Through biking to random places or heading home with my host family, I have been down some peculiar streets. The streets I am referring to happen to not allow cars, only pedestrians and bikes, so I will be referring to them as pedestrian streets. These streets are hidden around the city and their entrances are either disguised or made obvious with a gate marking the entrance. The streets feel like they are filled with the most random vendors. Occasionally, you will find a row of vendors selling vegetables, sometimes it is fruit, other times they have snacks or someone making a specialty dish. Once in a blue moon you will see a vendor that is set up more like a normal shop selling anything from house hold cleaning items to beach towels and flip flops. Some people get so much produce here it seems that they are grocery shopping for the week and picking up some noodles for a family dinner. These streets are big enough that if vendors cleared out, you may, barely, be able to fit a normal sized car.

The biggest and most famous version of these streets is hui min jie, 回民街, beiyuanmen moslem street, or Muslim quarter. Even though this is a well known tourist attraction in Xi’an, it is the closest you’re going to get to finding a huge variety of authentic street foods in Xi’an. Hui min jie is given its name from the main group that is present and has always been present, the Hui muslim minority group. The main difference between Hui min jie and other pedestrian streets is the sheer size and amount of people on hui min jie. Hui min jie is not just one street, it is a collection of somewhat narrow and long intersecting streets with a few mosques hidden through out. Hui min jie is also a great place to buy cheap gifts. If you start from the side of the drum tower with two rows of big red lanterns, to your immediate left starts a long street of souvenirs and gifts. They have everything from large terracotta warrior statues to fake sports jerseys. If you continue straight down this street, you are lead right back to one of the many streets with great street food. Overall, Hui min jie and other pedestrian streets are a great way to experience local Xi’an culture.