Patamateria

Well, not really, just the last train I’m taking this trip. The station we left from in Beijing is really state of the art – probably beautified specially for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. We were able to wait in the mothers and children waiting room – either on account of the aged mothers amongst us, or the children who constitute our younger members. But actually, Gary made it happen – western tourists are still accorded some sort of special treatment, like in the Middle Eastern and Asian tales from Somerset Maugham or Agatha Christie. The train was similar to the ones we’d been on before, cold at night, so I was glad of my inner fleece sleeping bag. I shared with Tony and Sandra again but as it was about 10pm by the time we got settled, and we had an early arrival in Xian the next day, we just got ourselves into our bunks. No card playing with Sandra.

l
At the other end, we were met by An, our Xian guide. Very sweet! We had a bit of a tour around the city walls and inside the old city before driving past the Digital Area (where there are shops selling everything from TVs and mobiles to computers etc) and on to our hotel. This particular one is normally used by Chinese businessmen. So no one spoke any English, the menu was totally in Chinese, there was one bottle of wine in the bar and one of our party bought that on the first night. The staff ran around for ages trying to find how much it cost, then trying to locate a corkscrew. There was actually one attached with cellophane to the bottle…. Over the next couple of days we tried to get alcoholic drinks at the bar. A couple of bottles of beer were all that were forthcoming.

The room was pleasant – twin beds – apart from that I found Xian quite a challenge. The sand that was blowing over north China from the Gobi Desert was the major problem, together with Xian’s natural smog, caused partly by car exhausts but also from wood and coal stoves all over the city. Just like Victorian London. When we went out, Gary bought dust masks for Caroline and me and we wore them through the Wild Goose Pagoda visit. A most attractive look! (Sorry – can’t get the photo to stay rotated…!) Xian is the capital of Shaanxi province, and Shaanxi is part of the Loess Plateau which is covered by microscopic silt that began blowing down from Siberia during the last Ice Age. This makes is a very dusty place – you can see it all just hanging in the air. Couldn’t even open the bedroom windows, so had air-con on all day and night.

The Wild Goose Pagoda houses the Buddhist sutras brought back from India by Xuan Zang in the 7th century. He spent his life translating them and his travels inspired one of China’s best known works of literature: ‘Journey to the West’. Gary meanwhile was telling us all sorts of interesting facts and anecdotes about China. The Chinese flag consists of one large star – the government – and four smaller stars which represent the four occupations of the inhabitants: workers, farmers, soldiers and intellectuals. The latter must have read the three main pieces of Chinese literature: ‘Journey to the West’, ‘The Dream of the Red Mansion’ and ‘Three Kingdoms’.

We were whisked away after this to a jade factory – so interesting; I now know the difference between jadeite which is found polished by running water in streams, and agates which are hewn from rock. Jadeite is very hard – can scratch glass – and translucent, and carries a heftier pricetag. It is also much harder to carve – and this is generally done with diamond cutters. The more intricate jade work is generally done with softer agate. There is also ‘fake’ jade around, mainly soapstone or other stones. But what does it matter if they are beautiful in their own right?! I ended up buying a variety of pieces in Xian, then later in Beijing. They are all lovely, regardless of what stone they are. The trick is not to part with too much money for the cheaper ones!

Finally, after lunch, we were off to see the Terracotta Warriors, the main reason for our visit to Xian.

Once upon a time (about 2000 years ago) there was a boy of 13 who became the first ruler to unify China. A truly amazing man who ruled for 36 years: Qin Shi Huang. He has been described as a chronic overachiever. He centralised government, standardised measurements, currency and writing; he built new roads and canals and conquered a good few of his neighbours. He was also a pretty controlling individual with a nasty sadistic streak: he enslaved thousands to work on his projects and according to legend he couldn’t take criticism so buried alive about 460 disapproving scholars. Not nice.

So where does the Terracotta Army come in? Well, there are two main theories about this massive collection of archers, infantrymen, horsemen and their horses and chariots, and officers. One is that in all his battles he was responsible for the deaths of thousands of soldiers and was seriously afraid of retribution from their spirits in the afterlife. He therefore produced his own life-size terracotta army to protect him. The second theory – the one archaeologists prefer – is that he expected his rule to continue in death as it had in life, so of course he took his army with him. The sight of all these figures is truly amazing – much more impressive than I ever imagined. No two faces are identical; it is said he had masks made from every soldier in his army and the task of creating the warriors was farmed out to craftsmen in villages all over the area. A huge undertaking. As well as warriors, there are countless horses – and the attention to detail is fabulous.

In 1974 a few farmers were digging a well when they came across an underground vault containing the remains of thousands of soldiers in battle formation, together with their horses. The government acquired their land in order to carry out further excavations, and rewarded the farmers by building them a small community of lovely houses where they could also carry out other businesses. One of the original farmers sits in the Terracotta Army complex and signs books for tourists. They are apparently extremely wealthy as a result of their accidental find all those years ago!

The next day I took a day off, as I really didn’t fancy wearing the mask and walking around the city wall with some of the others in the group. So I relaxed with laptop, book and the Chinese TV commentary of the William – Kate wedding in London. Then I was joined by a few others and we found a local English language news channel and watched highlights on that. Not entirely accurate, actually, The presenter kept saying ‘Diana’ instead of Kate, and when explaining who the guests were, made some of them relatives of the Queen. But a good laugh! Our guide An sang us two songs on the coach that evening – one of them a love song in Chinese dedicated to William and Kate. We went out that evening to a light and fountain display in honour of Labour Day. The festivities run over three days and the Chinese know how to enjoy themselves! Splashing around in the fountains, madly waving umbrellas and squirting each other. Andy and Pete followed suit, of course.