Impressions of Xi'an - Terracotta Warriors and the Huaqing Hot Springs

Xian (known then as Chang-an) was the first capital of a unified China.  The gentleman who founded the city was also the man who fought against, and consolidated in ten short years, what were a group of squabbling kingdoms, creating the first unified kingdom, the kernel of modern China.  His wasn't a dynasty that survived his death (210BC), but that first act of consolidation is now considered seminal, and the country it gave birth to took its name from that of his dynasty - Qin (pronounced Chin).  He took the title Qin Shi Huang (The First Sovereign Emperor of Qin) and is now referred to as the First Emperor: apart from creating a united kingdom he built roads, consolidated the Great Wall, created an administrative structure and gave China the script that lives on to this day.  He created a vast mausoleum that he was eventually buried in and, in death, was guarded by a large army: the Terracotta Warriors.

The burial site is some forty kilometres east of Xian and is now easily accessed by an expressway.

 
After the collapse of the Qin dynasty, parts of the site were ravaged and set afire and then forgotten.  In 1974, amidst a drought, six brothers started digging a well at what they thought was a promising spot below the Lin Mountain.  As unexpected events go, this was a good one. The spot they picked turned out to be the southeastern corner of the site where the Warriors had been buried.  A few feet further east or south and the warriors might have remained buried and the site would have been just another undulation in the Chinese countryside.  There was more to the unexpected turn of events.  The Cultural Revolution was still raging, remember, and archaeologists were not exactly thick on the ground.  Those that remained were likely getting reeducated in revolutionary thought rather than practicing their profession.  As luck would have it, there was an archaeologist in a nearby village called Lintong.  Perhaps he was so far off the beaten track that the Cultural Revolution never caught up with him.  In any event, he came to hear about the broken shards of terracotta, recognized their significance, and moved to protect the site.

 

The death of Mao in 1976 and the changes that followed meant that excavating the site and reconstructing the warriors became a national priority.

Today, visitors enter the site via a large granite paved plaza.  (Granite paving appears to be the landscaping of choice for historical sites in Xian.) Manicured gardens, stands of trees and landscaping mean that the original mound of dirt is a forgotten memory.  Lintong, five kilometres west, is now a bustling town.

Entering Pit 1 of the Warriors' site

Restored Pit 1.  An amazing sight!

  The warriors, each one unique, now stand in proud rows, having lost only their coats of paint and their weapons to the centuries.  The site has been only partly excavated.  The vast majority of the warriors still lie buried, awaiting improvements in archaeological and restoration techniques.  What we see today is a live archaeological site.  The warriors themselves, large ranks going back many rows, are impressive.  Even more impressive is the way the dig has been displayed.  We see how the columns have been excavated, the packed earthen walls that separate the columns, the indentations made by the wooden beams that once provided a roof for the warriors, and much else.

The floors were rammed with earth and paved with bricks.

A sign shows us the spot of that 1974 well.

Parts of three pits have been excavated, and walkways surrounded the pits.  Crowds (almost all Chinese: there were only a handful of foreigners) walked around gaping, photographing, chattering: people were friendly and orderly and there was no pushing and shoving.

Pit 3 was completely different in layout, and was the command centre for the rest of the army.

Yet to be excavated.  Imprints of the fiber mats 

 

that were part of the roof

 

A museum stood off to one side.  The exhibits were well displayed and labeled: originals, replicas, items loaned to, or borrowed from other museums.

A high ranking officer

Cavalryman with his horse

There was a bookshop with the usual coffee table books, postcards and assorted bric-a-brac.  An elderly man flanked by two minders sat in a chair signing books.  He was the man who had dug that well back in 1974.  He signed our book with a flourish: Chinese calligraphy, like Arabic calligraphy is so much more interesting, so much more aesthetic, than the mundane scripts adorning the streets and books of Chennai.

Emerging out, we were greeted by this long kite in the sky

We left the campus with mixed feelings of awe and regret: history usually remembers only tyrants.

 Huaqing hot springs

The way back to Xian took us through Lintong.  Our driver, like all the drivers we met in China, was uncommunicative.  Perhaps, like the rest, he spoke no English.  Perhaps Chinese drivers, unlike their Indian counterparts, prefer silence.  In any event, he pulled into a parking lot in Lintong and silently pointed us down the road.  For some reason: the weather, the topography with undulations and the mountains to our left, the roads themselves, this place reminded me of La Canada Flintridge in distant California.  Perhaps I was just a bit tired.

The Huaqing Hot Springs site is an odd agglomeration.  The hot spring still exists, bubbling into a fountain of sorts, and there were plenty of people splashing the water onto their faces and arms.  There is a rather nice garden and lake.  We posed for pictures, and an excited Chinese gentleman came running up and wanted his photograph taken with us.  So there we were, a Chinese, a Russian and an Indian, arms around each other, smiling under a clear early Chinese summer sky. 

The hot springs bubbling up

 

An excavated site, now enclosed, includes the Tang dynasty baths.  The surrounding walls carried a series of drawing depicting the great love affair of Emperor Xuanzong and his consort Yang Guifei.  As I saw it, the lovers, having overcome assorted obstacles and objections, eventually became swans (it could have been storks) and, together to the very end, flew off to heaven.  Sorry to say, it didn't bring a tear to my eye.  Perhaps I am too cynical for these romantic tales.

 

The crabapple pool

 

The most interesting part of the site was a set of buildings where Chiang Kai Shek had his headquarters in the 1930s.  His office, bedroom and the room where an assassination attempt took place (bullet marks on the wall!) are all well preserved.  Chiang is everywhere referred to by his full title: Generalissimo.  Chiang and Mao were sworn enemies.  The communists defeated Chiang's Kuomintang in the late 1940s to take power, and Chiang fled to Taiwan, taking with him a host of treasures from the Forbidden City.  Chiang was enemy number one, in other words.  Yet here was Chiang, titled, and his history well preserved and far from airbrushed out of existence.  I suppose it was Chinese pragmatism once more: there are plenty of tourists from Taiwan these days and what better way to get their attention than an exhibit featuring the old Generalissimo.  I wonder what Mao would have made of all this.

Airports, and the roads that take you into the city, are not merely gateways.  One's first impressions of a country and a city are coloured by them, and first impressions leave their taint on everything that follows.

Our final hours in China took us past the old city walls, through suburbs, and onto the highway leading to the airport.  The suburbs were striking: a standing army of identikit 20-30 floor apartment blocks, most complete and, as far as we could see, unoccupied.  They looked well planned, with broad access roads, provision for shopping areas and large gardens.  American suburbia, scaled up vertically, lacking nothing but residents.  We had seen something similar in the far outskirts of Beijing and this was perhaps confirmation that at least some of China's recent growth was actually a real estate bubble.

The highway to the airport was as impressive as the one in Beijing and the airport itself had three modern terminals.  The quick efficiency of Beijing was missing, though.  We had to wait a while for the check-in counter to open.  The impatient queue that waited for the counter to open was more India than Singapore, and the time it took for the immigration formalities suggested that while the hardware was in place, the processes and people - the software - had some catching up to do.

Our transit in Hong Kong was further confirmation that China was still a work in progress.  Not that that was any consolation. Anna International Terminal in Chennai and the potholed and dimly lit highway outside confirmed that we cannot take even small pleasure in China's inadequacies.

Impressions of Xi'an - Xiaoyan and the Muslim Quarter

First sightings - Xiaoyan pagoda.  Built around 710 AD.

Much of the city was destroyed as the Tang dynasty fell apart in the tenth century; the two pagodas (Dayan and Xiaoyan) survived.

The Little Wild Goose Pagoda isn't small by any means: the 'little' is relative.  Unlike its larger brother, this pagoda stands in a much more natural setting amidst a sprawling garden.  No granite and fountains here, only shady paths, trees and plenty of birdsong.  It was a haven amidst the bustle of the city and we just sat, stretched our legs and relaxed.

In 1487, the 15-storey pagoda was split by an earthquake/  Appears that it was glued together in the '60s.  

Early portraits

How appropriate!

Next door was a small lake with a more manicured garden.  Geese strutted around waiting to be fed.  Dustbins dotted the garden expanse and they were being used.  There was very little litter, something that struck us again and again in China.  Better civic sense?  The threat of fines?  More efficient cleanup?  Convenient dustbins?  All of the above?  Whatever it was, it seemed to work.  Even the most crowded places we visited were much cleaner than their Indian counterparts.

The Xian museum did not rate any special mention in the guidebooks.  We wandered in for a quick look-see and some air-conditioning (entry was free!).  We ended up spending the better part of an hour walking around.  Apart from the model of tenth century Xian, there were exhibits of items excavated from the vicinity going back some 3000 years.  A profusion of Buddhist relics from the Tang dynasty accompanied remnants of pottery, building materials and other artifacts unearthed as the foundations were laid for today's Xian.  As with other museums we visited in China, everything was neatly laid out and labeled.  Sadly, the contrast with Indian museums was only too evident.

Gilded Bodhisattva from the Tang period

"Gold traced and painted statue of Avalokiteswara".  Northern Zhou dynasty

A stele with Buddhas on all four sides - from the 4th century

The little lake beside the museum

The pagoda, with modern Xi'an behind

We were making our way out of the grounds and almost missed the small building off to one side.  Exhibition on the Cultural Revolution, said a banner.  My wife's  curiosity overcame my reluctance and we went in to take a look.  The exhibits - photographs, a few articles and commentary (in English!) - occupied the corner of a room.  The unequivocal message was this: Chairman Mao was a great man who unified the country and helped drive out the Japanese, but his Cultural Revolution was a big mistake.   

Reformers led by Deng Xiaoping learned from the social and economic chaos caused by the Revolution and initiated the reforms that set China on the path to growth and prosperity.  So there it was in black and white: official acknowledgement that Mao had erred, that Maoism had outlived its usefulness, and that it was time to move on.  Perhaps we need to send Indian Maoists and Marxists to China for some re-education.

Apart from his ubiquitous presence on currency notes and his portrait and mausoleum in Tiananmen Square, Mao was absent in China.  There was plenty of history and culture being resurrected and burnished wherever we went.   It appeared to me, though, that the nominally communist ruling party was gradually airbrushing its communist past out of its history.

The drum tower

Old Chinese cities marked the beginning and end of the day with the chiming of bells and the beating of drums.  (Earlier still, battles were fought only at specified times, and the bells and drums marked the beginning and end of each day's battle: the custom survived the era of wars.)  The well preserved (or well restored) Bell Tower of Xian sits at the heart of the walled city, encircled by a never-ending stream of traffic and surrounded by monumental Soviet style buildings dating from the 1950s.  A short distance away, adjacent to buildings housing McDonalds, Starbucks and Haagen Dazs outlets, sits the (equally well preserved/restored) Drum Tower.  These are large, impressive, structures and hold their own even in their twenty first century surroundings.

The Bell Tower, encircled by the new city

 Exploring the Muslim Quarter

Walk a little further, turn right past a large mall, and you find yourself in a narrow alleyway, dodging scooters and motorized rickshaws.  This is the Muslim Quarter of Xian, another remnant of the time when the city was the terminus of the silk route.  The looks and sounds of the modern city are completely absent here.  We felt we were in some Middle Eastern bazaar.  Shops and restaurants spilt out onto the street.  Mounds of dried fruits and dates filled open sacks.  Skewered kababs awaited their turn in the oven, as did circles of unleavened bread. 

 

The obsessive tidiness of the main thoroughfares was absent here.  The Chinese street signs were the only indication of where we actually were.  The alleyway was too narrow for traffic, but that didn't stop the laden scooters and rickshaws attempting to make their way through the pedestrian crowds.

We came to a junction and turned into another crowded alleyway moving, we hoped, towards the Great Mosque.  There was no sign of any large mosque (or any large structure) anywhere.  More of the same shops, passageways leading to small habitations, bicycles and scooters, the odd tree, but no mosque.  We looked at our map.  It had to be here somewhere, except that there was absolutely nothing anywhere resembling a large green space with a mosque.  We finally stopped and asked for directions.  Sign language and much pointing at the map, in case you were wondering.  As in the rest of Xian, English is limited to the road signs.

We were pointed down an even narrower covered alley, its shops filled with tourist bric-a-brac.  T-shirts featuring Obama and Mao, playing cards with Saddam Hussein's smiling face, the Little Red Book translated into the most unexpected languages, mugs, mats, scarves and much else.  There was none of the competitive hustle and bustle of a true middle-eastern bazaar.  Negotiations were civilized.  If we only wanted to look, no one bothered us.

 
We then came to a gate with a polite gentleman wanting to know where we were from.  He seemed pleased to hear that we were from India.  And, quite unexpectedly, there we were, in the first (of three) courtyard of the Great Mosque.

 

The mosque dates from the eight century, but as with everything else in China, it is difficult to tell what has been restored, added or repaired or whether even any part of the original structure still survives.  That apart, this is a mosque like no other.  This is very Chinese set of buildings and even what passes for a minaret is a Chinese tower.  Arabic calligraphy here and there is the only indication of its purpose.

 

It was quiet and restful inside, with plenty of trees providing shade.  The sounds of the bazaar and the larger city are absent.  The chatter of birds and the distant sound of prayer were the only sounds.

I couldn't help thinking that this place was a kind of terminus.  Islam came this far but, running up against more ancient beliefs, didn't go any further.  These buildings with their syncretism of Chinese styles and Islamic calligraphy marked an outpost.  Today, we are told, there are only about 20,000 Muslims in Xian.  Judging from the white caps and headscarves we saw near the mosque and their absence elsewhere in the city, it looks as though most of them live and do business in this crowded jumble of streets.

  It was past six, the sunlight slowly softening and painting the Bell Tower in mellow hues.  Across, in a large 1950s era edifice, was the post office.  We wanted to send a few postcards and wondered if we were too late.  We needn't have worried.  As elsewhere, pragmatism ruled.  There were others sending parcels, posting letters and sticking stamps on postcards.  People needed to use the post office at this hour, and it was open as a result.  No protests in the People's Republic about long working hours.  (Interestingly, the postcards we sent to the US reached in a week.  The postcards to India took three months.  I wonder why.) 
 

The Xi'an People's Hotel - a communist relic, now under renovation in private hands

To be sure, life is far from perfect in China, but by and large there is a sense that the government's job is to do something for its citizens.  We walked back to our hotel along broad, tree-lined sidewalks, and couldn't help thinking that this small pleasure, a quiet evening stroll, was impossible in our native Chennai.