Bu yao - China part III
Sorry about the delay, my faithful readers (or at least my guest readers that have started reading just for the trip!). Blogger was down yesterday for quite some time and therefore I couldn’t post the promised stories. Never fear, we’re back. AND in the intervening time my mom, the flash-happy queen, has sent me her pictures. All 800+ of them. Our journey will now be supplemented by many many more photos!
Today, before we start on our tour of Xi’an, it might be a good time to introduce to you some of the members of our group. It was a relatively small group since China Focus has been known to have up to 25 or more in a group before, but 13 to me was a nice number, enough where we could get to know some people and not so large that we’re always waiting on someone. I will point out there was one small flaw in this, which is that you’re always going to get to know your tour group at meals. These are the times when everyone is doing the same thing. Not everyone is going to climb the Wall, or stroll to the same houses in the Forbidden City, but everyone has to eat. Well, since my parents are the ones who took us on this trip, that made 5 of us – 3 Wongs, 2 Coopers. Most tables can’t accommodate more than about 7 which meant that we were stuck with only 2 new people at every meal while everyone else was mingling. I think we did the best we could with what we had, though.
As with a lot of tour groups (according to our tour guide) the most popular age seemed to be “just retired” or “just about to retire.” People our age (JJ’s and mine) and Bryant’s age seem to be rare. Our group was actually a bit of an exception. Our ages ranged from 19 to 91. I’m not kidding. Gene is 91, his wife Pat is 82. She’s been to China before. As far as their story goes, he lost his wife a few years ago, and she lost her husband. They lived next door to each other. Friendship turned to compatibility turned to marriage. This trip was their 1 year anniversary present to each other. Katherine is 19. She’s a sophomore at Columbia University. She is the girl that every gamer boy wishes he could have. Her boyfriend is VERY lucky. Katherine and her mom, Elisa, came on the trip together. Elisa and her younger daughter, Allison, had been on a different China Focus tour 5 years prior. These two had what JJ and I called the “perfect attitude.” They embraced the culture and the life wholeheartedly and enjoyed it immensely. You’ll see what we mean as we get further into the tour and I have the photos to prove it! The last 4 of our party we never got to know all that well, Dana and Leonard and Chuck and Vonnie. The extent of mingling with them usually came at breakfast (which was on our own) and if we ran into each other during free time at a sightseeing destination. Mostly we spent our time with Elisa and Katherine and my brother and my parents.
Now on with the tour . . .
Today we're going to Xi'an to see the famed Terra Cotta Warriors. These warriors were built by the Emperor, Qin Shi Huang who ascended to the throne at the age 13 in 246 BC. When Emperor Qin Shi Huang became, shall we say, painfually aware of his mortality he had his servants build his mausoleum, facing the East. Guarding this mausoleum, he built over 8000 Terra Cotta soldiers, modeled after his REAL LIFE soldiers. Each of these 8000 soldiers is completely different from the soldier standing next to him. Complete with facial expressions, facial hair and so on. It took over 11 years for the Emperor's terra cotta army to be built and in that time, 8000 full size soldiers, a number of horse drawn carts, and the emperor's tomb were completed. During the raids that followed the emperor's reign, the original terra cotta warriors were beaten, trampled, and broken and in the years that followed, were buried in layers of earth.
In 1974 three Chinese farmers were digging a well outside of Xi'an province when they found pieces of something that didn't look quite right. At first they tossed the pieces aside, thinking nothing of them. But as they continued to excavate the site of the well, they kept finding more pieces. So they put the pieces in a wheel barrow and took them to the government. The government, recognizing that these pieces were not just junk, thanked the farmers for discovering what might be a piece of history and gave them 37 yuan to share between the three of them. **If you remember, the conversion rate is about 8 to 1. The three farmers who discovered the terra cotta warriors shared between them just over 4 dollars and 50 cents!!**
Today, the museum that houses the terra cotta warriors has 3 pits and covers over 16,000 square feet. The excavation has been overtaken by archaeologists who have recreated the position and figures to the best of their knowledge. The first pit is the largest and has both soldiers and war chariots. The third pit appears to have been the brains of the whole terra cotta works, complete with officials and generals. Now, let's take a look at these famous guys!
From the first pit. You can see the expanse of the biggest pit here.
If you look carefully you can see what I'm talking about with the individual soldiers. The two soldiers standing next to each other are distinctly different.
Here you can see their army-style arrangement. The story goes that the emperor wanted these terra cotta soldiers to protect his tomb. His original plan had been to bury the real soldiers with him when he died! His top advisors talked him out of THAT ... saying it wouldn't be fair to the real soldiers to end their lives that way.
This just proves we were there ... you know, that I didn't pull these pictures off the internet. ;-)
After leaving the soldiers, we went to see one of Xi'an's famed culinary accomplishments, part I. Xi'an is famous for hand cut and hand made noodles. Noodles are important in Chinese cuisine because they symbolize long life. We NEVER EVER cut noodles at the table in Chinese tradition because, well if noodles symbolize long life and you take a hack at it, it's rather horrifying. You should have seen my face the first time JJ sliced up his spaghetti at the table! That aside, for lunch, following the Terra Cotta warriors we went to a small restaurant that made noodles as their specialty. The longer the noodles the longer the life, and the idea is to try and eat the noodles without breaking them. See how we did! The noodles were so long that 8 noodles made up a whole plateful! Just 8!
Katherine does her best!
JJ did finally do the noodle in. He had to chew though. Or he would have choked. I cheated (unintentionally). My noodle had folded itself in half. I finished a little quicker.
Following the wonderful noodles at lunch we had some free time to do a little shopping. Then we went to a dinner theatre to have Xi'an's other culinary accomplishment - dumplings! We didn't take any photos they were so good. But we had 16 courses of dumplings ranging from dumplings shaped like little mice full of rice noodles, to dumplings that were made of fish, to dumplings that both looked like pumpkins and were full of pumpkin. Then we watched a traditional Tang dynasty show. And we did take pictures of THAT.
These are all from the show that took us through the 4 seasons. It was lovely.
The next morning we finished up our tour in Xi'an with a trip to a lacquer factory and to the largest and one of the most famous of Buddhist temples - the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. It is one of the largest pagodas in China. But first the lacquer and silk-carpets factory.
Like many of the other wares in China, everything here is painstakingly handmade. Silk carpet weaving is becoming a lost art because of the technique and concentration it takes. Silk carpets come in a variety of densities. The more knots per row, the more luxurious the carpet. Normally available densities range from 150, to 300, 500, and 800 knots per row. We did get to see one that was 1000 knots per row but that is very rare. To put it in perspective though, it can take a carpet weaver working 8 hours a day a full day to weave a single row in a carpet. It will take a carpet weaver 4 or 5 months to finish a carpet that is 150 knots in density and is 2 feet by 3 feet. It can take an experienced weaver over a year to finish a carpet that is 800 knots per row and is 2 by 3 feet in size. In a weaver's lifetime, she will probably only make 1, maybe 2, 800 knot density carpets. Now, ready to see something incredible? We found this carpet hanging on the wall. It's 14 feet by 200 feet. It has a density of 500 knots. I cannot even imagine how long it would have taken a carpet weaver to make this masterpiece. It was the only one of its size and density in the store.
We tried to line up to make it more obvious how enormous it is. I don't know if it worked.
In the same factory there were handmade lacquerwares (is that what you call it?). Everything is handmade and painted by hand. Lacquer is harvested from trees and cultured so that it's perfect. Lookit all the beautiful work. Everything is handcrafted - the painting is done by hand and the pieces are inlaid with mother-of-pearl, abalone shell, or other natural stones.
This piece, which is a replica of a piece that is only for show and not for sale, has a retail value of 1.9 million American dollars. It's not for sale but they were asked at the factory so often how much it was worth that they put a tag on it.
Following the factory, the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.
And then lunch. Here you can see the guy ACTUALLY MAKING noodles! He never used a single tool except to cut the large chunks of dough into smaller pieces of dough. But all of the winding, twisting, and pulling was done by hand. And immediately after the noodles were pulled, they were popped into boiling water, and poured into perfectly seasoned soup. YUM.
And that's it for Xi'an everyone. Tomorrow we'll travel to Guilin, famous for it's beautiful scenery. We'll take a riverboat cruise and after a long day, get a therapeutic foot massage. Sorry this one was a little long, it was a busy day and a half! After Guilin, we will take a short pause to discuss the culture outside of sightseeing. We'll talk about the hello-people, the traffic, the air and the quality of life. Then we will return to the tour - we will see SuZhou and visit a silk factory, see some of the most beautiful gardens in the country, and take a cruise on a boat in the Venice of the Orient. Thanks for coming along for the ride so far!