Day 10 – Terracotta Warriors

Terracotta Warriors

The Terracotta Warriors are the second most famous sight in China, after the Great Wall, and we took an early tour today out to see them. They are about an hour drive outside of town. Roger was our tour guide and the guy was a walking encyclopedia of Xi’an information. The figures, dating from approximately the late third century BCE, were discovered in 1974 by local farmers who were digging a well. At first they didn’t realized what they had found and began to smash them until one of the farmers asked them to stop and reported the discovery to the government. The Chinese government took over, built massive structures to enclose the discovery and began to excavate the site. Within a few years the Terracotta Warriors had become a major tourist destination.

Amazing Detail

The warriors were created as part of the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, who died in 210 BCE at the age of 49. He had originally planned for 32,000 warriors but died before the project could be completed so only about 1/4 were actually completed. Estimates based on sonar believe the buried Terracotta Army consists of more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses. They are displayed in full battle array according to Chinese military strategy at the time.

Chinese LaBron

The interesting thing about the warriors is that no two are alike. Some are slim and others are fat, some are short and others are tall. The generals are the tallest and they have one on display who Roger said was the LaBron James of the army. He is about 6 foot seven according to the measurements Roger gave us.

The warriors were built with amazing detail. You can see the lifelines in their palms and one crouching archer is shown wearing non-slip shoes. The Chinese have 5 statues on display that you can see up close and the detail is just amazing. The rest of the exposed army remains in position as it was designed 1800 years ago and a large part of the army still hasn’t been excavated.
As this was still the holiday week, there were parts of the exhibit that were overwhelmingly crowded. In particular, an exhibit of two coaches, each drawn by four horses, was super packed and the Chinese aren’t shy when it comes to pushing and shoving. It was really mostly orderly but it also doesn’t bother me because I can push too and I’m bigger than most of them so I got the photos I wanted.

Small Wild Goose Pagoda

After the tour we drove back to town to see more sights. We saw the Small Wild Goose Pagoda which was built by Empress Wu, the same one featured in the show we saw last night. Xi’an is still a walled city and the tour took us next to the top of the wall. The wall is maybe 30 yards wide so there was plenty of room to walk around and some from our group rented bikes and rode around. It had stopped raining but it was cold and windy so the rest of us just huddled together and talked with Roger. He shared a lot of personal things with us but the saddest was that he had to postpone his marriage as his father had a stroke and Roger spent his savings to help save his father’s life.

Mutton Soup

The tour ended in the Muslim section where we were dropped. Five from the tour group walked through what seemed like an endless bazaar selling everything you can think of and found a restaurant serving yangrou paomo, which is one of the most representative dishes of Xi’an. It is a mutton soup served over flatbread that you tear into small pieces. Very tasty and filling. We ordered a medium size but a small would have been enough. 59 CYN or about $8 so you can see food prices are low in China.