Xi'an // China
Journeyed Destinations
- Terracotta Warriors
- Li Shan Mountain
- Bell tower
- Drum Tower
- Buda Park
- Huaqing Palace
+"Everlasting Sorrow Performance"
- Xi'an City Wall
- Gao courtyard
- Goose Park
17/Jan/2025
Xi’an never introduced itself to me all at once. It revealed itself slowly, like someone testing whether I was ready to hear its story.
I remember standing in front of the Terracotta Warriors early in the morning, the air cold enough to sting my hands, staring at thousands of silent faces that had survived centuries while so many people in my own life had disappeared so easily. Something was unsettling about them, not because they looked powerful, but because they looked patient...
...As if they had already seen every heartbreak a human could survive. That evening, I walked along the Xi’an City Wall while the city lights flickered beneath me like scattered memories. Somewhere far away, the Bell Tower glowed gold against the dark sky, and the sound from the Drum Tower drifted through the streets like a heartbeat too old to stop. Xi’an didn’t feel modern or ancient to me. It felt suspended between lives.
Came to Li Shan Mountain. Huaqing Palace rested quietly beneath it, beautiful in a fragile way, like something history had almost destroyed but failed to. And when the “Everlasting Sorrow” performance began, the entire mountain turned into a living memory, lights reflecting on water, music dissolving into the cold night air, love and grief unfolding under the stars so beautifully.
Later, I wandered through Buda Park and Goose Park through the trees I realized Xi’an’s magic was never in its landmarks. It was in the strange feeling that the city had been waiting for me long before I ever arrived.
Chapter 8 - Reza In Xi’an // 20 Jan 2025
