The people, many dressed in faded Mao suits, seem downtrodden. Unlike Beijing and Shanghai, which, thanks to China’s market reforms, have become vibrant international capitals, Xi’an suffers from the blight of communism. With a population of 8 million, Xi’an is a small city by Chinese standards, compared to Shanghai (17.8 million), Beijing (15 million), and Chongqing (12 million). Many considered it the greatest city in the world. It was said that Xi’an was as cosmopolitan and influential as Baghdad, Constantinople, and Rome. Xi’an was so beautiful-with its elaborate Buddhist temples, mosques, bustling souks, and eighth-century walled imperial city-that Japan’s emperors used it as a model for their imperial capitals of Kyoto and Nara. Painting, poetry, dance, and music thrived in Xi’an, and l’art de vivre-the refined art of living-was an essential component of everyday existence. The famed Silk Road, the trade route that linked the Far East to Europe, started there in the second century BC and turned the city, then known as Chang’an, into a throbbing metropolis of nearly two million and an epicenter for culture and politics. From 221 BC to AD 907, Xi’an served on and off as the capital of the vast Chinese empire. Xi’an, pronounced Shee-ahn, is one of China’s oldest cities, settled by humans since prehistoric times. DOWN THE DUSTY ROADS of Xi’an the motor scooters zoom, weaving around potholes and rickety bicycles, bip-bip-bipping their horns as they circle the city’s sixteenth-century bell tower.

Deluxe by Dana Thomas