In trying to make the waiters and waitresses understand our desire to buy a bottle of wine in our hotel Alfred said in his best (very Southern USA) English accent "Waaahn...waaahn?". Ah they understood...'lai sha ma' they said their faces lighting up and many nodding heads. No movement though...'Lay sha maah' repeated Alfred in his best Chinese....again nodding heads and delighted smiles but slightly puzzled expressions as he continued to ask..'Lay sha maah?' Eventually he caught sight of a beverage menu, found the wine and he and George decided on a particular bottle. $30.00 (!!) later we had a bottle of wine and retired to Terry and Alfred's room to enjoy it. All of us congratulating Alfred on his prowess in the Chinese language.
The next morning we met Cindy and Mr Lee to continue out tour to the Terracotta Warriers. We were explaining to Cindy our difficulty in purchasing the wine but that we had learned the word for 'wine', 'Lai sha ma' we told her was going to be a valuable addition to our vocabulary in China. She put her hand over her nouth, turned away and started to giggle. OK so our pronunciation wasn't the best but surely not that funny?
We looked at each other, perplexed, as she continued to rock back and forth laughing now out loud. "You were asking why? why? WHY? " she burst out..'Why?' we thought...'WHY?'.... no wonder they had looked puzzled as Alfred kept repeating the Chinese word joyously to them! What is the word then we asked...'Tcho' she replied 'TCHO' we all repeated..and you can imagine perhaps how often and how confidently we used that word thereafter!! (For any of you visiting China "Great Wall" Cabernet is the best red we tasted...and we did that...often!)
It was a miserable, grey day outside as we drove through the crowded streets of Xi'an and out beyond the city limits to Pit 1 of the huge excavation site where the Terracotta Warriers had been found.
One day in 1974 a farmer and his friends were drilling for water and discovered to their surprise, pottery fragments and bronze weapons in the soil beneath them. These they took to be examined by experts and further excavation over a few years revealed the massive 3 pits covering an area of 20,000 square meters which proved to be the burial pit of China's first feudal Emperor, Quin Shi Huan. 8,000 Terracotta armoured warriers and horses and more than 100 chariots were buried there! This has become the on site Museum which we visited. There has been on going excavation ever since the first discovery and the tomb is more than 2,200years old! It is now on UNESCO's list as a world class heritage site.
I have always wanted to see these warriers, from the day I first learned of their discovery. They have somehow fed my imagination and wonder but I never imagined I would have the opportunity to do so. Believe me when I say they do not disappoint. I stared down at their faces, a dusty ochre in colour, each one different, marching forward silently through eternity...it was an awe inspiring sight They stretch into the distance under the vast concrete 'tent' that is their shelter and we all stared in amazement at this masterpiece of human creation. The men who made them were buried alive as were more than a thousand concubines to serve their master in death. Here was almost mystical creation coupled with the dreadful destruction of human life. That it occurred two thousand years ago does not lessen the horror of the act or the enormity of the human skill on display.
We seemed each to be in our own minds as we walked slowly around, absorbing and seeing but not sharing our thoughts and reactions. This was the burial place of more than an Emperor, somewhere here were the remains of thousands of human beings, victims of one man's colossal ego. The early Killing Fields of China? But it is the wonder of human endeavour that ultimately triumphs and one feels insignificant in the face of it. I have rarely been so moved and humbled by art, because that is what this is...a monumental work of art.
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