There’s nothing after a hot day of climbing the Great Wall of China than to head back into town and get into a refreshing . . . train. Actually, I can think of several things more refreshing than a train, but since we were determined to see all of China’s cultural relics in as little time as possible, a train was what we got. Another overnight train, to be specific – this one from Beijing to Xi’an.
One of the things that Des and I really liked about our trip was that Beijing and Xi’an are, in many ways, the opposite of Shanghai: ancient, storied, and steeped in cultural history. Shanghai, by contrast, is a thoroughly modern metropolis with practically no history at all – it wasn’t even a walled city until 1553. Of course, it's got to mean something that one of the upstart young settlements in China is twice as old as some people's whole country.
The first amazing thing that we were taken to see was the famous Wild Goose Pagoda, built at the beginning of the 6th century by Empress Wu in honor of the monk Xuanzang. No doubt you’re nodding your heads in recognition right now. The Pagoda (so named because – no joke – a bunch of wild geese once flew by it) is actually a large compound containing not only the pagoda, but also a library, temple, art museum, interpretive center, some very nice bathrooms, and a few dozen Buddhist monks. It was all pretty enough, but I mostly spent a lot of time wandering around, looking at the extremely extensive embossed brass paneling that detailed the life and enlightenment of Xuanzang and trying to figure out what on earth was going on. So now he’s on an elephant – and who are these women with what look like laser beams shooting out of their heads? – and why is this guy on fire? If anyone from the Wild Goose Pagoda interpretive center is reading this, please! Put some of those signs in English!
As thrilling as the legendary Wild Goose Pagoda was, however, surely there can hardly be a greater artifact of Chinese cultural heritage than The Terra Cotta Soldiers™ (yes, I know, I said all the same stuff about the Wall last week. I’m telling you, that’s what it’s like to travel in China!). So famous are the crumbled members of this army that you can buy terra cotta warriors of all shapes and sizes virtually everywhere. In Xi’an, however, the marketing of these earthen individuals is particularly egregious. Before we could be taken to the actual tomb of Qin Shi Huang and see the actual army which he actually ordered to be built for him, we first had to go to the Terra Cotta Soldiers™ Factory, from which millions of warriors, great and small, pour forth every year. Several thousand of those warriors, I estimate, were thrust under my nose to the shouted chorus of “Three dollar! Very nice!” As an aside, it’s always bad when you’re quoted prices in USD. Very bad.
Having escaped from the factory with my wallet unscathed, however, (much to the chagrin of the factory workers) we made our way to the tomb, which we learned is an active dig site where archaeologists (who must have had the day off when we were there) are busily extracting the remainder of the army. It was not really what I had expected, and though I very much enjoyed it, I suspect that Desiree was a bit disappointed. “I thought it would be underground,” she said more than once. “This is just like a big gym.” Which, in all fairness, it was. It was like a big, hot gym crowded with thousands of people and a few hundred priceless relics.
The warriors themselves, though rather farther away than I would have liked, were just as interesting as I had imagined. Indeed, the whole tomb was amazing – Qin Shi Huang (whom you may remember from earlier posts was the first emperor of unified China) ordered construction to begin the year after his ascension to the throne of the Qin kingdom, at the tender young age of 22, which seems to me to be a bit young to be pondering your ultimate demise. Maybe he was just morbid.
At any rate, it seems that one can have quite an impressive tomb built if one is willing to wait for thirty-six years. In fact, the only Qin building that rivaled his tomb was reputed to be his five-kilometer-long palace, which was unfortunately burned shortly after his death. The Terra Cotta guys aren't all of the mausoleum -- not by a long shot. It seems that Qin's actual resting place (the central mound of which the pottery army is only a fringe decoration) was built as a miniature replica of his earthly kingdom, complete with jeweled constellations studding the roof and flowing rivers of mercury. I was crushed to learn that this central tomb has not yet been excavated, although the archaeologists' scanning devices (X-rays, ultrasonic rays, Ouija boards, or who knows what) have given them some confidence that the tomb is undisturbed. Of course, the automated poison crossbow traps (not kidding) may have helped with that.
It is rather ironic, though, that a man as capable and ambitious as Qin Shi Huang should have met such an end. He survived numerous assassination attempts, but this king of kings, who was such a tyrant that he tried to burn all the books and execute all the scholars in all of China, apparently died from swilling mercury pills that his court doctors hoped would make him immortal.
Now, his big fancy tomb is swarmed every day by zillions of camera-wielding tourists and local entrepreneurs hoping to make a quick buck selling replicas of the replicas of the soldiers that he condemned to guard him for all eternity. Kind of funny, really.
Dave
