Trail7 steps
China, close up
Pandas, an ancient capital, its Muslim quarter, a noodle you can barely write, and an army in the ground.
Seven stops through one country: its animal ambassador, its old capital, the people who live there, and what lies under its fields.
- I
Start with the animal China lends to the world, for a fee.
No. 092FactCountriesChina owns nearly every giant panda on Earth The pandas in zoos from Washington to Vienna are on loan. China charges rent, and even cubs born abroad belong to Beijing. - II
How does a bear with a meat-eater’s gut survive on bamboo?
No. 127PhenomenonNatureHow a meat-eater’s body survives on bamboo The giant panda is a bear with a carnivore’s gut, eating a plant it can barely digest. It survives by eating almost constantly and spending almost no energy. - III
And why the panda barely appears in three thousand years of Chinese art.
No. 093FactArtPandas are almost absent from classical Chinese art Dragons, tigers, cranes and even crickets fill Chinese painting and poetry. The animal now synonymous with China barely appears at all. - IV
Travel back to Xi’an when it was Chang’an, one of the largest cities on Earth.
No. 022PlaceCitiesXi’an was once one of the largest cities on Earth Around 750, the city now called Xi’an was Chang’an: a “million-man city” at the eastern end of the Silk Road, home to Persians, Sogdians, Arabs and Christian monks. - V
Silk Road traders stayed, and their descendants still live in the heart of the city.
No. 129PlaceCitiesWho lives in Xi’an’s Muslim Quarter In the heart of an ancient Chinese capital is a mosque that looks like a Buddhist temple, run by a Muslim people descended partly from Silk Road traders. - VI
- VII
Outside the city, an army of clay guards an unopened tomb.
No. 119ObjectHistoryThe Terracotta Army was found by farmers digging a well In 1974 farmers near Xi’an dug into an army of more than 8,000 clay soldiers. The emperor’s tomb next to it has never been opened, and the soil around it contains unusually high levels of mercury.