I have been waiting to see these guys since we first started planning our trip. They didn't disappoint. First a little history lesson for those of you who don't know what I am talking about.
Way back in 300 bc, China was divided into 7 warring states and this guy Qin (pronounced Chin) was put on the throne of his empire when he was 13. For 20 years he fought and conquered the other
states and unified China for the first time. Right after being named Emporer Qin worked for the next 20 years on public works projects, like roads and aqueducts, but he also started building his Tomb. The area took another 30 years to complete, and he was put in 2 years after his death, and all the artisans, and workers who saw the final product were buried alive so that they could not betray its secrets. The actual tomb has never been excavated and is now just a giant (125 foot high) mound. His actual tomb is said to be encased with gold, jade and silver, but is surrounded by a river of mercury. Therefore if you opened it the mercury would poison and kill everything in the area.
Now the Terra-Cotta warriors. In 1976, a farmer was digging a well about 1 KM east of Qin's tomb and he uncovered a life sized warrior made out of Terra-cotta, or pottery. He gave it to the local museum and thousands of Archaeologists came to the area and started excavating. They have uncovered three rooms so far. An officers, or command area of about 1,200 warriors, a sacrificial area of
about 70, and a vanguard force area of about 6,000. Two schools of thought here, one is that the warriors are to protect Qin in the afterlife from the people he had killed, the other is that he thought that this way he could lead his army in death as he did in life--the guy was a total megalomaniac. All the warriors are carved in meticoulious detail, every chink of armor, every shoe, even down to their faces--no two faces or soldiers heights are exactly the same. They say that they are representations of Qin's actal army.
Now as for the tour--our guides name was Lucky and she was a drill Sergeant. "You have 4-minutes rest, then I tell story!" "You wait 15 minutes more, then toilet break!" "Everyone go to toilet now!" Then she look at you with these huge eyes, very tensely. She even told us about a famous sculpture of one of China's emperors, in a chariot behind 6 "exquisitely" hand carved horses, but "two of the horses are not in China, they are in AMERICA!" then she glared at Sarah and I for like a full minute. Everyone else in the tour were Europeans, and they (just jokingly) started giving us a hard time. Finally I said that we didn't have them at our house.
On the way back from visiting the warriors, Lucky told us that we would be taking a tour of a silk factory. Well, we really didn't want to have a bunch of people try to sell us silk for 30 minutes so Sean started asking the other people on the tour with us if they wanted to go. Everyone said no. So, we nominated a spokesperson, the Canadian guy behind us, to broach the subject with Lucky. She totally didn't understand why we wouldn't want to go! After about 10 minutes of everyone saying that they didn't want to go, she finally told us that if they brought tourists to the factory, they would get a coupon for free gas. We could identify with the free gas and thus the coup was quashed!
On the way back Lucky told us that we had a forty minute drive back to the hostel and so in that time "EVERYONE" (full eye-glare) will sing a song. Nobody wanted to sing. She first told the Canadians that they had to sing and they argued for a really long time, then finally they sang their national anthem O'Canada. Everyone else did the same, the germans, the dutch and the swedes...again we refused...we really got a glare, but Lucky decided to let us go without singing. I believe this was so that she could sing two or three chinese opera songs...oh Lucky.
One last thing--I am not sure if any of you now this, but I am a Spaniard. According to the Chinese, all Americans have either light hair or light eyes--so, since I have dark hair and dark eyes I must be from Spain. I have had three vendors, in the street markets mind you, come up to me and speak Spanish. Very weird!
Way back in 300 bc, China was divided into 7 warring states and this guy Qin (pronounced Chin) was put on the throne of his empire when he was 13. For 20 years he fought and conquered the other
states and unified China for the first time. Right after being named Emporer Qin worked for the next 20 years on public works projects, like roads and aqueducts, but he also started building his Tomb. The area took another 30 years to complete, and he was put in 2 years after his death, and all the artisans, and workers who saw the final product were buried alive so that they could not betray its secrets. The actual tomb has never been excavated and is now just a giant (125 foot high) mound. His actual tomb is said to be encased with gold, jade and silver, but is surrounded by a river of mercury. Therefore if you opened it the mercury would poison and kill everything in the area. Now the Terra-Cotta warriors. In 1976, a farmer was digging a well about 1 KM east of Qin's tomb and he uncovered a life sized warrior made out of Terra-cotta, or pottery. He gave it to the local museum and thousands of Archaeologists came to the area and started excavating. They have uncovered three rooms so far. An officers, or command area of about 1,200 warriors, a sacrificial area of
about 70, and a vanguard force area of about 6,000. Two schools of thought here, one is that the warriors are to protect Qin in the afterlife from the people he had killed, the other is that he thought that this way he could lead his army in death as he did in life--the guy was a total megalomaniac. All the warriors are carved in meticoulious detail, every chink of armor, every shoe, even down to their faces--no two faces or soldiers heights are exactly the same. They say that they are representations of Qin's actal army.Now as for the tour--our guides name was Lucky and she was a drill Sergeant. "You have 4-minutes rest, then I tell story!" "You wait 15 minutes more, then toilet break!" "Everyone go to toilet now!" Then she look at you with these huge eyes, very tensely. She even told us about a famous sculpture of one of China's emperors, in a chariot behind 6 "exquisitely" hand carved horses, but "two of the horses are not in China, they are in AMERICA!" then she glared at Sarah and I for like a full minute. Everyone else in the tour were Europeans, and they (just jokingly) started giving us a hard time. Finally I said that we didn't have them at our house.
On the way back from visiting the warriors, Lucky told us that we would be taking a tour of a silk factory. Well, we really didn't want to have a bunch of people try to sell us silk for 30 minutes so Sean started asking the other people on the tour with us if they wanted to go. Everyone said no. So, we nominated a spokesperson, the Canadian guy behind us, to broach the subject with Lucky. She totally didn't understand why we wouldn't want to go! After about 10 minutes of everyone saying that they didn't want to go, she finally told us that if they brought tourists to the factory, they would get a coupon for free gas. We could identify with the free gas and thus the coup was quashed!
On the way back Lucky told us that we had a forty minute drive back to the hostel and so in that time "EVERYONE" (full eye-glare) will sing a song. Nobody wanted to sing. She first told the Canadians that they had to sing and they argued for a really long time, then finally they sang their national anthem O'Canada. Everyone else did the same, the germans, the dutch and the swedes...again we refused...we really got a glare, but Lucky decided to let us go without singing. I believe this was so that she could sing two or three chinese opera songs...oh Lucky.
One last thing--I am not sure if any of you now this, but I am a Spaniard. According to the Chinese, all Americans have either light hair or light eyes--so, since I have dark hair and dark eyes I must be from Spain. I have had three vendors, in the street markets mind you, come up to me and speak Spanish. Very weird!
2 comments:
Hey guys. What a fascinating history lesson! And what a funny tour guide.
Sarah, when it was your turn to sing on the bus, why didn't you sing the song from the movie "The Three Amigos"?
"My little buttercup, has the sweetest... esmile!"
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