2/3 Xian Tour Day 1: Terra Cotta Army of the Great Emperor Qin

A LOT has happened since February. It's March now and above I've made note of the dates in the title on which these events happened. So let me catch up.

I awoke at around 8am in my hotel room in preparation for a tour I booked. It was a much brighter, much more beautiful day. Cold but clear. Today, I would be visiting some attractions first on the list of course being the Terra Cotta Warriors of the great Emperor Qin Shihuang, uniter of China. All I knew of Qin was from a fictional Jet Li movie called Hero where Jet Li was a hired assassin to take out the Emperor Qin who used extremely violent tactics (as one can imagine) to unite the many states of China into one. That was probably likely the only fact that was true in the movie, the rest of it revolving around physics-defying martial arts and beautiful digitally-altered scenery and landscapes.

I had brushed up on a very short book that went through major point periods of each dynasty from the Xia dynasty, the first dynasty of China in 1600 BC, to President Xi Jinping's rule of today. It was a cursory summary of all of the dynastic periods. I wanted to know a bit of the history rather than walking around completely ignorant of what I was looking at though I'm sure the tour guide would fill in some of the blanks.

I walked down into the hotel lobby and saw my tour guide. Being I was the only American in the place, he recognized me faster than I him. He was a rather tall guy, slightly husky wearing a blue bubble jacket that seemed a popular style in China and jeans. His hair stood up every which way and he had a rather bewildered look about him. He had thick black rimmed glasses and a round face. He wore a backpack. He looked like a book nerd that the wind blew in and he was confused as to how he got here.

"Are you Rasheeda?" he asked in crisp, clear English with just a hint of a Chinese accent.

"Yes," I replied.

He shook my hand. "Hi, my name is Thunk. I'll be your tour guide today. Our car is just right outside."

We walked out. "I was wondering if I had the wrong hotel. The staff doesn't speak any English here. Are you here at a convention for work?" he asked.

"Oh no, I'm here by myself." He seemed surprised. I explained to him how I was really an English teacher on holiday for the Chinese New Year and just wanted to travel.

"I found the hotel on a site called C-Trip and it actually said they had English speaking staff. So imagine my surprise when I came in and no one did. We managed to communicate through phone translation apps," I explained with a laugh.

"This is in a great location. It's a really good hotel. Usually most tourists are outside of town and we have to go kind of far."

I took pride kind of realizing I accidentally stumbled upon a native favorite.

As we drove, Thunk asked me the usual questions about myself and then explained where we were going and what we'd be doing that day. We would start off at the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit followed by the Cave Dwelling and then the Xian Great City Wall then the Muslim Quarter and The Great Mosque.

I signed up for a two day tour so the next day would be 2 museums followed by a rather famous Buddhist temple/pagoda.

Thunk also pointed out famous buildings and sites along the way and told me a little about the city and himself. He was newly married and from Xian originally. He had been working as a tour guide for 7 years and had been pretty much everywhere in China but returned to Xian for good once he got married. He told me about the rich, long history of Xian. It was the oldest city in China and marked the beginning of Chinese history. It had held in this small city, 13 dynasties, over 72 emperors and had contained only 2 intact Emperor tombs. Qin and another one actually being an Empress whose name escapes me.

Xian was also originally the capital before Beijing because it was placed in an area surrounded by mountains to protect from nomadic tribes from coming in trying to conquer it. Because of it's location by a water basin and the addition of the current air pollution problem, there are only 100 sunny days in Xian, which explains the overcast, kind of dirty feel the city had when I entered.

One of the reasons I had really wanted to come to this city was because of the deep roots of Chinese history it had. Since I've arrived in China I was really excited to dig into the historical aspect of its culture.

Thunk did not disappoint as a tour guide. We talked about native foods (I had found out some popular dishes from a teacher back in Wuxi that did some research for me) where he offered to have me try some later and he explained some of the development Xian was undergoing in terms of construction. One of the most interesting points Thunk pointed out was the housing market.

"A lot of the old homes are being renovated by the government. People will buy up  a lot of the houses and not live in them. So you have entire towns with lots of homes but no one lives in them. It's like ghost towns." Thunk explained.

As China developed more areas people would buy extra properties while it was cheap and then sell when the area market got hot. Because of this the government started limiting property ownership which then affected the marriage rates. If you were married you were only allowed to have 2 properties between the couples but if you were not married you were allowed to have 3. So people would get divorced just for the sake of buying more properties and then remarry so they could keep the properties they had and sell off more.

Thunk explained how this made it more competitive to be a bachelor in China.

"Because of the 1 child policy, the ratio of men to women is 160:110. And a lot of women won't marry you if you don't have a nice place," he explained, "And before you marry, you have to buy a new place or the girl's mother usually won't let you get married. I had to buy a new place before I got married so I could get my wife's family's approval."

"Basically, the mother-in-laws control the housing market," he joked.

We pulled into Qin's Mausoleum. It was cold and slightly crowded with mostly family and kids.

"You came at the best time," Thunk said, "Usually the lines are really long and it takes a long time to get in. This is off-season so it's perfect." He said the peak seasons usually occur in May and October/November and that approximately 10 million tourists come through Xian each year.

We would enter into 3 parts of the tomb. The first being more popular because it contained the most soldiers and usually where people took photos.

The 1st of the tombs

Terra Cotta Archer

2nd tomb with high ranking officials

The detail of the soldiers was amazing. Thunk explained from the first day of each emperor's rule, statues of his staff are immediately made. Each statue takes approximately 8 months to create by hand. Emperor Qin's tomb itself was never found. The staff of Qin had melted tons of incredibly potent mercury and poured it into the tunnels where Qin's tomb was buried. It's rumored Qin is still floating around somewhere in this hot riverbed of mercury underground. Archaeologists think they found the area he may be burried as the soil tested really high in a particular area for mercury content, but it is too dangerous to dig up as the mercury is 200 times its usual potency and no one can figure out how they made it so potent.

Qin actually died around the age of 50 and while his oldest was supposed to be next, his advisers killed the oldest and kept the youngest so as to easily manipulate executive decisions and rule through him. Qin was also the first to create the first Chinese currency which was a round gold coin with a square hole in the middle.

Thunk explained that in Chinese culture a circle means 'heaven' and a square means 'earth'.

"If you ever looked at chopsticks do you notice how the tip is circular and the top is square?," he asked.

 I said I did.

"That's symbolic of heaven and earth," he explained, "Heaven and earth are connected."

Other interesting facts Thunk revealed were things like drilling a hole in an empty turtle shell, placing lit paper inside and using the heat cracks to tell the future and if it was a good time to engage in war. The coating of oxidated chromium they used to preserve the sharpness of their weapons is something archaeologists still don't know how they were able to obtain such a metal in ancient times. And also how the ancient Chinese also built pyramids very similar to the Egyptians but the two cultures never met nor crossed paths.

We went on to the next two tombs that had less as they were being still excavated. The last one being the least touched as the paint on the soldiers was still intact. They were waiting on better technology to be able to preserve the paint on the statues as it becomes damage and flakes off once the statues are dug up and are exposed to the air.

We left to go to a cave dwelling which is an actual home of a real person rooted deep into a steep hillside. It was a well-insulated area where a woman and her child came to live during the winter time. The one bed in a small room had a small furnace actually underneath it to keep it warm. It had been in the woman's family for 100 years and over 5 generations. She was a frail woman, thin, middle-aged with long, black stringy hair and bony hands. She was smiling proudly of it as Thunk explained how such dwellings are still popular. The dwelling was two rooms, the single bed with 1 bed and the second room was a stony area with just a desk with a picture of her family. It was even warmer back there and it was already a cold day about 40 degrees. It was the warmest I'd been as the terra cotta exhibit was mostly outside.

 Bed with small wooden door aka furnace

 back of cave dwelling 2nd area

We went to lunch afterwards at a touristy hotel where I had beef and broccoli and some mushroom soup and delicious tea called Guangyin which Thunk says the best of its tea leaves are on the summit of a a mountain that only trained monkeys are able to reach.

"I don't know if that's true or not." Thunk admitted.

I often hear tales from natives that seem like fiction and after the tale is relayed, often the storyteller admits not knowing if it's truth (it usually isn't). There is a constant blur between folklore, beliefs and truth. I take most of the tales with a grain of salt.

There was a wedding reception going on that Thunk pointed out. He explained how there's usually a lot of waste at such receptions. There are 8 hot dishes and 8 cold dishes for everyone (8 means wealth and is good luck in China) and most people obviously can't eat 16 dishes.

Next was the Xian City Wall, the Muslim mosque and market all of which were close together. Muslims in China are one of the larger minority groups in China. With over 93% being Han Chinese and the rest split between minority groups.

China is big on walls as it was a huge defense against nomadic tribes and invaders. So almost every major city has a wall or some semblance of a wall and being that Xian was a capital at one point, you can imagine the importance of one. It was put up in the Ming Dynasty. It was a bit hazy but made for a beautiful eery quality.

We looked out beyond the wall and Thunk pointed out the buildings outside of the wall were taller than the inside buildings which were much older and where older citizens still resided in the small homes. A lot of the homes, however, were being bought out by the government for renovation. Thunk talked about how much Xian has changed even within the last 10-15 years.

His father's salary was 100 times that then when he retired as a laborer then when he first started working for the company which at the time the rate was only about 40 yuan a day.
"Years ago when my dad was younger it used to be 1.5 yuan for a Chinese hamburger," Thunk said, testifying to the rapid growth of China, "Now it's 15 yuan."

We meandered through a marketplace and came upon a beautiful temple. It was somewhat strange seeing Chinese dressed in traditional Muslim garb but it was beautiful. Thunk explained the traditions, how they pray facing Mecca and showed me a Confucian structure which he said is a traditional fixture for all temples and how those who applied for statehood positions and passed were greeted on these structures.

 Muslim mosque

 Muslim Mosque

 Confucian structure to reward new state officials

The marketplace was filled with foods and music and shops with Muslim cooks and shopkeepers shouting out to passerbys to sell their wares. Thunk pointed out the exotic foods and told me what they were and how they were made.

 Muslim Quarter Marketplace

After the tour, I later headed out that night and the market place was even beautiful as you would see there were lights strung all across the market streets where it was even more crowded with tourists and locals. The smoke wafting from outdoor grills clouding the night air slightly with the smells of hot meat. From the street are two structures, the Drum Tower and Bell Tower which look beautiful at night.

 Bell Tower

 Drum Tower

 Souvenirs in Muslim Marketplace

I purchased a few terra cotta trinkets and a small makeup bag for my mother and a few friends and headed back to the hotel in preparation for day 2 of the tour.