Friday, October 06, 2006
First day at Xi An (Hua Qing Chi,Terra Cotta Warriors)
When we first arrived at the Xi An Train Station, we were welcomed by Ming Cheng Qiang (Great Wall that encompasses the city of Xi An.This wall was built by Tang Tai Zong to protect his city. The bricks on the wall has been replaced by modern ones because people then did not view the wall as a national monuments.They used the bricks to build their houses). Xi An is part of Shan Xi and we were told by our tour guide that if you want to know more about Tang Dynasty's history, you should come to Xi An. If you want to know about Qing Dynasty's history (Kang Xi, Qian Long..), you should go to Beijing.
Our first stop was to Hua Qing Chi. It is the place the house the bathroom of Emperor Tang, his concubine, one of the 4 beauty Yang Gui Fei and Empress Ci Xi. In the later part of history, Chiang Kai-Shek also made this place his home and his office. He was then the leader of KMT Nationalist Chinese and was in the midst of a civil war against Mao Ze Dong's Communist Party. We were told that he fled for Li Shan (As seen the picture above) and hid in one of the cave when Mao's army invaded the place. The cave is still preserved however we did not get to chance to go up the hill.
Terra Cotta Warriors, The Eight's Wonder of the World. I was blown away when I entered the first hall. It is biggest of the 3 halls. Can't really describe the feeling, it is just that you will be awed by what you see. It is like sailing back time. It is a amazing to know that what I am looking at is dated a few thousand years back. Every single warrior looks different and to think that these are made by craftmen soo long ago just made me wonder,"Pp back then are really much more talented than us". The suits that there were wearing, the facial expression....... However, if you guys are observant, you will be able to tell that all the warriors do not have weapons with them. We were told that when Xiang Yu invaded Xian Yang (the capital then), he dugged the grave and removed all the weapons. He was all out to destroy everything that Qin Shi Wang created. Though we were told that Qin Shi Wang burned books and killed scholars during his era to mould pp's mindset, in actual fact, Xiang Yu created more destruction. He burnt down buildings and structure that Qin Shi Wang had created , including his tombstone that took a couple of decades to build. When we were on our way to the Terra Cotta museum, we passed by his tomb and we were told that this is one of the only 2 tombs that haan;t been excavated yet. The other tomb belongs to Emperor Wu Ze Tian (The only female Emperor in the entire China History). One reason is because it is buried below the hill. The other reason is because we do not have the technology to preserve the artefacts. W were told that there will be toxic gas present which is required to preserve his body. Archaeologist believe that his body is still intact due to presence of the toxic gas, thus if ever we want to excavate his tomb, we will need to do so in a vacuum environment. This is something that is not available now.