Because of my jet lag and Ann’s migraine, we stayed back at the hotel when everyone else went to see the terra-cotta warriors, but we were able to take our own tour several days later and take in some of the other archeological ‘treasures’ of Xi’an.  Xi’an’s attraction for tourists is its status as China’s first capital, dating back to the Qin dynasty, a dynasty which, lasting from 220 to 206 B.C. is officially shorter than the syndicated run of the soap opera of the same name. Unfortunately, this means that the city specializes in tourist sites rather than tourist sights, for most of its treasures are located 1) underground, 2) in books, or 3) only as a series of ditches and small indentations in the ground. The terra-cotta warriors, well outside the city limits, are, of course, a notable exception. However, it seems to be virtually impossible to book a tour to the terra-cotta warriors without also seeing all the other sites (not sights) along the way.

Our tour itself started with the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, not far from the hotel. Eight stories tall, the Pagoda houses the first Buddhist texts brought to China, over 1300 texts which were transcribed from Sanskrit to Chinese.  Unfortunately, the tower, already leaning akin to its sister-tower in Pisa has been rendered unsafe due to the last earthquake, and we were no longer able to make our way within. This did not distress us however; the day was hot and we had a long way to go to get to the terra-cotta warriors so we were happy with what we could see.  And Ann and I discovered the day before when touring the Forest of Stone Tablets Museum, looking at stone tablets and books in Chinese is well summed up by our National Geographic travel guide: “Fascinating to students of classical Chinese, but may prove inaccessible to most foreign visitors”. The Pagoda does come with an interesting legend.  Apparently there used to be two branches of Buddhism, one was vegetarian the other of which ate meat. During a time of starvation, a local monk from the meat-eating faction saw a flock of wild geese flying overhead.  He prayed to Bodhisattva to get some, and the leading goose fell from the sky, its wings broken.  The monks were startled and, being the contemplative sort, wondered if perhaps praying for a goose wasn’t the most pious or worldly of prayers.  So they atoned by building a temple on the site, The Wild Goose Pagoda, and turning the order vegetarian. As for myself, I can’t help but wonder if message might have been something more along the lines of “look you’re hungry, goose is good with a little rice wine and oranges”.  But history of course has chosen its own reading, and eating goose will now and always be sacrilege for Buddhists.  Tasty, tasty sacrilege.

After our tour around the Wild Goose Pagoda, we went to the Bampo museum we showed us that even books we can’t see is more to see than what’s left of the matriarchal Bampo civilization.  The museum is a large concrete structure built over the remains of a village dating back to approximately 3,000 BC.  All the wood, fiber, and other materials except a few human bones seems to have disappeared all together; so all that the museum really houses are some circular outlines of a fire pit, and an occasional outline of small post holes where there once may have been a wall. To again quote the National Geographic Guide: “Viewing the ancient remains is a rather dry experience, although current renovations aim to inject more attraction for the average traveler”. Those renovations are now in place, and do help considerably.  Next to the site, there is now a television set which shows you diagrams of what the 2 inch wide posts might have looked like that once filled those 2 inch wide post holes. I left with a feeling of respect that we might be able to see anything, and infer anything, about a culture so old, and at the same time, unnerved that what was left could have been undone by an overzealous golfer replacing his divots.

As Ann and I made our way to the Terra-cotta warriors it became clear that the Bampo museum served an important purpose for tourists:  it was a stark contrast to the 8,000 meticulously preserved soldiers that emperor Qinshi Huangdi left to guard his burial site.  Qinshi, of the aforementioned “Qin” dynasty seemed to accomplish a lot during his remarkably short reign. The Emperor Qinshi unified the warring areas that were thereafter to be joined together as China.  As in any country, however, we should probably be suspicious of the term “unification,” since in this case it seems to have meant killing most of the population, and enslaving the rest into building the Great Wall in order to protect what was left, as well as a cultural “unification” which came from burning books and leaving most of the country’s pre-history in carbon.  After such achievements, what’s an Emperor to accomplish?  Why, preparing for the afterlife of course, building an underground necropolis larger than the great pyramids, and populate it with terra-cotta soldiers for protection along with anything else that he wanted to preserve for his life in the underworld.  It gives one pause to think that the site is already referred to as the eighth wonder of the world, has been declared the most important archeological site of the 20th century, and yet much of it has still to be unearthed, including anything that the emperor may have wanted to spend his afterlife with other than clay soldiers.  As Ann politely asked our tour guide, “Aren’t there any terra-cotta concubines?”   Chances are there is more to be uncovered in the tomb itself, but chances seem equally good that what other treasures may have lain there were long-since stolen.  Many of the terra-cotta warriors themselves were destroyed by the peasant uprising and the armies that came through soon after Qinshi’s untimely death.  I can’t help been wondered that as the necropolis was sacked, they simply took everything with them that was small enough or valuable enough to carry.  As our tour group made it back to the bus in the blinding sun, merchants tried to sell us whole boxes of stone or bronze soldiers for as little as 10 Yuan.  It seemed like a remarkable deal, but if we couldn’t bring ourselves to buy a box of six-inch size replicas because of the space they’d take up in our luggage, what must of the pillagers have thought of the real thing when they had to go home by horseback or on foot?  “Hi Honey!  I’m Home!  And guess what I brought you from my travels?”

If there is an afterlife for Qinshi, it must be bitter irony to see what has become of the Wall that would be extended for so many years, and his terra-cotta army.  Designed to keep outsiders at bay, they are now the two largest draws of tourism in the country, and certainly among the largest draws in the world.  So now all kind of cretin wanders into town and gawks at his tomb before going out to buy Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

–Ted

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