A Muslim Quarter in the ancient capital of China, Xi'an
Last week was the Lunar New Year, so I had a whole week off work and took some time to go to Xi'an 西安, in Shaanxi 陕西 province. Xi'an was the capital of the Chinese Empire for 11 dynasties, so it is a historically important place.
One of the city's most well known places is the famous Muslim Quarter. Xi'an was the first city in China to be introduced to Islam in the year 651, during the Tang Dynasty. Most Muslims in this area belong to the Hui ethnic minority. Today the city has around 50 thousand followers of this religion.
Even with the cold temperatures, the streets in the Muslim Quarter were packed with people that go there basically to get something to eat. It's open all day and closes like 2 or 3am!
Several stores make candy on the streets where candy makers pull the sweet hanging from a hook making a popular attraction for tourists.
The candy puller hooks the candy and twists it, the pulls and stretches it and then restarts the process. Frequently the candy hits the floor, but nobody cares.
Everywhere you can get this type of bread in the area. Sorry, I didn't catch what it is called. They make it in a spherical oven. They beat the dough and then stick it inside the oven walls. When it's done they pull it out with those huge tweezers and sell it.
An animal (sheep I hope (?!)) is skinned and butchered right beside the skewer stand it will later be barbecued and sold. Even for the Chinese this was at least a bit unusual. Many would stop and pose with the carcass for a selfie (hey, look! It's me and a headless sheep! so a-we-so-me!) or at least stare for a while. I bet if you did this in the US or Europe you'd be arrested.
Along the streets in the corner it's very common to see animals butchered and their meat and organs sold. Many stores prepared food so they are halal.
Here you have goat feet and knees for sale, considered a delicacy in China. It's quite normal here to eat tendons and the bony bits of an animal. I'm not a big fan of either. I've had a soup-like thing with beef tendon, that is this gooey transparent jelly that tastes like nothing. In China a lot of the taste of the meat comes from the sauce and spices.
Butcher cleans up cow stomachs which will be later used in stews and sold on the street. The smell in this area was stomach turning. It was a mixture of smoke from the nearby skewer barbecue stands, oil from the nearby fry *insert animal part* stands and, well, dead animals.
Recently butchered cow livers lie on the counter waiting to be purchased. Hygiene is not a strong feature in parts of town.
Stomach, intestines, an organ I have not identified and livers are organized for sale. People would just come up, point at what they want, it would be weighed and sold.
In the Muslim Quarter there are several Mosques such as this one here, some several centuries old. If you don't look up you might just miss them. The entrance is through an alley right there hidden in between all the food stands.
I call this guy birdman. It's a well known fact that in China people like to rest by crouching. Why this man decided to crouch on top of a post, I don't know. Doesn't seem comfortable to me.
I have no idea what this food is, but he would put it on a cloth and cook it with the steam.
Traffic on the streets was crazy. There were dozens of food stands, hundreds of vehicles and thousands of people competing for the same physical space.
At one end of the Muslim Quarter, a homeless man rests on the walls of a monument. There were a lot of homeless people in Xi'an, way more than Beijing.