China Day 7 - Terra Cotta Soldiers, Medicine Market and Tang Dynasty Dancing
We had another full day today. The highlight of the day was the visit to the museum of the Terra Cotta Warriors. We had to drive about an hour outside of the city to the site of the excavation and museum. These terra cotta warriors date from the second century BCE,during the reign of Emperor Qinshi Huangli, the first emperor of China who reigned from 221 BCE to 210 BCE. He was a tyrant but did manage to unify China at that time and during his reign ordered the building of his mausoleum, which ultimately took 40 years to build and engaged over 700,000 laborers to accomplish it. The terra cotta warriors are thought to be the army he believed he would need to take with him into the next life. They were installed near the mausoleum which is still buried beneath a nearby hill. The Chinese know its there but have not opened it yet because archeologists and scientists are trying to figure out how to open it while preserving what they will find inside.
The terra cotta warriors were discovered by a local farmer in 1974 who was digging a well on his land and happened upon these ceramic remains. Little did he know what they would find once they started digging! The farmer is still alive and he now works at the museum, coming every day to personally sign copies of the souvenir book that the museum sells about the exhibit. We all purchased copies of that book which the farmer then signed for us.
When you enter the exhibits there are three pits of warriors. The first one has the foot soldiers and infantrymen. The second has the cavalry and the third has charioteers. It is absolutely amazing to see these thousands of statues, all life size, all in minute detail as to costume and weaponry and all the faces individual and different. When the soldiers were first discovered they were painted very colorfully but the paint oxidized and disappeared almost instantly upon contact with the air. Its this kind of issue that is slowing up the opening of the mausoleum itself, of which these soldiers are but a part. We spent a good three hours at the museum as the exhibits are extensive and it takes time to get through them all. It was exceedingly hot and humid and very polluted and hazy today, which made us all feel pretty tired and enervated as we walked the grounds.
After the museum we went to lunch, another multi-course feast that included a new noodle dish and a demonstration by the chef of how the noodles are made, which was pretty impressive. Then on our way back to the city we stopped at a herbal medicine wholesale market, where the herbs for traditional Chinese medicine are sold to the retail pharmacists who prepare the traditional herbal remedies for all sorts and varieties of ailments. The market stalls sell everything imaginable that goes into traditional herbal remedies including things like ginger, and mint but also things like ants, animal testicles, lizards, frogs, and mushrooms of many kinds. The Chinese swear by these meds, but I must admit to being a skeptic, or at least too timid to venture into taking any of them just on the "ick" factor alone!!
After our rest we went to a dinner/ show where we had a dumpling feast and then watched a performance of dances from the Tang Dynasty era. The performance was magnificent with beautiful costumes, dancing and gymnastics and acrobatics.
Tomorrow we check out of this hotel and go out to the country for our day in the village and our overnight homestay. So I will be offline again until sometime Saturday when we get to Chengdu. Saturday morning we will leave our homestay family and go to the airport to fly to Chengdu. Tonight I've included pics of the warriors and some shots of the dance performance this evening and a shot of one of the buildings along the city wall lit up for the night. So I'm signing off now for a couple of days, but will be back as soon as I can get an internet connection again!
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