I have departed Xi'an after spending two days in one of the ancient capitals of China. My journey through Xi'an was quite relaxed since it is a small town with only a few key sights that I wanted to visit, but it was fun nonetheless. Before I get into the details, the photos can be found in my Xi'an album.
On the train between Beijing and Xi'an, I began to recognize that my Chinese language skills would be a larger asset on this trip than they were in Beijing – where I was just another foreigner who speaks some Chinese – when the ticket collectors, after collecting my tickets and chatting with me for a while, came back to request my assistance translating for some English girls in the room next to mine. The translator role continued after I arrived in Xi'an the next morning when I had to help the girls to book their train tickets and hostel while I booked my own. The whole experience was a bit strange; I was surprised that the girls seemed a bit shocked that the Xi'an train station did not have a special ticket window for English speakers as the Beijing station did. Welcome to China culture (and language) shock.
Next, I checked into my charming courtyard hostel and had my daily caffeine as I waited for my room to open. Once my predecessor had checked out and I moved my stuff into the room, I began a four-hour trek around the city.
A bit of orientation before explaining where I went: the central part of Xi'an – where almost all of the points of interest are located – is confined within a rebuilt city wall. The city has a very clear north-south axis. Along that axis are the north and south gates to the city as well as a bell tower, which is located just south of the north-south midpoint of the city. To the west of the bell tower is a drum tower, a shopping district, lots of restaurants, and a Muslim quarter. To the east and south of the bell tower are residential areas and roads full of stalls selling artwork, trinkets and other tourist supplies. In the north of the city within the walls are residential with supporting businesses and a number of small parks.
I started off my walk with a local girl with whom I never exchanged names. We walked due south along the north-south axis of the city and chatted about my experiences in China, the differences between American cities and Chinese cities, and the places that I should see in Xi'an. Meanwhile, we did our best to avoid oncoming traffic and the huge holes in the roads that were being reconstructed. Once we arrived at the center of the city, she continued on to her final destination and I turned west to find food.
I walked through the shopping district and onto one of the main food streets that was full of small kiosks selling food. Despite the fact that the street food looked interesting, I decided to slip into a restaurant and order one of my traditional favorite dishes – fried eggs and tomatoes with rice. As usual, it didn't disappoint.
After my stomach was full, I continued my walk to the south gate of the city. Unfortunately, the price to get up onto the wall was some unreasonable amount (in China, if there is an experience that can be monetized, it will be monetized), so I decided walk around the edge of the wall. That turned out to be a bit boring, since there were essentially no people next to the wall on the inside of the city, but I eventually stumbled across a small shopping street. Based on my experiences in Beijing, I wanted to get out of the shopping area as quickly as possible because I wasn't in the mood to deal with a never-ending string of "HELLOS!", "I GIVE YOU BEST PRICE", and "YOU WANT CHINESE [insert mass-produced Chinese cultural object]?" However, I was surprised to find that the salespeople in Xi'an were very quiet not only by Chinese standards, but even by conservative Western European standards. Nobody yelled at me. It was quite relaxing; hence, I looked around for a bit.
The most interesting part of my walk, however was "getting lost" in the residential areas of Xi'an. Beijing is a very developed city, at least in the areas that I frequented. However, Xi'an had many areas which lies off the well-beaten tourist track that showed the, let's call it "non-glossy," side of China. Old unpainted communist block apartments, empty buildings that were once home to a business that had failed, brick homes with dirt floors: these are the sides of China that I didn't see often in Beijing, and it was interesting to see them now. I even caught a glimpse of a garbage collection area, which was essentially a temporary landfill in the middle of the city.
After seeing these "normal" parts of the city, I began my walk back to the hostel (which is located in the north of the city, slightly to the east of the central axis). Along the way, I saw a bookstore and couldn't help buying a couple of novels. I arrived back at the hostel and took a short rest before going on another walk through a nearby park (I get great exercise when I'm traveling!).
The evening was very relaxed. I spent it chatting with people and reading before going to bed early.
The next morning was the big travel day. After having my morning coffee, I hopped a bus which would take me to see the Terracotta warriors. After an hour or so, I had arrived, bought a ticket, and was on my way into the museum.
My general impressions:
- It was really cool,
- The construction required a lot of time and effort, and
- I expected more.
That said, I am still glad that I went – as general impression number 1 would imply. Even though I'm not much of a history guy, the most interesting aspect of this collection of artifacts was the story of its creation. For full details you can check the Wikipedia entry, but what follows is the abridged version. Essentially the warriors were constructed so that China's first emperor, when he died, could rule the afterlife with this massive stone army that was built throughout his lifetime (the process began when he was 13 years old). And he didn't only have warriors constructed, he also had horses, chariots, and weaponry buried with the warriors – apparently the soldiers would be able to fight in the afterlife, but they wouldn't be able to make new weapons or ammunition. Moreover, once the pits were filled with the warriors, the artisans who helped to finish the project on-site were killed because the emperor did not want anybody to know the location of his tomb (which actually is not surrounded by the warriors . . . weird), or of his afterlife army.
The part of this story that interests me is how it just doesn't seem to add up logically. I won't even go into the superstition of it all, but here are what seem to be the facts: Emperor forces artisans to spend a huge amount of time building soldiers and weapons to protect him and fight for him in the afterlife. He hides the army away from everybody in the real world and kills the people who know where the army is located (though apparently not everybody, because a general broke into the pits and set them on fire not too long after the emperor's death). Then he buries himself a good distance away from his afterlife soldiers. I just don't get it. How is he going to command the army? They didn't have walkie-talkies or phones or the internet. Maybe he has some stone messengers running between the stone army and his burial hill that haven't been discovered yet? Or maybe the historians got the story wrong? Or maybe I just have a bad memory? It just seems strange.
Anyway, after seeing all of the pits full of warriors and whatnot, which you can see too by checking my Xi'an album, I returned the city, ate some lunch, and took a quick nap.
The remainder of Xi'an was not too eventful, as in there were no major events. I spent the last night hanging out with some people who I met in the hostel. We had some drinks, talked about the places that we had seen and where we were going, and watched Slumdog Millionaire. The next morning, I took care of some unfinished grad school business, and I caught my train to Chengdu at 1:20pm.
The train ride was supposed arrive at 5:30am the next day (July 17), but here I am on the train at 10:14am (the train is standing still and has been for at least 40 minutes) and I have a feeling that we are still hundreds of miles from Chengdu. Apparently there was a problem with the train tracks which connect Xi'an to Chengdu, so we have to take a very indirect route (As an aside, HURRAY! The train just started moving again!). I have my fingers crossed that we arrive before 8:00pm tonight. Looks like I'll get some good use out of those books that I bought in Xi'an.
I'll leave it there for now. The next writings should be posted after I finish up in Chengdu!
UPDATE: I finally arrived in Chengdu at 5:00am two days after I left. Total time on the train: 39 hours. Total delay: Approximately 24 hours. I'm glad I got a hard-sleeper instead of being hard core and going for the regular seats!
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