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Published: February 25th 2007
Clay dudes
A few of the 6000-plus Terracotta Warriors on display in Pit 1. I think the front one might be a charioteer... Now, two things to help you with that sentence. When transliterating Mandarin, an 'x' is pronounced 'sh', and a 'q' is pronounced 'ch'. So Emperor Chin founded Shi'an. And guess where China got its name? Yep, Emperor Qin Shi Huang. And he was the guy who commissioned the Great Wall to keep out the Mongols (
not Nasi Goreng, as Aussie ads will have you believe),
and had the Terracotta Warriors built. Which is why most people come to Xi'an these days.
I made my way here on my first Chinese train, which took 20 hours to cover the 1500kms or so inland. I had a second-class sleeper bunk, known as 'hard sleeper', which instantly put all Indian trains I have travelled on to shame. Not only was there carpet and air-con, but there were TVs playing old Jet Li movies, and the carriage attendants even cleaned out the toilets every hour with boiling water. I shared a compartment with five others, including a 13-year old boy from Chengdu going home with his gran. He spoke about three words of English ('good, 'food'
Food stall in the Muslim Quarter
The Muslim Quarter of Xi'an is home to the best street food in the city. You can grab a bunch of lamb skewers, with rice, oregano bread, and a beer for about $4. and 'thankyou') but he was my saviour. When I told him I was hungry, he went on a mission to find me some
mian (noodles). When a guy climbed into my bunk, peeled off his pants and proceeded go to sleep, my friend told him to bugger off. And when I looked confused, worried or clueless, he would offer me sweets or a drink and ask, 'Food'? His name was unpronounceable but I christened him Hua. Cheers Hua, for looking after a lost Aussie.
The landscape didn't change too much along the way. Every hour or two, an immense power station would hove into view, followed by a scattering of slums, rubbish tips and polluted waterways, and then a city of untold millions, usually which I had never heard of, would follow. It was quite embarrassing to pass through the urban sprawl of Wuxi (pop: 5 million, bigger than Sydney), admitting to myself that I had no prior knowledge of its existence. The coolest part of the journey had to be when we crossed the mighty Yangzi River just outside Nanjing. Now those were two places I
had heard of.
Xi'an is much more 'Chinese' than Shanghai. That
Physical jerks
Some Xi'an old folks perform their early-morning tai chi under the city's medieval walls. is, it's more like the China you see in pictures. Lots of poky little side-streets, hunch-backed old ladies sweeping their front steps, folks doing tai chi in the park, and even some Ming Dynasty town walls surrounding the CBD. There's a large Muslim minority in the town, known as the Hui. Unlike the western Muslims, who are culturally more central Asian, these are ethnic Han Chinese who converted some centuries ago. Most of the men wear white skull caps, and the women wear white hats a bit like nurses' ones, or head scraves. I even saw one guy in a fez. The Hui are rightly lauded for their fine street food. Yesterday evening I enjoyed a delicious plate of lamb skewers, with some fragrant oregano-spiced bread, and today I had a mutton and vegetable soup that was pretty darned special, and only cost 40 cents. There's a huge mosque in the area, which is built in traditional Chinese temple style - something you don't see every day.
The first thing I did in Xi'an was take a wander through a park alongside the old walls. This made for a very amusing morning's walk. It seems that Chinese parks are
Stray warrior?
No, just a life-size replica. Souvenir stores selling very passable copies of the warriors abound in the street leading up to the site. One shop even proudly billed itself, 'Xi'an Counterfeit Factory'. God knows how tourists lug them home. where all the seniors go for a bit of early-morning activity. I saw bizarre things being done by the over-50s of Xi'an. These included: people walking backwards, men hanging their birdcages in a tree and then just sitting there watching them, oldies practising their ballroom dancing to the strains of Chinese classical music, people carrying their Chow dogs around, twenty folks performing weird and wonderful aerobic actions on a workout station, and one man who had tethered a tennis ball on a bit of elastic to a brick so he could hit it to himself. I was chuckling for the entire walk, which I guess could be construed as pretty rude.
Afterwards I took the bus out to the main tourist drawcard, the Warriors themselves. The site is about 30 kms from Xi'an, and consists of three excavated pits, holding a total of about 7000 clay figures. They are all life-sized, and were originally painted, but the colour has long since faded. Thousands of the soldiers await excavation, and there is even speculation that thousands more lie near the tomb of Emperor Qin just down the road. Qin was quite a vain chap, and after naming himself China's first
Brekky dumplings
Dumplings steaming away on the front step of a side-street diner, Xi'an. They make a great breakfast, and a steamer-full like this will set you back 50 cents. emperor he proceeded to glorify himself while burying and boiling his enemies alive. He commissioned the largest tomb the world has ever seen - 57 sq km in total - and it took 750,000 men, 40 years to build it. All that's left are the Terracotta Warriors - Qin's afterlife military forces - and the hill under which he is buried. What else lies under the hard soil of the Shaanxi countryside one can only speculate.
Anyway, the soldiers are as impressive as you'd imagine, although you can't get too close. The first pit is the largest and has the best preserved figures, and is hundreds of metres in length. Archers, infantry, horses and officers stand in vast lines, their outstretched hands clutching at what is now thin air, but what used to be real spears, swords, bows and axes. It is quite eerie to think that these men were all painstakingly produced by hand, in order to provide an egocentric emperor with an army for after his death.
I have had my first few brushes with Chinglish, that peculiar language that emerges when people try to translate Mandarin into English too literally, or accidentally select the wrong
Pottery guys
A few more of Emperor Qin's afterlife army. word from the dictionary. The title of this blog comes from the Welcome Book at my current hotel. As well as promising to provide 'excellent senile', they also thank you in advance for 'taking cake of facilities of Lu Dao Hotel'. I think they might mean care. I will keep you posted on any further gems I encounter.
Anyhow, before this becomes one of the most tedious history lessons you have ever been subjected to, I will sign off. Next stop - who knows?
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Dee
non-member comment
History Lesson
Loving the lessons.