Retracing old Silk Road: China’s original thrust

“Today it’s trains. Two thousand years ago it was by foot or cart, horse or camel.” With that spiel Carlos Chan prods tourists to retrace China’s historic Silk Road to the West. Not just one but a network of routes, the road was named by a 19th-century German geographer after the mystical luxurious silk that was the Han Dynasty’s hottest trade item with ancient Rome. Not your usual tour guide, Mr. Chan is the founding chairman of the Oishi snack food giant. The tourists are business and civic pals who, on circuits of his 15 factories all over China, he takes on side trips to sites of flourishing past civilizations.

It is Mr. Chan’s personal mission to boost people-to-people ties of Chinese and Filipinos. Dealings of nations not only are in economics or passing tiffs, he believes, but more in lasting cultural, intellectual, and scientific exchanges. That’s what started around 200-BC China, and is being replicated today, so the Silk Road is an interesting travel theme.

Beijing’s investment-diplomatic thrust today is “New Silk Road.” It consists of myriad railroad trading posts, from China’s eastern coasts, past the ancient capital Xi’an in the central plains and mountains, onto westernmost Xinjiang province and then Central Asia. A parallel path commences from central Chongqing province, onto Burma, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. Lining the railways are oil-and-gas pipes and airports. Yet a third way is by sea, “Maritime Silk Road,” from southern China down to Southeast Asia, onto the Indian Ocean and beyond.

The aim is ambitious. China is to fund $1-trillion infrastructures in the traversed lands. That would help two-thirds of the world’s population, that accounts for a third of the GDP, exchange goods. In return China expects its trade volume to multiply to $2.5 trillion in a decade. The three Silk Routes converge in the Middle East, and then branch out again to major European cities as far as Madrid.

Retracing the old Silk Road is as exciting in its own way. Mr. Chan’s tours invariably start in Shanghai, site of Oishi’s first two plants. Shanghai was but backwater then to the Xi’an center of the Han empire. Today it is China’s prime megalopolis, and Xi’an in Shaanxi province only the third largest city.

From old Xi’an was dispatched the emperor’s envoy Zhang Qian to explore lands to the sunset. Twice hostaged by the Huns for a decade, he escaped, roamed Central Asia, and returned to report on potential commerce. So began a two-way trade bloom to and from China, peaking in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). The Silk Road spanned more than 5,000 miles into the desert and mountain steppes of Central Asia, onto India, Persia, Arabia, and the Mediterranean.

Xi’an is known today for the Terra Cotta Army. Discovered in 1974, the over 8,000 lifesize clay swordsmen, lancers, archers, charioteers, generals, ministers, concubines, chariots, horses, and weapons served to guard the tomb of Emperor Huang (Qin Dynasty, 221-207 BC).

Less known to the outside world are the Mogao Grottos in Dunhuang. Beside sand dunes in Kansu province is a series of 492 natural and manmade caves. On the walls are carved or painted 6th-century images of Buddha and foremost disciples. The oasis town was a crossing of two branches of the Silk Road, and an entry-exit point of west China. Buddhism is said to have spread to China from India via Dunhuang. Earlier depictions of the disciples were as South Asian; others later became bearded to look more Chinese. Embedded in one cave wall is the second tallest (34.5 meters) Buddha in China. It is believed to have taken 70 years to finish as the cavern and statue were carved together.

Many antiquities were defaced centuries later by rabid other religionists from the West. Fortunately unscathed were 6,000 ancient manuscripts, paintings, and other artworks dating back to the 5th-11th centuries. Discovered pre-War, the documents mostly are Buddhist, but some pertain to government, literature, and business – a rich source of Chinese and mainland Asian social history of the period. The scriptures were written in Chinese, Brahmi, Tibetan, Khotanese, Kuchean, Sogdian, Turkish, and Uighur.

In Xinjiang province’s Turpan drylands, beside the fabled Fire Mountains, are more caves with Buddhist artworks and artifacts. Interestingly the Uighur Buddha images mostly are tattooed. At 156 meters below sea level, Turpan is the second lowest place in the world (next to the Dead Sea). Found in the ancient town of Karez is an underground irrigation system dug by the early farmers. It consists of 5,000 kilometers of clay canals through which water flows from a 1,400-meter drop from the mountain. Still being debated today is whether they learned irrigation from or taught it to Asia Minor and ancient Romans.

Xi’an, Dunhuang, and Turpan are parts of the Chang’an-Tian-shan Silk Road Corridor. They are in the Unesco World Cultural and Natural Heritage List.

So is the Shaolin Temple in the ancient city of Dengfeng, Henan province. It is the cradle of Chinese Zen Buddhism and Shaolin martial arts. Some old temples serve as self-defense and healing schools, most as museums. In the main temple at the religious center, monks and students greet each other by raising the side of the left palm to the forehead, with the right behind their back. It dramatizes a tragic ancient event, when the Indian grandmaster, asked by his top disciple when he would reveal the rest of his martial arts secrets, replied it would only be when the snow turns red. Whereupon the student, so eager to learn, cut off his own arm and spread his blood on the wintry ground.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).

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