Travel postcard: 48 hours in Xiamen, China

FRIDAY
8 p.m. - Xiamen has done a surprisingly good job at protecting many of its beautiful old buildings which date back to the 1920s and 1930s. In one of those structures, just by the east gate of Zhongshan park, is The House. Serving what it calls California cuisine, the portions are both huge and tasty, with an extensive wine list and friendly, English-speaking staff. If the weather is good, sit on the terrace outside.
SATURDAY
10 a.m. - Tourism in Xiamen is really all about one thing -- Gulangyu. A 10-minute ferry ride, or five on a speedboat, the island is full of beautiful old houses, some of which date back to the declining years of the last emperor.
The building styles are an eclectic mix of neo-classical and art deco, and many were built when the island was autonomously run as a foreign concession prior to World War Two. English guidebooks can be picked up at the Xinhua bookstore in the rather tacky center of town, and the island is small enough that you can wander around its hidden lanes in around an hour.
But take your time, for Gulangyu's full beauty cannot be experienced in a rush. Listen carefully, and you can hear piano music coming out from behind the wooden shutters of some of the houses, as the island is home to a renowned music school.
1 p.m. - On the southwest corner of Gulangyu is a pretty beach, but avoid the plethora of food stalls and head straight to Le Petit Cafe.
The food is Western, and excellent, and carefully overseen by boss David Buckley, a New Yorker who is happy to sit down with his customers and chat to them about life on the island. The decor is comfortable and stylish. There is also a bar and a cafe.
If you want, you can stay at the nine-room hotel attached to the restaurant.
3 p.m. - Climb up the hill which dominates Gulangyu to Sunlight Rock and take the cable car across to the other side of the park. The ride is short, but gives magnificent views all over the island. At one end is a large aviary. Then walk back down the hill, past yet more stunning old buildings, to the town center.
While the hordes of tourists can be offputting on this part of the island, the street food and boutiques of local products like delicious pastries stuffed with lychees more than make up for it. Fish ball soup is a Gulangyu specialty, and the fried fishcakes stuffed with sweet chili sauce and coriander are mouthwatering.
6 p.m. - Pre-dinner drinks on Gulangyu. The choices are wide and varied. Some bars and coffee shops are in lovingly restored colonial mansions and others are just shacks by the beach with a few stools outside.
7 p.m. - Being a seaside city, Xiamen has some great seafood. Wander round to the Gulang Villa Hotel, also on Gulangyu, and you'll see three rather down-at-heel looking seafood restaurants right next to each other. Don't be put off, as the fish is so fresh it's alive right up to you choosing it from large plastic buckets filled with water at the front.
9 a.m. - Get up early for a boat trip to the Taiwanese-held island of Kinmen. When defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan at the end of the civil war in 1949, they managed to hold on to a smattering of islands just off the Chinese coast. Kinmen is one of these, and a journey to see it a step back in time to the height of the Cold War.
The boat actually hovers just off Ta-Tan, an islet that's part of the Kinmen group, and tourists happily snap at the Taiwanese flags and propaganda signs etched in the rock face. Linger too long though, and the Taiwanese military has been known to come and chase the Chinese sightseers away.
These days however, with a warming of ties between China and Taiwan, you can actually take a ferry all the way over to Kinmen proper. From there, should you wish, you can take a domestic flight to Taiwan.
12 p.m. - Jump into a taxi to the Nanputuo Temple. Set against a lush hillside, the temple itself is nothing special. What sets it apart are the winding little paths that go up the hill, to grottos and secret shrines nestled in the rock. The vegetarian restaurant gets good reviews too, and makes a nice place for lunch.
3 p.m. - A stone's throw from the temple is Xiamen University. The grounds are spacious and leafy, and tourists are welcome to walk around.
5 p.m. - Zhongshan Road is one of Xiamen's main shopping areas, and home to yet more buildings from the colonial era, though they are generally very run-down. The shops are worth a peek, especially for clothes and shoes.
7 p.m. - A final dinner at the Huang Zehe Peanut Soup Shop. It may be a dingy place, but the traditionally Fujian-style food is a treat. A must-try are the oyster pancakes, a dish familiar to anyone who has been to a night market in Taiwan.
Getting there - Xiamen's centrally-located airport is well connected to all major Chinese cities, and there are also regular flights to Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea.

Masked dance climaxes Buddhist ritual

The annual eight-day Dayuan Buddhist Ritual of the Yonghe Temple in Beijing came to its climax yesterday afternoon when the buzha dance was performed by the temple's lamas.

The buzha, or cham in Tibetan language, is a masked dance used in Tibetan Buddhism to exorcize devils. Wearing masks of skulls and various demons, the lamas of Yonghe Temple performed buzha to the accompaniment of traditional Tibetan instruments.

At the end of the dance, the lamas walked in a procession with a model of the devil and threw it into a fire, symbolizing the exorcizing of the devil and pacifying of the world. After the ritual, the lamas continue to chant sutras, while people got a small bag of sacrificial fruits and candies before leaving the temple.

"I feel peace inside me after the ritual," said 40-year-old lay Buddhist Tian Feng. "It drives away the evil spirits, and guarantees a peaceful year."


The Dayuan Buddhist Ritual, or "Buddhist Ritual of Great Vows" of the Yonghe Temple, is held every year from the 24th of the first lunar month to the first of the second lunar year, which is today. During the first five days, the lamas chant sutras from morning to evening, while on the seventh day, which is also the last day of the first lunar month, the buzha dance is performed. The administrative department of Yonghe Temple estimates that each year around 3,000 to 4,000 attend the seventh day of the Dayuan Ritual.

"I'm an ethnic Mongolian, and we believe in Tibetan Buddhism. I come to attend the Dayuan Ritual at Yonghe Temple every year, for it can clean away my worries," said Sarula, a female college student.

Today the lamas of Yonghe Temple will chant sutras while circling the temple. This year's Dayuan Buddhist Ritual will end around noon today.

Built in 1694, the Yonghe Temple, or the "Palace of Peace and Harmony", is a temple and monastery of the Geluk School of Tibetan Buddhism. Of the more than 100 lamas in the temple now, most are ethnic Mongolians. There are also lamas of the Tibetan and Tu ethnic groups.

Ambassador's love affair with China

The first words the Mexican Ambassador's 2-year-old daughter uttered were "ni hao". Her brother, meanwhile, is fluent in Chinese, Spanish and English and already has a Chinese girlfriend, at the ripe old age of 6.
"It is enjoyable to see my son speak Chinese - he's learning it at school," says Jorge Guajardo.
Born in Monterrey, Guajardo came to China with his family - wife Paola, son Jorge and daughter Beatriz - in June 2007. He was already used to life as an expat because he had gone and studied international relations in the US, briefly returned home, then gone back to the US to serve as his country's Consul General in Texas, in 2005. All up, he reckons he's visited 50 countries to date but says nothing prepared him for China.
"The first four months were shocking. I felt like a prisoner in my embassy," he says. "At weekends I'd be asked if I needed a driver. If I said yes, the driver would be waiting outside my door all day. If I said no, I'd be stuck at home. It was very frustrating."
So Guajardo decided to get a driver's license. "I enjoy driving here," he says of zipping around in Beijing, infamous for its undisciplined driving culture.
He says the Chinese are very friendly but understanding their culture can be tricky. People rarely say "no" but grasping the concept of losing face takes time. "These things strike you when you are new," says Guajardo. "When I'd ask someone 'do I have to do this?' they would say 'yes' and it wouldn't occur to me that what they really mean is 'yes, you don't have to do it'. These cultural nuances can be very confusing."
What he likes most about China is its people's dedication to hard work. "I travel a lot to industrial cities and that's a great way of meeting people who are the driving forces of this country," he says.
When he isn't working, Guajardo likes to read, work out at the gym, meet other diplomats and eat at new restaurants. "I love dumplings," he says. "I miss them when I'm in Mexico

Legend of the Seven Saints

Tuyugou is not a name that is familiar to tourists. Visitors to the popular city of Turpan are often ignorant of this small place tucked in a mountain valley some 50 km away. However, Tuyugou has a rich religious history that few other places in China can match.
Named after the Uygur word tuyuq or "not passable", Tuyugou is a township in Shanshan county of Turpan prefecture. The Mazar village or "Tomb Village", the center of Tuyugou, lies in a valley of the Mountain of Fire (Huoyan Shan).
Muslims from all over Xinjiang, Northwest China's Gansu province and Ningxia Hui autonomous region, and even other countries like Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Turkey come here to visit the Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar or "tomb of saints in the cave".
"Some even believe that visiting the Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar twice equals one Haj," says 34-year-old Jappar Hamut from Shanshan.
Located in a mountainside just outside the Mazar village, the Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar is a small cave with an extended domed room that serves as a prayer hall. On the walls are inscribed the 18th chapter of the Koran, The Cave.
It tells the story of a group of young men who sought refuge in a cave as they fled the pagans. Local people believe this is the cave of the Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar.
One such believer is 66-year-old Izizbul Imin Haji, sheikh of the mazar. Izizbul belongs to the eighth generation of his family that has been guarding the Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar for more than 300 years.
According to Izizbul, about 2,000 years ago, seven sons of the King of Yemen wondered about the origins of the sun, moon, sky and everything on earth. They decided to go out and seek the answer.
When they arrived at Dakianus (old name of Gaochang), the King of Dakianus asked what they were looking for. When they told him, he said, "I'm the creator of the world", and invited them to stay in his palace.
After a few days, the seven young men found that the king was not the creator of the world, but a corrupt ruler. When the king realized that his true nature was known, he decided to kill the young men, who ran away. On the road, they met a shepherd, who wanted to follow them to look for the creator of the world. He sent his sheep back home, but his dog decided to follow its master.

Together they arrived at the cave. The dog guarded the entrance, while the others slept for what they thought was three or four hours.
When they got up and went out to buy food, the vendor wouldn't accept their coins. Only then did they find out that they had slept for 309 years.
A record in the Koran seems to match the legend of the Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar perfectly. The story goes that after their death, the seven young men were buried at where today's Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar stands. In Chinese the Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar is called "Qi Xian Fen", or "Tomb of the Seven Saints".
Izizbul says that during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), many mazars were destroyed, but a dog kept guard at the Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar, preventing the "red guards" from getting close to it.
In Izizbul's possession is a stick which is said to have belonged to the shepherd, 2,000 years ago. Pilgrims at the Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar believe the stick has the power to cure problems such as lumbago and backache, and they often ask Izizbul to beat their body gently with the stick after praying at the mazar.
While a visit to the Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar is believed to cure diseases, there is another place in Tuyugou which locals believe can invite illnesses.
"Uygur people never go there. We believe those caves are inhabited by the devil," says Ziwithan Kadir, a 58-year-old woman resident of Tuyugou. "They are not for Muslims."
Ziwithan is referring to what is known as the "Thousand-Buddha Caves of Tuyugou", a group of caves with Buddhist frescoes about 1 km from the mazar.
Before Uygur people converted to Islam, Buddhism used to be dominant in Xinjiang, and around today's "Thousand-Buddha Caves of Tuyugou" there used to be a famous Buddhist temple called Dinggu Temple.
After the Uygurs converted to Islam, Dinggu Temple and the caves with frescoes were forsaken. The residents no longer understood where those frescoes came from and became afraid of them.
"People are afraid to pass that area alone," says Mamat Rajap, a guard at the "Thousand-Buddha Caves of Tuyugou".
Mamat says that 15 years ago he too was afraid - till he learnt about the history of the caves.
"Some people say that I shouldn't guard Buddhist caves, but I tell them that these are cultural relics of the Uygur people."
According to archaeological studies, the sculpting of the "Thousand-Buddha Cave of Tuyugou" started in the Western Jin Dynasty (AD 265-420), and continued for more than 1,000 years.
Wang Xin, a professor with Shaanxi Normal University, says Buddhism influenced the Tuyugou area deeply, and the Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar was probably built on the ruins of a Buddhist temple after Islam replaced Buddhism in the area.
Wang believes that elements of more religions can be found in Tuyugou, for Xinjiang's location the Silk Road made it a meeting point of different religions and cultures. For example, the Nestorianism sect of Christianity used to be popular in the Turpan area and Nestorianism's idea of resurrection may have influenced the construction of the story of Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar; the custom of using the stick to cure diseases is probably a remnant of Shamanism. In addition, the legend of the dog may be related to the ancient wolf totem of the Uygur people.
The various cultural undercurrents of Tuyugou may not be evident to most worshippers at the Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar who come here simply to seek divine blessings. Most worshippers come from May to October every year.
Infertile women often come to worship at the Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar in the hope of becoming pregnant. Those who succeed come back to offer their gratitude with an offering like a sheep and divide the meat among the villagers.
But in a sign of changing times, "some women come to worship once a week, for seven consecutive weeks. If they still don't become pregnant, they go to a hospital," says Ziwithan.

Call to prayer

Like most Uygur people in Kashgar, 33-year-old businessman Kasim Abduhawer is a devout Muslim who adheres strictly to the regimen of five daily prayers. And like many others in the city, he goes to pray at the Id Kah mosque at least once a day, although there are more than 800 mosques in Kashgar, and Id Kah is not the closest to his home.
"I like the atmosphere in the mosque, and I like to listen to the knowledgeable imams there. It's an important part of my life," he says.On the two Islamic festivals, Eid ul-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, Kasim has to get up when it is still dark to secure a place in the mosque. Sometimes, when he runs late, he has to make do with praying in the square outside.
According to the Islamic Association of Kashgar City, during festivals the numbers at these congregational prayers can easily reach 40,000 to 50,000. Although Id Kah is one of the biggest mosques in China, it can only accommodate a small section of such gatherings.
When the Jum'ah, or Friday prayer, is held, an average of 10,000 people come to Id Kah mosque, and many are forced to pray in the streets outside. Shops in the area are usually closed, with their owners also attending the prayers.
"At Id Kah mosque, many of those who offer prayers come from nearby counties. They may be visiting the bazaar in Kashgar and just stop by to pray at the mosque. We also see some foreigners here, such as those from Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan," says Mirkamil Mamat, a mosque worker.

"It is hard to find another city like this," said Dr Sun Yat-sen as he gazed over Nanjing, The city is one of China's Four Great Ancient Capitals and was much-loved by Sun, the 20th century revolutionary and politician still seen by many as "the Father of Modern China".
It is fitting that his mausoleum now lies in the city of which he once famously wrote: "The setting of Nanjing is wonderful. Mountains, lakes and plains all abound here." However, the contemporary and historical significance of this great city extend well beyond the patronage of one historical figure.
Located in the lower Yangtze River basin and the Yangtze River Delta economic zone, Nanjing was China's capital city across six ancient dynasties and today serves as the capital of Jiangsu province. It also retains its historical role as one of the countries most important hubs for education, research, transportation and, of course, tourism.
Modern-day Nanjing spans a total of 6,598 square kilometers and has more than 7.4 million permanent residents, with more than 75 percent of them now officially classed as urban dwellers.
Its setting at the prime intersection of the Yangtze River with many of the traditional overland transportation routes has seen it established as a key transfer point between the east-west waterways and the north-south road and rail networks.

Sugar and spice

The Indian Community of Beijing organized the first-ever Indian Bazaar on Feb 14 that drew an enthusiastic response from expats and locals alike. Courtesy of British School of Beijing
A starry-eyed Indian teenager hops on a plane for the first time, flies over the Himalayas and lands in Beijing. The 13-year-old accompanies his parents from New Delhi on their second China visit to continue their pioneering work in the Hindi translations of Chinese classics and Chairman Mao's books. His life will never be the same.
Atul Dalakoti, 45, is the executive director of the Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and advisor to one of India's most-recognized corporate names, the Anil Ambani Group.
Today, you can get on a plane from Kunming, in Southwest China, to Calcutta in India, and you will reach in the same time that it takes to get from Beijing to Shanghai - about two hours.