I feel a bit daunted to post something on this blog recently. Since this blog became a reference for Asia Travel weblog a couple months ago, i think i need to be careful about the ‘quality’ of the posting. So much for a reason that i’m a woman, sometimes i feel i only write about my feelings and not really ’something’, you know. Often i neglect about the grammar and spelling, who cares??…i’m not a native english speaker, so what the heck?? as long as you understand what i mean…that wouldn’t be a problem, am i right?
So back to the story, a week ago, we went to an old mosque in Beijing, the name is Niujie Mosque. Located in southern part of Tian an’men square, the mosque has been there since 900 A.D at the age the Song Dynasty and was rebuilt in 1442 during Ming Dynasty and expanded in 1696 under Qing Dynasty. The architecture of the mosque is a mixture of Islamic and Chinese cultures. Just like any other Chinese construction, the mosque also has a wooden rooftop complete with typical Chinese reliefs but the difference lies on its pattern which can be flowers, clouds or abstract shape and not usual Chinese reliefs, dragon and phoenix. The construction itself consists of several separated buildings or pavillions: the worshipping hall, the calling tower, meeting hall and pavillions at each side and in the backyard, we can see two tombs of Imams, 2 muslims who came from Middle east and preached in the mosque.
So, this Friday, edwin and fitrix gave a time to do Jum’ah Pray in the mosque. When the time approaching 13.30, many people pouring into the mosque, people from different races and nationalities, Chinese, African, South East Asia like Indonesia, Brunei, Middle East and etc…all mingled up into one harmony. A different atmosphere…though we have significant physical differences, like eyes, skin color, hair and we speak different languanges but i can feel there’s a bond binding us…that we are all muslims and thus we’re all brothers.
