Sonntag, 24. April 2011
Day 44: China: Yinchuan – Old versus New
Part of my program in Yinchuan was the visit of the Provincial Museum of Ningxia which had been opened in 2008. Just like all the other new museum complexes in China, this one as well is the result of a megalomaniac project featuring the latest high-tech fashion. Several thousand people visit the museum every day. A brigade of cleaners is responsible for sweeping the floor as shiny as possible, making you feel like walking on a mirror. I was especially impressed by the exhibition on the history of the Communists in Ningxia, a large installation of a red ribbon floating through the different halls, here and there a sculpture of a heroic figure making your heart beat higher and higher.
The museum is located in the newly built city centre, crossed by wide streets and filled with monotonous high rises, each of them offering space for about one hundred families. The new library has just been opened and the theatre will be inaugurated in several months. Recently planted trees bring a light green colour into the otherwise grey and white environment. What is missing here are the people, still seeming to prefer the old charming city which presents a completely different face of Yinchuan, offering a large variety of eateries, shops and parks. The centre of it is Nanguan Mosque, one of the largest in China and the first one which was open for tourists. As I walk through the entrance gate, I am welcomed by an old man. He has a long grey beard and like most of the other Hui, he wears the white skull-cap on his head. He shakes my hand and tells me to take a look into the mosque. It is prayer time! People are rushing to the entrance where they take off their shoes. They quietly proceed into the mosque and join the other people already absorbed in prayer, headed by the priest standing in front of the prayer niche. As I walk through the garden a veiled lady approaches me. She cannot believe that I speak her language. She speaks extremely slowly and asks me over and over again if I can understand her words. She wants to tell me something about the history of the mosque as well as the peculiarities of the Hui in Ningxia.
“Where you come from, Muslim people are turned to the east during prayer. China lies east of Mecca, so we pray to the west…The dream of us is to make a Hajj to Mecca once in our lives. Every year, there is a special flight connection from Yinchuan directly to Mecca. We have to apply very early in advance to get a seat – 2000 of us get to go each time. Only retired people above fifty can go. All the expenses have to be paid by the pilgrim himself, otherwise the pilgrimage does not count…” I ask her which one of the almost 2000 mosques all over China she likes best. “Of course ours – the colours and the shape of the building are beautiful, just like the mosques in Arabia.” Suddenly her son turns up. He seems very shy at the beginning, but he is excited to see the foreigner. He shows me two large models of Mecca and Medina, both of them equipped with fancy lighting which he switches on for me. When I want to leave the mosque, the old man from the beginning comes over again for a chat. He shows me his cell-phone on which he had saved photos taken together with other visitors. I am also part if this gallery now …
The museum is located in the newly built city centre, crossed by wide streets and filled with monotonous high rises, each of them offering space for about one hundred families. The new library has just been opened and the theatre will be inaugurated in several months. Recently planted trees bring a light green colour into the otherwise grey and white environment. What is missing here are the people, still seeming to prefer the old charming city which presents a completely different face of Yinchuan, offering a large variety of eateries, shops and parks. The centre of it is Nanguan Mosque, one of the largest in China and the first one which was open for tourists. As I walk through the entrance gate, I am welcomed by an old man. He has a long grey beard and like most of the other Hui, he wears the white skull-cap on his head. He shakes my hand and tells me to take a look into the mosque. It is prayer time! People are rushing to the entrance where they take off their shoes. They quietly proceed into the mosque and join the other people already absorbed in prayer, headed by the priest standing in front of the prayer niche. As I walk through the garden a veiled lady approaches me. She cannot believe that I speak her language. She speaks extremely slowly and asks me over and over again if I can understand her words. She wants to tell me something about the history of the mosque as well as the peculiarities of the Hui in Ningxia.
“Where you come from, Muslim people are turned to the east during prayer. China lies east of Mecca, so we pray to the west…The dream of us is to make a Hajj to Mecca once in our lives. Every year, there is a special flight connection from Yinchuan directly to Mecca. We have to apply very early in advance to get a seat – 2000 of us get to go each time. Only retired people above fifty can go. All the expenses have to be paid by the pilgrim himself, otherwise the pilgrimage does not count…” I ask her which one of the almost 2000 mosques all over China she likes best. “Of course ours – the colours and the shape of the building are beautiful, just like the mosques in Arabia.” Suddenly her son turns up. He seems very shy at the beginning, but he is excited to see the foreigner. He shows me two large models of Mecca and Medina, both of them equipped with fancy lighting which he switches on for me. When I want to leave the mosque, the old man from the beginning comes over again for a chat. He shows me his cell-phone on which he had saved photos taken together with other visitors. I am also part if this gallery now …
