The article is contributed by Amel. Amel is a 24 years old fresh graduate in international affairs who spent the last 5 years traveling solo around Asia. Last year, her internship at the French Embassy in China enabled her to visit friends in Thailand, South Korea, and Japan. In this article, she opens the door to a new way of thinking solo travelling in China, with a close look at the Muslim Hui people you could meet in Xi'an.

I lived in Beijing from July to December 2019 and travelled within China.

Depending on the type of visa you get to enter the country, you might not be allowed to leave and re-enter China. I then recommend you to travel within China before considering visiting neighbor countries. This is the cheapest and most interesting experience as China is diverse and offers various types of landscapes and lush valleys, mountains, beaches…

To start this article, spoiler alert, it is considered safe to solo travel in China, but I highly recommend you to have a fair Mandarin spoken and reading comprehension level. Despite Chinese people’s kindness, most signs are not translated, including the apps that you must download before landing there such as maps, food delivery apps, chat apps etc.

I was fortunate enough to travel solo from Beijing to the city of Xi’an, one of the country’s biggest cities in size and population. This city, which has a history of more than 3,100 years, was the capital of China during the Qin, Han, and Tang dynasties and was then called Chang'an. Today's Xi'an is one of the ten largest cities in China. It has more than 8 million registered inhabitants and is reachable by a bullet train from the capital

This trip to Xi’an was then a gateway to the Hui Ethnic minority.

Wandering around Xi’an often starts with a tour at Huimin Street, the northern gate of Xi'an.  Huimin street is the most famous district of Xi'an in terms of gastronomy and culture as it offers Hui food including ramen noodles, lamb skewers, and naan.

Through my interactions with Hui people, I discovered a fascinating side of this culturally-rich country. Their culture has distinct differences that developed from the practice of Islam. The government defines the Hui people to include all historically Muslim communities not included in China's other ethnic groups. They are therefore distinct from other Muslim groups such as the Uyghurs mostly living in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

A must-go place to discover the Hui cultures and values is the mosque, located in the center of the Hui district. The mosque’s maintenance staff was very welcoming and the locals invited me to visit the prayer room.

To add, the large wild goose pagoda of Xi'an is majestic and a great spot to meet many enthusiastic and warm people while learning about the history of Xi’an. It is fair to say that Chinese people tend to be really curious and won’t hesitate to hail foreigners in the street to ask them about their nationality or the reason for their venue in China. For a solo traveler, this is something that most of the time is more than welcome.

Indeed, I was fortunate enough to talk with several people in the subway, share my diner with strangers in a restaurant and play cards with a family sitting next to me on the train after the mother kindly offered me some cucumbers. In general, people directly hail you in Chinese and are glad when you manage to have a basic conversation in Mandarin.

Indeed, on my way to the Little and Big Wild Goose pagodas, some Chinese tourists asked me for directions on the bus. They were coming from Shanghai, and did not realize  I was not Chinese and asked me in Mandarin: "Are you Muslim? Or Uyghur?" When I exposed them to where I came from, they were very surprised since they thought my hair and brown eyes made me look like an Uyghur woman. It is very common for a foreigner in China to experience such conversations,  and there is nothing wrong with it unless it makes you uncomfortable.  One solo traveler should expect some Chinese people to ask for pictures taken together, to touch her hair, or comment on their physical appearance. This does not happen very often, especially in big cities, but should be declined nicely if not appreciated.

All in all, I aimed with this short article to give a taster of what it is like to travel solo in the city of Xi’an. When we decide to travel by ourselves and not to depend on anyone else, trying to get to know people from different ethnicities levels up our experience. Xi’an is a very fascinating destination for basic tourism, offering various sites to visit. However, I highly recommend you to immerse yourself in the Hui district for a few days, striking experience guaranteed.