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Published: March 10th 2008
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Somebody said that you couldn’t claim to have been in China until you have been to the site of the Qin terracotta army in Shaanxi province near Xi'an. Often during my frequent business visits to China I had thought about visiting this place, but always considered that it was just not possible to fit it in within the limited free time that I get sometimes.
It was actually Elizabeth who kept insisting that I should pursue this side trip whenever I had a free weekend in this side of the World, but it took a casual conversation with my colleague NC Yu (himself an assignee from outside mainland China) to get me going!
NC shared with me that it was actually quite common for foreign visitors from our company to fly to Xi'an on the first flight in the morning, get into a guided tour to the site (that would take care of all the logistics and entrance tickets) and then fly back on the last flight to Beijing on the same day. This approach seemed to be straightforward enough, so I acted on it! As a side benefit, I would get to see Xi’an’s ancient city wall and
the Great Goose Pagoda.
The thousands of terracotta warriors, each representing an individual and different from each other, had the mission to protect Emperor Qin Shihuang in the afterlife and perhaps even help him build a new empire there. This last objective wouldn't have been out of character for the first emperor and forger of the vast nation that we now know as China.
Emperor Qin Shihuang only ruled as emperor for eleven years before he died (from 221 to 210 BC), but in his lifetime he annexed a disparate group of small kingdoms into an empire of vast proportions. With an absolute iron hand, he reformed the administration of the conquered territories and controlled them with a centralized government. He established a common currency, common weights and measures, and a common written language for his new empire and started to build the Great Wall.
Though Emperor Qin was planning for the dynasty that he founded to last forever, only four years after his son ascended to the throne, chaos took over making the Qin dynasty one of the shortest ones in Chinese history. Nevertheless, this dynasty is quite important given that it was the first one
and its achievements are still pertinent even in modern-day China.
The simplicity of my travel plans for today had only one potential flaw: I was depending on an air carrier to get me there in time for the rest of the itinerary to remain viable. The weather forecasts for both Beijing and Xi'an looked quite promising but that was certainly not a guarantee!
The first sign of trouble came as an announcement over the PA of the fairly full Air China Boeing 737-300 shortly after all passengers had completed the boarding process: our flight was to remain where it was because of "bad weather at our destination". The announcement did not sound very credible because I had just checked the weather before I left my hotel and current conditions in Xi'an were clear skies with a very slight wind.
The conditions did not change within the next few minutes and when the flight attendants started to offer tea to everyone, I knew that the delay wouldn't be slight. The plane did not take off until after more than one hour has passed and by the time we reached Xi'an, I was already one and a half hours
behind schedule.
The first order of business upon exiting Xi'an's airport was to locate my tour guide. All I had from the travel agency was her scribbled family name and her local mobile number. I was looking for Ms. Xue.
It did not take me long to find her; she was just outside the secured area of the terminal holding a small sign with my name. She told me that they had announced that our flight was delayed due to mechanical issues with our aircraft… I guess Air China would prefer not to share this kind of information with their passengers or rather would prefer to blame delays on bad weather. But there is always the distinct possibility that pollution had reduced visibility so severely that flights couldn’t land or take off because of it.
Snow (Ms. Xue’s English name) shared with me all kinds of historical information about Xi’an and Emperor Qin Shihuang in particular. She also informed me that one of the visits in the schedule for today was at risk of being cancelled because of my delayed arrival in Xi’an. At least, there was no question that we would have enough time to visit
the terracotta army.
After a stop for a quick lunch, we finally arrived at the site. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but I was not quite prepared to see the magnitude of the “attraction” quality of the site. In addition to a huge, stadium-class parking lot, capable of holding a very large number of cars and tour buses, there was also a very large commercial center full of shops ready to sell visitors any conceivable souvenir related to their visit.
We followed multiple tour groups toward the complex’s entrance. Snow took care of securing my entrance ticket while I took advantage of the short brake to get my camera ready for the visit. Snow led me to a 360-degree view movie theatre that was constantly running an English-language video explaining the background of the terracotta warriors and how they were found. This video production complemented nicely all of the information that Snow had shared with me on the way from the airport.
The highlight of my visit was certainly the moment I entered Pit One and realized the sheer size of it… I kept thinking of the view that the builders of the site
would have had when they were placing the warriors in their pits for eternity (or so they thought). At that time, the warriors were as close to their real-life models as they would ever get. I circled Pit One admiring every angle over the warriors below. The most amazing part of Pit One is that most of its warriors are still buried; waiting for a time when their extraction back to the World will not destroy the original painted finish that would only last for a few minutes after being exposed to air and light.
Unfortunately for me, Pit Two was not open to the public on the day of my visit. It seems that the building over it had developed water leaks that had to be repaired to prevent any damage to the warriors and other artifacts contained there in. Pit Two contained the bulk of the emperor’s cavalry and archer units. Snow informed me that Pit Two would be re-opened again in April… I missed seeing it by just one month! Considering the more than two thousand and two hundred years that the warriors have existed, a month is just a brief spec of time.
Pit
Combat Formation
It was so simple in those days! Armies would go obliterate other armies. Though sometimes it happened, killing innocent civilians was not the main objective of wars... Three was the smallest of the pits and the place where the command center for emperor Qin Shihuang’s army was entombed. It was setup just as any command center should be: at a close range from the army and organized in such as way that the generals and other officers could set the strategy for whatever battle the army had to fight in the afterlife.
After visiting the site of the terracotta warriors, we had enough time for just one more visit. Snow and our driver took me to see Xi’an’s ancient city walls. The wall and its surrounding moat reminded me of the one around the Forbidden City in Beijing, but the buildings on top of this one actually showed their age (or lack of recent restoration) much more. In our way back to the airport, we circled the Great Goose Pagoda, but we had no time for the visit thanks to Air China’s delay departing from Beijing in the morning.
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tannismc
Tannis McCartney
Great photos!
Nice to see some different, and good quality, photos from this place. It's high on my list of places to see whenever I finally make it to China.