Tang Chang'an covered about 84 square kilometres - the largest city in the world at the time, with over a million residents. It had two great markets, East and West; the West Market was the most international place of all.
The West Market drew merchants from Central Asia, West Asia, South Asia and even Eastern Rome: Persians sold gems and spices, Sogdians dealt in silk and wine, and in the taverns of Hu beauties, exotic song and dance ran through the night.
How big was the trade? Tens of thousands of registered shops, with goods from tea, porcelain and camels to slaves. The bustle of the West Market is the liveliest footnote to the "great Tang spirit".
Li Bai's poem "laughing my way into the tavern of the Hu beauty" shows how deeply foreign culture had entered daily life; hubing (sesame flatbread) remains a favourite Xi'an breakfast to this day.
Today the Tang West Market Museum in Xi'an still reveals the old streets, water channels and shop foundations. Strolling there, you can almost hear the camel bells of a thousand years ago.
Over a thousand years ago, on the west side of Chang An stood a lively market - the Great Tang Western Market, the largest international market of its age, called the starting point of the Silk Road.
Tang-dynasty (618-907) Chang An was the first city on earth with over a million people and an international metropolis where envoys, merchants, monks and students of every nation gathered.
The city layout was chessboard-like, divided into east and west markets. The east market sold high-end domestic goods for nobles; the west market was the international bazaar crowded with Hu (Central Asian) merchants.
In the west market gathered Hu merchants from the Western Regions, Persians, Arabs, even travellers from Europe - an atmosphere of exotic bustle.
What did it sell? Persian carpets, Arabian spices and gems, western-region horses, Indian herbs, gold and silver ware from Central Asia.
Chinese silk, porcelain and tea also departed from the west market along the Silk Road to the world. It was the wholesale hub of the route.
It was also a cultural crossroads: Hu wine taverns with singing dancing "Hu ji" girls; music, dance and acrobatics from the West that fascinated Chang An crowds.
Poet Li Bai loved the market and foreign wine, writing of a "Hu girl as beautiful as a flower, smiling like spring breeze by the tavern."
Around it stood many "fang" residential wards. Markets and wards were managed separately - open by day, closed at night. Chang An life was orderly yet colourful.
Today Xi An has rebuilt the site as the Great Tang West Market, with museum, antique street and specialty dining, recreating the lively east-west trade scene.
The Silk Road museum displays relics brought from the West: figurines, coins, silk fragments - each telling a story of international exchange.
When in Xi An, visit the West Market: there you can imagine a thousand years ago merchants of the whole world bargaining side by side.
The West Market shows that the open Tang dynasty was once the centre of the world. China going global did not begin today.
