Catherine Travels, June 17th

We travelled on our overnight train to Xi'an, opulently by Chinese standards - not only 'soft sleeper' (with a pad on the shelf), but we paid for 2 extra tickets so we could have a 4-person compartment to ourselves. This meant we had room for our luggage and to almost turn around. We still, of course, had to use the communal squat toilet. We slept well and enjoyed this way to travel - despite our very Western ideas of privacy and space.

Our guide in Xi'an, Sunny, met us as we stepped off the rail care and took us directly to the terracotta warriors. Like the Great Wall, I thought I was prepared for the spectacle. But the site is overwhelming: trenches sufficient to hold 8000 life-sized warriors, including infantry, cavalry, kneeling and standing archers, charioteers, officers, generals, and each face distinctive. And, if course, the lovely, fat-rumped horses. Only 2-3000 of the soldiers have been reassembled, after they were smashed and burned in the ultimately unsuccessful peasants' revolt after the death of the Emperor who had this asontishing protective force for the after-life buried near his mausoleum. Sort of a King Tut with a military twist.

The site is now a well-done museum, with large buildings over the three pits and active archaeology ongoing. Some trenches lay open, with the terracotta rubble visible; others await opening. The soldiers were originally painted in vivid colors, but this has all but weathered away over the tijme since they were buried in 207 B.C.

It is hot here, not so humid as Beijing but difficult in the sun. Our Guide, Sunny, carries a parasol, saying 'Chinese girls don't like to turn dark.' I just wear a goofy hat.

We ended our day with a feast of dumplings, a Xi'an specialty, like potstickers. No wonder the Tang emperors who had Xi'an as their capital had an ideal of beauty that exactly suits my own fondness for dumplings: round face, round belly, round rump. There were dumplings with meat, including duck in a duck-shaped dumpling; sweet walnut paste; red bean paste; vegies including a green dumpling with celery; all yummy.

Dinner was follows with a music and dance concert in the Tang dynasty style. Much of the music was written by Emperor Xuanzong, mid-eigth century. He was a musician and poet. His songs were arranged for dance by his favorite concubine, Yang. These two are a favorite romantic story and symbol told locally. The emperor's ministers believed she was distracting the emperor and taking too much of his time, so they kidnapped her. When she disappeared, the emperor was told she committed suicide. Others believed that she fled to Japan. That is possibly the same thing, since the Japanese are the traditional enemy, mentioned in many of the stories we are told. The Tang empire was also known as a time of great freedom for women, no bound feet for these dancing, polo-playing women.

Is it surprising for characters at a time distance of 1400 years to be so vivid and to have such a direct connection with the current culture? I guess not - they are Heloise and Abelard or Lysistrata.