China!!! (Part III)

THE CHINA EXPERIENCE: PART III

On Friday evening, after some rather frenzied last minute planning, we hopped an overnight train to Xi'an for a whirlwind trip to see the Terracotta Warriors. The Beijing West train station itself was beautiful - as large and classic as the Gare du Nord. We bought cookies, guessing on their content based solely on the color of the packages, and crowded aboard to find our sleeper berths - a steal at 420 kuai ($65).

As the train pulled out of Beijing, we sat in our cabin and chatted with the cheerful anonymity of those whose language is not shared by anyone in earshot... until I noticed a man sitting on one of the hard seats in the hallway, staring. Now, being stared at itself isn't that unusual in China - especially if you have the oddity of being a Westerner. I pegged him for a standard gawker, until about thirty minutes into our journey when he knocked on the door and asked if he could practice his English with us. We invited him to join us and chatted about anything from herbal medicine to technological innovation. It's intriguing to talk to someone from such a different culture who shares your fascination for the contrasts - even if the language barrier is still providing partial interference.

When we told him we were American, he commented that it was very different from being English - almost requesting confirmation of that fact, as if it didn't quite gel for him. I joked that we'd had a few hundred years to grow apart and he replied that two hundred years was a small amount of time - and in China, it is. He marveled at how quickly things changed in America, how we were a culture that seemed uniquely inclined to innovate, as opposed to the Chinese aversion to change and force of tradition. I found myself thinking of the painted scrolls I saw from street vendors - how identical they all were, even though they were each hand-painted they showed little of the hand that painted them. Art wasn't about creativity, it seemed, so much as skill - the ability to recreate, to live in the tradition. It made me wonder if innovation is possible in a culture that reveres tradition so completely - and one with such a harsh attitude toward failure.

The next morning, we rolled into Xi'an. A much older city than Beijing and current capital of the Shaanxi province, Xi'an (formerly called Chang'an) was the seat of the Zhou, Qin, Han, Sui, and Tang dynasties from the 11th Century BCE all the way up to 904 AD when the capital moved East to Luoyang. As soon as we stepped out of the train station, we saw the beautiful city wall - and inhaled pollutant-free air, fresh from a recent rainfall.

After a quick look at the drum and bell towers, we headed up to the city wall. Between the two guard towers was a sedan chair - which immediately put me in mind of the opening of Jeannie Lin's Butterfly Swords, set during the Tang dynasty and partially in Chang'an. I bounced over to the chair (and might have shouted, "Look at me! I'm Ai Li!" but there were no English speaking witnesses, so you have no proof).

After my moment of delusion, we headed off to see the Terracotta Army, thoroughly entertained by our guide's description of the Army's origins (which, sadly, have little to do with that Mummy movie with Jet Li). The story we were told was that when Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, came to power one of his advisers told him he would be more beloved by his people if he abandoned the current (and rather Egyptian) practice of being buried with a bunch of people to escort him to the afterlife. Instead, he should employ his people as artisans, creating a Terracotta Army to see him into his next life. High employment AND no being buried alive? Bonus! Qin Shi Huang won the love of his subjects... and a couple thousand years later in 1971, a farmer digging a well accidentally discovered his tomb. Now there are seven dig sites, three of which are open to the public. Apparently, several of the warriors were painted, but the excavation techniques were not "German" (so says our guide) and so the colors faded when exposed to the air. (I had no idea the German were the height of archeological techniques.) And if you're wondering why so many of the warriors have lost their heads, it turns out the heads were crafted separately and affixed to the bodies after the fact. Cool beans, huh?

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That's all for China: Part III. Tune in tomorrow for The Great Wall, Acrobats, and culinary adventures...