It's been awhile

Hello again,
I know it's been too long since I updated you all on my China adventures but take it as a good sign that I am enjoying myself here. In the past month I have gone on two escapes from the big bad city. The first trek was to Xi'An with Levy's program and that is what this story is all about. the other was this past weekend to"Yellow Mountain", Huang Shen, which will come in the next blog.
We all gathered bright and early on a Friday morning and headed off to the airport, all 49 of us. you can only imagine the looks on people's faces when they realized their flight had been infiltrated by a bunch of English speaking, picture snapping, 20 something year olds giddy to be flying with so many friends at once. Then again it was a giant plane (2 stories- the top with beds) I wonder how many people actually noticed us. Believe it or not, the passengers were equally as picture happy, thrilled to have their photo taken with a P-diddy/Kanye West character and his curly haired American wife. This theme continued throughout our journey. What can I say, Levy is a superstar. There aren't that many African's here that you see during the day, and especially outside the big cities. Although at the clubs we've met plenty of Africans and African Americans.

Upon our arrival into the ancient city of Xi'An our tour guide pointed out numerous bumps in the feilds representing various tombs of nobles, something that without explanation could have easily gone unrecognized as being significant. This fact was a nice introduction to the ancient city and it's importance in Chinese history.

The ancient city of Xi'An in the Shaanxi province was the capitol many times throughout China's past. It encapsulates the modern and ancient look and feel of a city. It has the best kept city wall of any city in China, including the Great Wall. This is saying something since it was a capitol through so many different dynasties and still it remains tall and strong.
After our drive through the fields, we arrived at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. This is what I was waiting to see in China, a beautiful, old buddhist temple with mesmerizing architecture, peaceful gardens and a spiritual presence that urges you into a state of reflection. This 5 story pagoda was built in 652 during the Tang dynasty and when it fell 50 years later it was rebuilt to be 10 stories high. It remained until the 1550's when an earthquake knocked it down to 7 stories high, the height it stands at now. Imagine, walking up the stairs of a building from the 700's...
After a sad attempt at American Chinese food at a tourist trap restuuarant that all the bus tours in China take their patrons to, we made it through the city wall to our 4 star hotel. The hotel greeted us with luxury and old chinese glam.
The following day we started early to see some of the many historic sights of Xi'An. First, we went onto the city wall to test it's strength and many of us rented bicycles to ride around the perimeter. Levy and I strolled along on a tandum bike, admiring the beautiful architecture of the small forts along the wall, the hordes of people practicing Tai Chi in the parks outside and below the wall, the changing dynamics in neighborhoods within the wall's perimeter. It felt surreal to ride along the wall, seeing structures that centuries of generations saw, now with modern skyscrapers and smokestacks barreling over the sides just outside of the ancient city. There were remains of bright and intricate lanterns left from the new year's celebration partially still up, some being taken apart while we rode past.
Next stop, a factory where they make terra cotta warriors and various souvenirs, another tourist trap the tour buses have an agreement with to make money. AND then, the Terra Cotta Army, the real deal. First let me start by mentioning that the (first) Emporer of China, Qin Shi Huang, dedicated 1/3 of the GDP of China on building his mausoleum (that's 1/3 of the country's GDP for 50 years spent on his grave!). These soldiers were built in the 200 BCE's but in the 1970's some farmers discovered the soldiers when they were digging. There have only been 3 pits uncovered, out of hundreds because of many reasons. The Emporer had an entire city built for him with a mote of mercury protecting him in the afterlife, along with thousands of terra cotta soldiers. Archaeoligists are fearful of the mercury as well as booby traps that may either destroy them or the artifacts they hope to uncover. Still within the pits that are uncovered there are over 6,000 soldiers and horses, each carved with an individual face. The detail put into this army for the afterlife goes as deep as the bottom of their shoes, if there are bumps, then they were married soldiers and in the case of death the wife would receive her husbands shoes that she had sewn to be sturdy for his journey, as proof of his death.
It was awe-inspiring, as people shoved past and elbowed me to get the perfect photograph I stood entranced by the power of one man to built a stronger city than many modern ones simply to protect him in the afterlife. Long, long ago there were hundreds of thousands of people who were forced to deidcate their lives to building this city below ground and only fairly recently did we rediscover this wonder.
Xi'An is an interesting city because it's existence as an important city dates back so far. Still now, while building the subway system they are continuously discovering artifacts from tombs underground. I wonder where these spirits ended up? Did their jewels and armies serve them well after death or did they get left behind so that we can now peice together history and create fascinating legends and theories? Oh, but there was one last stop, Muslim street. Xi'An has a famous muslim market street full of nuts and dried fruits, muslim candies and street food snacks, bargaining and sweet smells of cumin and red bean paste.

A few varying facotories, museums and cheesy tourist restaurants later, we ended up back on a bus to the airport to fly back to our lives in Shanghai, our modern city trapped in between it's industrial and technological revolution, slowly escaping it's gangster roots. It was a great exploration, a fun chance to get to know the UC EAP students better and a great opportunity to see deep into Chinese history.
xoxo Lolo in China.