Xi'an, China
July 31, 2004
Home to the famous Terracotta Soldiers, Yang Jia and I went
here hoping they'd live
up to the hype. They didn't exactly, but at least we saw this eighth wonder
of the world
(self proclaimed of course). The city was a pretty gritty place so we only spent
a day there.
We took the public bus from the station 45 minutes out to the
Terracotta Soldier site.
The site was discovered under a farmers field in the 1970's and has since become
China's claim to archeological fame. There are 3 specific sites, the largest
of which has
6000 soldiers, but the smallest of which only has 68. They are exactly
what
you've always heard about, nothing more, nothing less. That's cool, but
the Chinese
government charges an exorbitant amount of money and has dwarfed the importance
of the actual soldiers with massive imposing buildings that detract immensely
from the soldiers
inside. I tried to block out the surrounding building when taking pictures,
but included
it in a few to show how obnoxious it is.
Yang Jia and I felt it a shame the government doesn't put as
much money into public areas of China.
(I thought this was a communist state... for the people...)
Xi'an itself was an overly polluted, dirty place. We spent
the rest of the day in the city,
but couldn't see anything worth staying for overnight and decided to head towards
Shanghai.
This is the smallest site of soldiers which is thought to be
the highest rank. You can see
they used to carry weapons, which were real... Some were stolen by a new dynasty
which
disrespected the emperor to whom this was dedicated. And the remaining
have been
removed from public view and stored elsewhere in the museum buildings.
Each soldier
was also painted accurately, but the paint has fallen away over time.
Their missing heads
and some shattered statures are mostly due to occasional earthquakes in this
region of
China, but the sites that were raided by the new dynasty also smashed a fair
number
of heads and bodies while looting the weapons and setting fire to the sites.
This is the main site with 6000 soldiers
Around Xi'an
This is the common fire fighting method employed everywhere in China and Tibet.
Lack of a central
water system means fire hydrants are non-existent, so dozens of fire-extinguishers
are the only alternative.
Delicious street food
Kid getting a ride to market
Peaches and sunflower seeds
Street food in the Muslim quarter