My Bucket List and The Silk Road

July 11, 2013

Maybe a bucket list is not such a good idea after all.  By its very nature, it’s limited.  My bucket list is a living, intangible, imaginary document. I could never have dreamed up some of the adventures I have been blessed to have so far.  Instead, it seems that being open to taking advantage of opportunities, and willing to do the work involved is what’s molding a life story beyond my creative ability.  I am staying in the Chinese province of Shaanxi, in the city of Xi’an.  Xi’an is considered the beginning of the Silk Road, the most important trade route linking China, Central Asia, Persia, western Asia, and Rome.  From Xi'an, there were three roads west, the north, the middle, and the southern routes of the what we know as the Silk Road.  It ended in Constantinople, current day Istanbul.  

The Chinese did not originally use that name.  In fact, they didn't use any name.  Their country was the world; heaven.  They were the center of the world.  It didn't need a name.  The name, Silk Road, was coined by German, Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877.  Silk, porcelain, metal wares, rare animals, spices, precious stones, were exported from China.  The Chinese didn't, at first, feel the need to import goods.  The route became an important network of cultural changes as ideas about technology, religion, philosophy, art, and more were exchanged by traders along the profitable but treacherous way.  Professor Zhang Honglu said Zhang Qian (2nd Century B.C.) the "Lewis and Clark of the Silk Road."  He went west on a mission to seek allies against the Xiongnu under Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty.  China opened to both exporting and importing goods especially during the Tang and Yuan (Mongol) Dynasties.

You can still find markets and merchants by the 1,000s here in Xi'an.  Today, though, the wares are souvenirs, fruit, vegetables, and art.  Though the government’s primary interest in reconstructing the modern Silk Road is oil and other resources, and national safety.

Here are some modern day scenes at the starting point of the ancient Silk Road:

The Big Wild Goose Pagoda at Night

At the Lama Temple

One of the Buddhas.  Actually, the wall has thousands of them.

Incense burning outside the Temple