Chang’ an as an International Metropolis

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The Tang capital Chang’ an was probably the largest metropolis in the world at the time. It ran nearly 10,000meters from east to west, and more than 8,000 meters from north to south. More than a million people lived in the 84-square-kilometer city,200,000 more than the population of Constantinople, then capital of the Byzantine Empire.

Its open and inclusive attitude toward foreign cultures enabled Chang’ an to develop into the most prosperous international metropolis in the world of the time. Foreign envoys, merchants, and students were a common sight in the city. TheHonglu Temple received envoys from more than 70 countries, most coming in large groups. Japan, Silla(Korea), and Tazi(including today’s Syria, Kuwait, Iraq, and Libya) were the countries that dispatched the largest numbers of envoys to China. Japan sent more than ten delegations of “envoys to the Tang,”with delegates from all walks of life, including students, scholar-monks, craftspeople, and specialists in different fields. Every delegation consisted of several hundred people, the largest group numbering as many as 800.

One to two hundred students from Silla studied regularly in Chang’ an. According to Old Records of the Tang Dynasty (Jiu tangshu), in the year 837 there were 216 students from Silla in Chang’ an.

Both aristocrats and the common people were keen on foreign apparel, foods and customs, with “Minority Folk Fashions”highly popular in Chang’ an.”Minority Fashions”referred to attire from the Western Regions and some lands in what is today’s Uzbekistan.

They featured short jackets with narrow sleeves-convenient for traveling or hunting on horseback. The capes that Tang women enjoyed wearing were introduced from India. Polo, popular during the Tang, was originally a Persian sport. It was first introduced into Turkey and India, and then into China. It has been recorded in historical documents that Emperor Xuanzong and Emperor Xizong(r.874-888) were great polo players. Many merchants from Central Asiaand West Asia ran wine shops, jewelry shops, and sundry stores in Chang’ an.

Their wine shops attracted customers not only due to their famed wines but also because of the beautiful chorus girls from the Western Regions. It became vogue to patronize wine shops with these chorus girls. The great Tang poet Li Bai (701-762) wrote several poems on their beauty, such as:””As beautiful as lowers,/The minority women smile like the spring breeze in the wine shops.”

“With nowhere to visit at the end of spring,/Smiling I enter a wine shop with women from other lands.”

These popular practices of adopting outside styles and customs represented the youthful dynamism of the Tang Dynasty, garnering high admiration from scholars of later generations.