Xian
With a few people including a young woman in my family, I
flew from Hong Kong to Xian -- a city in the middle of China -- to see the great
exhibit of the Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses, and, was again reminded that the
Chinese have throughout history designed and constructed great building
projects on a monumental scale.
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| Terra Cotta Warrior Museum Complex |
This monumentality was evident in the Emperor Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum built in the Qin Dynasty (211-206 BC) in
Xian. Upon
ascending the throne at the age of 13 (in 246 BC), Qin Shi Huang,
later the first Emperor of all China, began work on his mausoleum which took
11 years to complete. The royal tomb was first discovered in 1974 when peasants
uncovered some pottery from the site while digging for a well.
The size of the burial tomb of China’s first Emperor
is as overwhelming as the clay design/construction/placement of a virtual army
of terra cotta warriors with all the accoutrements of a well supplied military
force. Incredibly, each warrior in this massive army exhibits the actual
likeness of an actual living member of the emperor’s army. With exquisite
attention to detail and superb craftsmanship, this military force was crafted
and strategically positioned to protect the emperor in his afterlife. The burial complex served
the same need as that of the great tombs in the Pyramids of the Egyptian
Pharaohs. The mercury filled rivers in this monumental complex provided a
beautiful design element and a clever security against grave robbers as the
mercury fumes killed all the workers when the project was completed.
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| Excavation site |
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| Terra Cotta Warriors |
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| Terra Cotta Horses |
The Terra
Cotta warriors and Horses are the most significant archeological excavations of
the 20/21 century. Work is ongoing at this site, which is around 1.5
kilometers east of Emperor Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum in
Lintong, Xian, and Shaanxi Province. Currently, the Chinese government has
sent an exhibit with copies of some of the warriors and their horses to museums
around the world.
But China’s iconic monumentalism
in its building projects probably is best expressed by the China’s Great Wall
-- begun during the Qin dynasty, 221-207 BCE, and continued for many centuries
afterward. The Great Wall runs from the border with North Korea in the east to
the far western province of Xinjiang. This same design motif is evident on a smaller scale in Xian’s,
once an imperial city, 12 mile city wall –now a wonderful esplanade for foot
traffic and bicycles.
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| Twelve mile city wall, Xian |
So whatever suffering that is happening to China’s people under communism was not apparent
in faces and the day to day activity of these middle class Chinese in Xian. The
problem worldwide seems to be in the huge and ever increasing dichotomy between
the rich and the poor. While we witnessed a vibrant middle class, they all work
hard. This gaiety and the vigor of the Chinese people in this mid size town in
middle China was wonderful to witness and we saw it everywhere in the upscale
areas of China.
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| Art in a local museum/school, Xian |
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| Terra Cotta Mask, Xian Museum |
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| Xian Museum School |
We stayed overnight and visited a shopping center filled with
happy people making purchases and eating and laughing ( I stopped briefly to look at women’s clothing in the mall, no Gucci
Boutiques more like Nordstrom’s fare and about the same price with better
quality) and spent a morning at a
small museum that supported the training of artists. The museum collected
native peasant paintings and showed student art-- I bought a few excellent
pieces for gifts. The suffering that is happening to China’s people under
communism was not apparent in faces and the day to day activity of these middle
class Chinese in Xian. The problem here rests, as it does everywhere, in the
dichotomy between the rich and the poor. The gulf in China even among the middle
class who work extra hard to achieve this status and the poor is just staggering.
And social justice is not high on the agenda of Communist leadership.
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| Thriving shopping mall in Xian. |
