Just a note to say that I’m safe at home, and even mostly recovered from jet lag and the cold I brought back from China. I have given up on catching up the blog entries (the places/locations are firmly scrambled in my head), but I have updated my website – see http://www.travelingtiger.com/travelingtiger/china/china.htm.
Enjoy!
We went to Hua Shan (Flower Mountain) day before yesterday, and climbed partway up one of the peaks. Hua Shan is a mountain near Xi’an, that makes me finally understand all those Chinese brush paintings with trees growing from sheer cliffs on craggy mountains. I’d never seen trees growing from small crevices in sheer walls before, but Hua Shan is full of them – soaring walls with vegetation unimaginably clinging to the rock.
The lower sections of Hua Shan (i.e. the ones we visited) are extremely crowded, and full of vendors selling drinks, tourist gewgaws, fake swords, and locks. This seemed counterintuitive to me until I discovered that the mountain was the ancient site of a (legendary?) martial arts competition – martial artists would come from far and wide to compete at the top of the mountain. Thus, the swords.
The locks are another matter. I was completely mystified by this sight along almost every handrail:
The locks are engraved with Chinese characters and decorated with red ribbon, and locked onto the chain. You could see lots of people carrying locks with them.
Why on earth anyone would want to haul a lock up the mountain and then lock it to the chain was bewildering. Mike and I thought it was a “Look, I climbed the peak!” until I finally asked our tour guide, who told us it was a love emblem: the lock is a symbol of love in China, so couples would buy a lock, have their names engraved on it, and then lock it in place on the mountain so the sun and moon could see their love. Very sweet.
Well, Typoon Wipha missed Shanghai, thank goodness. We landed here safely yesterday afternoon, after a half-day spent with the Terra Cotta Soldiers in Xi’an, the ancient capital of China.
The terra cotta soldiers are amazing, both in antiquity and sheer volume. They are part of the tomb of Emperor Qin Shihuang, the first emperor of China, and date back to circa 200 BC (not sure of the dates; Mike is sleeping and I don’t want to disturb him to get the guidebook). Before Emperor Qin Shihuang, China was a set of six warring states; he conquered all the other states, thus unifying China into a single country. He then set about building his tomb (one might almost say “obsessively building his tomb”), which took over 40 years and, together with the Great Wall (another one of his projects) consumed about 1/3 of the GDP of China at the time(!).
The Qin dynasty was not only the first, but also the shortest in China’s history – Emperor Qin Shihuang only lived to about age 50, having unintentionally poisoned himself with mercury in an attempt to correct his yin-yang balance. After his death, his son lasted less than four years before peasant uprisings toppled the Qin dynasty. So the Qin dynasty lasted only about forty years, yet is still significant as the first dynasty, the one that unified China.
Emperor Qin Shihuang, like many other people at the time, believed that one would have an afterlife, and that what was buried with you, went with you into the afterlife. At the time it was not uncommon to bury people alive with a king or emperor (so that they could serve him in the afterlife), and Emperor Qin Shihuang originally intended to bury live soldiers with him in his tomb. Fortunately, his generals talked him out of that one, on the grounds that he would need his soldiers to keep military control of China. (Not to mention the internal revolt that would probably have happened if he had tried to bury a couple of thousand solders alive!) So instead, he had about 7,000 terra cotta soldiers made to go into the afterlife with him. Each of them was exquisitely detailed (you can see the thumbnails and facial details of every soldier, as well as their rank insignia) and beautifully painted. They stood in rank after rank within the tomb, along with bronze chariots, horses, and thousands of bronze weapons.
Unfortunately for history, after the Qin dynasty fell, the rebellious peasants entered the tomb, burned whatever would catch fire, and smashed the terra cotta soldiers into bits. Only one soldier has yet been found intact, a kneeling archer. The tomb collapsed and was forgotten until 1974, when a farmer digging a well unearthed a piece of terra cotta soldier. Since then it’s been excavated, producing the photos I’ll post below.
The kneeling archer:
The pits:
They were organized in neat ranks:
We’re scheduled to fly into Shanghai tomorrow, after seeing the Terra Cotta Soldiers, but I’m guessing there is about a 50% chance that our flight will be canceled. Typhoon Wipha, which is expected to be the worst hurricane to hit China in over 50 year, is due to hit Shanghai tomorrow, probably around the time that our flight arrives, and I can’t think of any worse time to try landing an airplane than in the middle of a hurricane. So I’m pretty worried. I hope the airlines have better sense than to try landing in dangerous conditions. They’ve already evacuated 200,000 people from the path of the storm.
We’re currently in Xi’an, the ancient capital of China (before the Mongols moved the capital to Beijing). We’ve been here for the last day or so, and have visited Hua Shan (Flower Mountain), which has some absolutely gorgeous scenery. We also went to a lacquer factory, where my mom bought me a beautiful jade dragon horse that I had been lusting after. It’s simply gorgeous – translucent green jade, well-carved. You see a lot of mediocre carved jade in China, but this is well-crafted. I’m glad I have it. I’ll post photos later.
Mike and I also bought a gorgeous tiger painting – pix later, once I get back to the States and can photograph it properly.
We’re on a tight schedule, so that’s it for now – more later, I hope!
We’re now in Xi’an, the ancient capital of China, where we are staying in the five-star Hotel Sofitel. Not only do they have Internet in the rooms, I can actually access my Website! So I have been doing some hasty website editing and have a few pages up for your perusal. I’m nowhere near being caught up, but at least I’m making some progress.