The view out our hotel window of a big industrial city

The grounds where the Terra Cotta Warriors were found and are displayed

The First Emperor’s chariot

A panorama of the Pit One museum area

Moss and Squeekie inside Pit One

Three of Squeekie’s close-up shots of the restored soldiers in Pit One





One of Moss’ pictures of the formations from Pit Three

The last living farmer of the group who discovered the Terra Cotta Warriors while digging a well in 1974—he signed our guide book

The small hill just to the right of center in this picture is the mausoleum of Qin Shihuangdi; near the Terra Cotta Warriors but virtually untouched due to mercury poisoning
The Wild Goose Pagoda rises in the background; notice the slight tilt to left due to earthquakes

The gilded Buddha inside the Wild Goose Pagoda; the swastika on his chest was an Asian symbol of good luck long before the Nazis corrupted it

The cute little dog the Squeekie photographed at the Buddhist pagoda

The Bazaar near the Greater Mosque in the old district of Xian

A panorama of the forecourt of the Greater Mosque in Xian
The Drum Tower in old Xian, once used to announce the time

The show we saw at the Tang Dynasty restaurant


Forty-sixth Day (Friday, March 6, 2009)-- Xian (pronounced Shee-ahn) is where we woke up this morning. As I looked out the 14th floor window of our hotel room, I saw a city waking up that was much different from what I had expected based upon my recollection of what Mom and Dad had seen back in the ‘Eighties. Xian is big and modern—at least in the city core where we were located. The hotel where we were staying, the Shangri-La, is modern and magnificent, apparently rated at five stars. The city over which I looked was modern and filled with high rises, with plenty of evidence of new construction underway everywhere.
Unfortunately, we had an accident with our electrical conversion equipment this morning, and in the process destroyed both the transformer and the multiple-socket extension cord I brought from home for the computers and my breathing machine. I was able to obtain a replacement from the hotel that will suffice for China, but what will we do afterward?

As we munched our in-room breakfast we prepared for an early departure. We boarded the bus at 8:30, and drove through a city that was still going to work for the day. It was interesting to observe a city that was far different than what I had expected it to be like. Based upon what I remembered of Mom and Dad’s description of Xian from the 1980s, I had expected to encounter an industrial city closer to the image of Maoist China than what we found. Almost no-one—even very poor people—still wore the Mao hat and blue jacket that was so symbolic of the old days of Communist China. There was no lingering evidence of Communist poverty and the destructions of the Cultural Revolution. The air pollution—mainly from burning coal it appears—IS still strong, so much so that it reminded me (in terms of eye pain and difficulty of breathing) of Los Angeles on a bad day in the late 1950s. I commented to Squeekie that it would be interesting to look at Mom’s pictures from that old trip and draw some comparisons. Everything seemed to be so different than from what I had expected because I simply did not realize just how much China has grown up in the last twenty years. . . . Of course, a good deal of change has been brought by the discovery of the Terra Cotta Warriors—they turned Xian almost overnight from a dirty industrial city into a dirty tourist magnet. From a city unused to tourists it has become one of the major tourist focuses in China, a nation that has only felt comfortable attracting tourists for the last decade or so.

We drove out of the city into the countryside. It was interesting to see the loess deposits which had made this region so central to China’s early history; I have talked about this stuff to World Civilisation classes at Fullerton for a dozen years now, and at last I got to see for myself what it means and looks like. (Loess, a fine, powdery, dust-like dirt deposit is dominant in the region around Xian; it is composed of dust blown in from hundreds of miles west, in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. The loess region was the starting place for Chinese culture in the third millennium BC. Although the area today is mostly farmland, in early times it was thickly forested.) Despite the fact that there was intense farming in the rural areas once we left town, there also were several places where railway installations were present, and I got to see one freight train in operation as we drove out to where the Warriors’ Museum was located. There was evidence of upgrading construction to accommodate high speed passenger trains, but at the same time, in the outskirts of the city of Xian I also saw evidence of freight trackage having been abandoned.

The museum grounds where the Terra Cotta warriors were found are vast in size and beautifully presented, with lovely buildings and well-offered grounds. It was a real benefit that we were able to drive our bus right onto the grounds and not be forced to walk the nearly 2 kilometers from the front gate to the actual museum pits. Given that this is a world heritage museum site, and one that fortunately was discovered AFTER the end of the destructions of the Cultural Revolution, it is nonetheless apparent that the Chinese government has spent vast sums on the presentation of the cultural artifacts at this site. There is a grouping of three buildings housing the finds known as “Pit One,” “Pit Two,” and “Pit Three,” along with a museum store, a 360-degree circle theatre, and presentation facilities for the bronze chariots, etc. (See the panorama picture included in this blog.)

After the circular movie, which presented a sanitized history of “the first emperor” (Qin Shihuangdi), we went to see the bronze chariots and then the pits where the warriors were found. I will discuss the history in a moment, but here are the artifacts we saw. First we saw the bronze chariots and attendant horses. They were discovered in 1980 in a site separate from where the warriors were found. Made of cast bronze and representative of very skilled workmanship at the foundry, they are exactly half life size, and were intended to enable Emperor Qin Shihuangdi’s soul to travel through his empire on tours of inspection. The first chariot, known uncreatively as “Chariot Number One,” was the lead or “high” chariot, driven by a high official (some say a General) to lead the way through the land. The second chariot, called the “security” chariot, apparently was the traveling office and living space for the emperor himself, an ancient example of what today we would call an “RV.” These two vehicles, although half-size, demonstrate an artisanal skill with casting techniques that is as technically fine as anything that can be done with modern knowledge.

Then we went to famous “Pit No. One” to visit the Terra Cotta Warriors in their glory. This huge structure provides a roof over an area of 14,000 square meters to protect the uncovered warriors from the weather. These figures, a vast army of men, horses, and weapons intended to protect the tomb of the first emperor, were discovered in March of 1974 by Yang Zhifa and five other villagers while they were digging a water well. After opening to the general public in 1979, these figures quickly became a world-famous archaeological heritage site. Excavations continue at the site, where there are now three major discovery “pits,” and a number of smaller sites as well. Pit One contains about 7,000 terra cotta figures (warriors, horses, chariots, and weaponry) which represent the tactical array of two millennia ago, arranged in a 38 column formation which incorporates a range of soldiers, ranking from general down to lowly private, no two of which are the same! Thousands of real weapons were found in this pit, including swords, spears, halberds, battle axes, crossbows, arrows, and arrowheads. Some of the weapons were oxidized with chromate when they were made, and thus remain shiny and sharp to this day!

Pit No. Two is a slightly smaller (12,000 square meters), L-shaped pit located northeast of Pit One. It contains 89 chariots pulled by 356 horses, and 116 cavalry horses, and 900 various warriors. Pit No. Three is a significantly smaller area containing chariots, guards of honour, and a command centre. What is amazing about this collection of soldiers is that all were created simply to “protect” the nearby mausoleum of the First Emperor (see historical note at the end of this blog entry), Qin Shihuangdi, and yet were made with such tremendous attention to artistic and technical detail that they both show the artisanal skill of Chinese workmen of that era and tell of the military practices of the times. They were placed underground in tile-floored, wooden-walled structures that were roofed with beam-and-mat ceilings designed to withstand weight and water. Most of the pits revealed a great deal of damage to the warriors, which initially surprised me because I did not know of this. Bodies and structures were broken, chipped, knocked over, and otherwise damaged and removed from their original order. At first I was uncertain why this was, thinking that perhaps this upset represented the result of two millennia of decay, but soon enough I learned that the damage was done within a decade of the completion of the mausoleum during the peasant rebellion led by Ling Bang which overthrew the Qin Dynasty. Apparently the peasants broke into the various warrior locations and did what damage they could, including in some cases burning out the roof structures. In a way this damage was beneficial in the long run because it contributed to the preservation of what remained.

In between visits to the various pits Squeek and I stopped in at the museum store where we purchased some stuff—model warriors, books, etc. Sitting quietly at a desk over at one side of the bookstore was an elderly man (I didn’t get his name) who was the last living member of the group who had discovered the warriors back in 1974. I was able to get him to autograph my guidebook, and Squeekie took his picture (despite signs prohibiting doing so).

So at last I was able to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. Maybe now I will feel more confident—and speak with greater enthusiasm—when I deliver the lecture on the emergence of Chinese civilization at my Cal State Fullerton “World Civ” classes. It certainly means more to me, now!

After our visit to the warriors (reluctantly) came to a close, we drove back into Xian and had lunch at the Tang Dynasty restaurant where also later we would have dinner. Then we were driven to a jade “factory” which was just a camouflaged store to get us to buy stuff. Indeed there was some good quality jewelry there and I purchased some items for Squeekie for her birthday, which will come up before the end of our cruise. Squeek also bought some silk fabric.

Then the bus took us to an important Buddhist temple in Xian, known as the Wild Goose Pagoda. Lin, who has proven to be a marvelous (and not necessarily pro-Communist) tour guide, told me that since 1980 the government has tolerated expressions of faith, and in addition has spent money on the restoration of old religious structures.

The Wild Goose Pagoda and Ci’en Temple is located just outside the city core of Xian. It was built in 648 AD by then-Crown Prince Li Zhi who built the temple initially to celebrate his mother. The primary interest in this Buddhist temple comes from the fact that it was selected to house the vast documentation on Buddhism brought back from India by noted monk Xuan Zang in the early seventh century AD. This monk is important because much of what he brought back from India has great historical value—a generation after his visit Islam came to India and Muslims did everything they could to destroy all memory of Buddha and the religion which grew from his teachings. If Xuan Zang had not preserved these documents in far away China, much would have been lost forever. It is of interest several dozen earthquakes of Magnitude Seven or greater have shaken Xian since the Wild Goose Pagoda was built; the pagoda noticeably leans a bit but still stands, as our tour guide proudly pointed out. While we were photographing this interesting site, Squeekie came across a cute little Chinese dog which she added to our picture collection.

After the visit to the Buddhist pagoda our bus took us into the heart of old Xian. Adjacent to the old Drum Tower (built in 1380 from which drum beats once announced the time of day) there is a warren of narrow alley ways and old buildings, today largely operating as a Bazaar market area. In the heart of this complex there lies what may be the oldest building in town to survive without any significant restoration. It is the Greater Mosque, apparently built during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), when Islam managed to arrive in Western China (although a major defeat of Islamic military forces in 742 AD prevented the Muslim religion from overwhelming Imperial China). We entered through an ancient wooden gate structure and walked through two large courtyards. One stone tablet there, carved in Arabic, helps Chinese Muslims to calculate dates in the Muslim calendar; another tablet tells of some repairs during the Ming Dynasty. As it was Friday afternoon when we visited this building, Chinese Muslims were assembling for prayer, so we could not visit the interior. But it was interesting to see this ancient structure which looks unlike any other mosque I have ever seen. There is no evidence of Arabic architecture; even the towers from which the calls to prayer are announced are of Ming architecture not Arabic. It was very interesting to see Chinese-appearing men wearing Muslim hats on their way to prayer; I learned that those who wore white hats had made the Haij pilgrimage to Mecca. While we were in this one area we all felt as though we were in “Old” China, from Imperial times before the tragedies of the Twentieth Century.

We then returned to the hotel for a brief rest before we went back to the Tang Dynasty restaurant for dinner and a very interesting show. It was late to bed tonight after a VERY full day. Tomorrow it is off to the Great Wall.

An historical interlude about the first emperor-- Qin Shihuangdi (lived 259-213 BC) is known in Chinese history as “the first emperor.” Prior to his rule, those in charge had been called kings (or sometimes “dukes”) as translated into Western terminology. At the time Qin came to power there was no unified China, rather six smaller countries which had been in nearly constant warfare with each other for the better part of 500 years (this is called the “Era of the Warring States”). He developed and trained a superior military force and undertook to conquer all of the neighbouring states; by 221 BC he was successful in doing so, and at that time adopted the title of “emperor.” Qin understood that his new nation could not just be unified by military action; some cultural bonds had to be made as well. Exercising the absolute power that would be typical of Chinese Emperors right up until the end of imperial rule in 1912, Qin decreed unifying elements. Among these were: a standardized system of weights, measures, and money for the entire nation; a standardized calligraphy with which to write Chinese words (no matter how they were pronounced in the many local languages and dialects); standardized widths for carriage wheels and axles; a network of roads and canals; and construction of the first “Great Wall” sections to defend the northern border of his empire. Qin also believed that the philosophy known as “Legalism” should be the only accepted life-style and political management philosophy; he ordered the destruction of manuscripts of all other systems, including Confucianism and, when that was insufficient, pushed for the execution of non-Legalist scholars all over his empire. He also demanded that Legalism be used as the basis of his law codes, with such forcefulness that death penalties were enforced for virtually all transgressions of the law.

Qin Shihuangdi was, however, afraid of death, and the Terra Cotta Warriors are a reflection of that. He did not wish to die, and spent much time and effort seeking ways (through scholarship, medicine, or magic) to avoid his own demise. If that could not be prevented, he finally determined, then his post-death “life” must be provided with all the benefits he enjoyed in life, such as a large army to protect his soul and his mausoleum (that’s what the Terra Cotta Warriors were intended to do), vehicles with which his soul could tour his empire, and a mausoleum so magnificent that every other creature or spirit would be duly humbled. The need to demonstrate his power—and the skills of his military and his artisans—is why so much time and money was spent is creating the warriors we see today.

Qin Shihuangdi’s mausoleum (his burial site) is less than a mile from where the Terra Cotta Warriors were found. There is a 600-foot high hill overlooking the site; it looks natural but is in fact an artificial creation housing the first emperor’s remains. To date it has not been robbed or opened because it is so filled with mercury poison (from the decorations made for the emperor’s enjoyment in death) that modern archaeologists are reluctant to enter.