Qinghai’s Capitol: Xining 青海省的省议会大厦：西宁

As a part of the Alliance for Global Education program, all of the Beijing students and some of the Shanghai students go to Qinghai, China for a field study trip.  Qinghai is in the western part of China, about a 2.5 hour plane ride from Beijing.  Qinghai is mostly made up of the Tibetan minority group, this province also boarders Tibet.  It was such a different experience that I have had only being in Beijing.  Beijing’s population is about 11.5 million, and the city of Xining’s population is about 2 million.  I didn’t know what to expect with this week-long trip, but I learned so much and made many life-long memories along the way.

In the Tibetan Medicine and Cultural Museum, I was able to see the world’s longest painting, which is 618 meters (over 2000 feet) long!  It is a stunning painting that took over 100 painters three years to complete.  This tangka (唐卡 translates to Buddhist banner) tells the story of how the religion of Buddhism began.  Each and every aspect  of the painting was beautiful.  Seeing this tangka was a great way to learn about the history of Buddhism while also appreciating traditional Tibetan art.

To start off our first full day in Xining, my group went to the Grand Mosque in the city.  I was beyond excited for the opportunity to see and enter a mosque.  In many mosques in various countries non-Muslims are not allowed to enter the actual prayer area, however I was very fortunate that this mosque allowed non-Muslim women to see every aspect of their worship building.  We entered as a mid-day prayer was ending, so we had the opportunity to interact with many male muslims.

In the Muslim faith, men and women pray separately, and my group visited the male prayer area.  Because Xining is a very small city, many of the locals were very surprised to see such a large group of young foreigners.  A lot of the men found my hair color fascinating.  Throughout the province of Qinghai many people struggled to understand that Americans come in every color, our group of study abroad students is very racially and ethnically diverse.  At the mosque we tried to explain that although we all look different, we are all Americans.  Overall, it was an amazing experience to talk with the Muslims who were in the mosque and learn about each other’s cultures.

Later that day we “hiked” up a very small mountain.  On the way up the mountain there was a Tibetan Buddhist Temple.  Seeing the beautiful area was a great way to break up the walk up to the top.

At the top of the mountain was an observatory area.  While in Xining, my favorite thing was always the beautiful mountains that were in every place you looked.

While in the capital we also went to the Kumbum Monastery.  This monastery was filled with lamas and monks of all ages.  It was crazy to see children as young as 7 years old studying to become a lama. One of the attractions of this monastery are the beautiful sculptures that the lamas make out of yak butter.  Yaks are a very common animal in this region because of the high altitude, and the Tibetan people like to make the yak butter into religious sculptures.

Visiting Xining was an amazing experience and a great preview of the Tibetan culture and customs that I would see later in the trip.  I enjoyed the other smaller cities that my group visited after seeing Xining even more, I can’t wait to share all the great moments in a future blog post! Thanks for reading! 🙂