starving. I was immediately handed a map with directions to the Muslim quarter. Skeptical, but starving, I started my hike across the city.

No one does food like the Hui. Baoza is the tamest thing they offer, and not even technically their style of food. There were thousands of food shacks, all offering something different, from candied fruit to nuts to chicken to beef to things I could not identify.

 

My first encounter with a butcher's shop stopped me in my tracks. A group of about seven people were working in a shop the size of a small storage shed. They had more than a dozen animals that looked like pigs, but probably weren't, skinned, gutted and hung up by their hamstrings.

And they were, slowly, methodically, taking them apart.

I've never butchered an animal. I've always wanted to, but the opportunity has never arisen, and I haven't desired it enough to seek it out. Now, I watch utterly fascinated. You look at a butcher's knife, and you know what's it's for, intellectually, but until you see it shearing through bone and smell the blood and smell the meat, you don't really understand. My hindbrain, the lizard part that makes you fear and fight and desire, keeps me rooted to the spot. I fight the urge to ask if I can step in and try my hand. I don't speak enough Chinese to even articulate the request.

A glance at my watch shows it's a half an hour later. I could watch all day. A man with leathery skin hacks a ribcage in half and throws the larger part on a scale. The ground is greasy with old fat and blood. The animals are too newly dead to really smell, but I get the feeling no one washes the sidewalk all that often. I watch for another ten minutes before the street starts to get more crowded and I decide it's time to leave.

When I finally find my meal, it's a form of barbecued chicken that is possibly the best chicken I've ever had. Slow roasted over charcoal with sesame seeds, cumin, some kind of pepper and a spice I couldn't identify. It had been split down the sternum and spread eagled on a metal bar that constantly rotated.

The rumors are true. The Muslim Quarter is the place to eat.

- Doug