The Terracotta Army

Saturday, September 05, 2009
Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
Friday 4th Sept. Tour Day 13: Xi’an Muslim Quarter

The train from Chengdu got into Xi’an just after midday. We were staying at the YMCA, which was at the end of a dodgy-looking alley. There was an interesting billboard in the lobby showing girls in various stages of undress with increasing prices which I presumed was for some sort of massage service; for 268 Yuan, you could have 3 topless girls! Also, Deng warned us of late night calls to our rooms from the hotel offering "massages" (first in Chinese, then they'd hang up when they realised you didn't understand, and someone who could speak English would then phone up). Considering that pornography was banned in China and the internet was censored, this was a very strange practice, maybe the hotel would be full of Chinese men taking "business trips" without their wives.

We went to the Muslim Quarter for lunch. Deng chose a restaurant where hygiene didn't seem to be the top priority, with food scraps littering the nooks and crannies around the floor, but the food was some of the best I'd had so far – lamb kebab skewers with a delicious spice coating, succulent meat curries, a truly wonderful meal. Myself, Stephen, Robin and Paul paid a visit to the Great Mosque, an ocean of tranquility in the surrounding bustling streets, with Chinese-styled buildings, and then the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, which we didn’t have time to go in but could just see through the thick smog. We also visited the South Gate of the City Wall where a ceremony was being rehearsed with soldiers in costumes, maybe for the 60th anniversary of the formation of the People’s Republic of China which would be held on 1st October 2009.

The other three decided to head off and see some other sights (the Drum and Bell Towers) while I headed back to the Muslim Quarter to have some more kebab skewers. After this, I returned to the hotel and with nothing else planned for the afternoon, grabbed a pool table in the pool/snooker hall in the hotel basement. This was open 24 hours a day, I got drinks brought down to me from the hotel bar upstairs and one of the young lads supervising the place racked up the balls after each frame! The local pool shark saw me playing and after a while, asked if he could play me (well, gestured with hand signals anyway). He was a good player but I beat him, playing some great pool, although the rules were certainly strange. He also bought me a drink (8 Yuan) and insisted on paying for the table at the end (44 Yuan), which was very good of him! I was half expecting him to be a hustler and offer to play me for money, but he didn't! Also, as I headed back to my room in the lift, he got in too, but my fears of him mugging me were unfounded!

Saturday 5th Sept. Tour Day 14: Terracotta Army

The Terracotta Army is one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century. It was found by accident in 1976 when a farmer was digging a well. The army was built over 2,200 years ago to guard the tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi, who unified China and became it’s first emperor. Each warrior was based on an actual soldier, with individual expressions, faces, hairstyles, and clothing. There were different types of warrior – cavalry, officers, archers, etc. The warriors were looted and smashed by rebel forces at the end of the Emperor’s reign so they all had to be painstakingly put together again - a long, ongoing process as each warrior was unique. The warriors were also originally coloured but this faded after exposure to air. A mile nearby is a hill believed to contain the Emperor’s tomb, comprising a floor cut with rivers of mercury and a ceiling studded with pearls to represent the night sky. Also, there were 48 tombs for concubines. All the workers (70,000) were supposed to have been buried alive to safeguard the location of the tomb.

We visited the Terracotta Factory first, where they had reproduced the original method of making the warriors – clay, mould, kiln, hardening. There were loads of different types and sizes of warrior for sale, I bought a set of 9 small warriors for 230 Yuan. Then we moved onto the Museum which contained 3 pits in varying stages of excavation. Pit 1 was very impressive and contained over 6,000 warriors in battle formation with some horses. The back was strewn with smashed fragments waiting to be reassembled. The work to restore the warriors was amazing, each warrior was unique and had to be painstakingly reassembled from smashed fragments by a team. Many of the warriors originally had weapons but the wooden ones had rotted away. You could imagine the army when they still had their colours intact - an amazingly impressive petrified army. Pit 2 contained soldiers and cavalry but was still in the early stages of being excavated. Pit 3 seemed to be a command centre, with ~70 high-ranking officers. We also saw 2 half-size bronze chariots found near the tomb, one of which was made of 3,600 individual pieces. After the museum, I had a McDonald’s (I did notice that they did 24 hour "McDelivery", I think they should introduce that in the UK!) and then we were off to Xi'an train station for the overnight train to Beijing.

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