Army Of Darkness

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I thought I should go see the Terracotta Warriors while in Xian. I didn't bother going to the Great Wall when in Beijing because it's just a wall and I've seen plenty of those. But I haven't seen an army of clay soldiers before. There's this thing that's common in Asia where when you visit an attraction, say a zoo or aquarium, you don't buy your ticket at the entry point, you buy it at a completely separate booth and then take the ticket to the entry. I guess it gives more people more jobs, and makes things more confusing for tourists as well, so it has a double benefit. The Terracotta Warriors Museum takes it to an extreme though, with the place you buy the ticket being at least a kilometre away from the actual entry point!

I took one of the so-called “direct” buses from the Xian train station to the Terracotta Warriors museum. It is direct I suppose, it just keeps stopping along the way to pick up and drop off passengers. From where the bus parks you walk a couple of minutes past a series of stalls selling food and souvenirs, and come to a whole city of stalls. It was a little odd seeing the stalls selling dog and cat pelts. One stall selling them I could understand but dozens of them not so much. Most of the dogs looked like Alsation types but I saw a Samoyed as well; they were whole pelts for floor rugs. The cats were a mix of white, tabby, etc and their skins were made into neck-scarves. I did not like the wolf pelts being sold for tourists in Mongolia, but domestic dogs and cats I don't really care because they are domestic. It just makes you wonder about the sort of person who would buy an Alsation-skin rug for their floor!

I took my time finding the ticket office. Not because I was eye-shopping but because I plain couldn't find it! One thing that is endless amounts of fun in Asia is when you ask where something is situated the answer is “over there” with a point in that direction. Now you or I might say “over there” when something actually is over there, but in Asia “over there” means “walk 700 metres in that direction, then make a hard right followed by two lefts and another right and two more lefts, then spin in a circle while hopping on one foot until a taxi comes along and you take that taxi for eight miles, swim across a river, get onto the Ferris Wheel at the circus and from the top of the Ferris Wheel you can see across the border into the next country, and that is where you need to be.”

After getting my ticket (150 Yuan!) I walked (and walked and walked) to the entrance. All along the way were the tour guides trying to intercept visitors. “Do you need a tour guide?” “No thank you.” 'This is a very big museum, even Chinese people need a tour guide.” “No thank you, I'm fine.” “No, you need a tour guide.” After ten of those, all saying exactly the same lines, you are starting to say “no thank you” through gritted teeth. After thirty of them you are saying “no I do not need a god-damn tour guide!” and after forty you are looking around for some sort of bludgeoning instrument. To be honest, I didn't get much from the Terracotta Warriors. They sort of reminded me of The Autons, but otherwise not anywhere near as inspiring as I had thought they'd be. I did the pits backwards, starting with Pit 3 which is the lesser of the three (I probably would have just filled it back in if I'd found it in my garden), then Pit 2 which is still largely an archaeological dig in process but also contains interesting displays of artifacts as well as a jade shop which I thought was a bit of a tacky add-on, and finally Pit 1 which is the famous one, the one the size of an aircraft hangar with rows and rows of life-size terracotta warriors.

I might have enjoyed the museum a bit more if it wasn't for all the people pushing and shoving and basically having no concern for anything except their own wants. I try to be considerate towards others, but China makes it really difficult. With over a billion people there's no room for patience and personal space, and I'm already getting a bit sick of the lack of common decency exhibited by most people. I totally sympathise with all those decapitating cannibal murderers now.

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Comments

[Peter Ericsson]

buildings
I am not interested in buildings very much. But my visit to the Chinese Wall ranks right up there. It was simply overwhelming to imagine how this enormous structure had come about for such a long time ago. Once you know the history and let your mind imagine things it brings about awesomeness! C