I was talking to an education consultant here in Xi’an about the condition of the schools. Many of them are very good but special education is very new. She is a special education consultant. Most of the children in these schools are abandoned by their parents because they have some sort of physical or mental disability. Because China has a “one child” policy, if the parents abandon their disabled child, they can have another one and hope for one that is healthy. It’s very sad. These are forgotten children. I hope to be able to work with her even more in the future with the Healing of Magic and Hocus Focus projects.
Today, we also did a bit of sightseeing starting with the Big Goose Wild Pagoda. Buddhism came to China from travelers along the Silk Road from India. During the Tang Dynasty (629 AD) a “master” teacher named XuanZang traveled from Xi’an to India along the Silk Road to get the Buddhist teachings. He brought them back in 645 and the pagoda was built by the emperor to house them.
After walking the grounds of the Pagoda, we moved on to the Xi’an City Wall. Xi’an was a fortified city with a wall built completely around it to protect it from invaders. Today it stands as part of the city’s history and an attraction. The top of the wall is very wide. We decided to bike ride from the East Gate to the South Gate and back again. If we were to bike around the entire wall, it’s about 14 km and takes about 90 minutes or so. It’s COLD here so we just did half of that!
After biking the wall, we were very hungry. Lunch today was at a very famous dumpling restaurant across the street from our hotel. Through the course of the meal, they brought out 18 different kinds of dumplings. Some of them were great, others were interesting, and some were just not “tasty” at all.
After lunch, we decided to take another walk through the Muslim Quarter marketplace. This place is HUGE and a major tourist trap. And since this is a not “tourist” adventure for us, we just kept walking! We did make our way to the Great Mosque. It was also constructed ruing the Tang Dynasty (742 AD). It is allowed to continue to exist by the Communist Government of China because the Muslims fought for the Emperor and their “eternal safety” was guaranteed. It is unique because it is built in the Chinese architecture rather than traditional Arab style.
The entire Mosque is very large – about 13,000 square meters. And it’s divided into four courtyards.
Today wraps up our last day in mainland China. Tomorrow we will fly back to Hong Kong where I’ll be speaking at the East Asian International Conference on Teacher Education Research – a great opportunity and very exciting!