The Best Place in the World Because it’s Every Place in the World

February 2, 2010 – 10:35 pm

I didn’t have a whole lot of stereotypes on what the Chinese culture or people were like before I came to China. I had some of course, everyone has stereotypes of everything, but I formed the majority of my stereotypes and conceptions after living here for a while. I’ve gained a lot of insight into how people here think, why they think the way they do, and what they do to act upon their various thoughts and ideas. I find China to be quite fascinating at the moment because of the extremely large generation gap between Gen X and Gen Y for instance, but that’s off topic.

One of the strongest things I have noticed is that there is a strong demand for cultural sensitivity in China (often be “culturally sensitive” just means “don’t ask questions” however). I am of course willing to give it, but at the same time I want to understand why certain things are the way they are and I will question them. I give in to all sorts of things to be polite and not insult my hosts that would never even come up in the US. US culture in general tries to be culturally sensitive to other cultures, peoples, and races. I’m even cringing a little bit as I type “they” referring to the Chinese people/culture. My culture teaches me that all people are not the same and to refer to them as such is to be insensitive/bigoted/ill-informed. Please bare with me as I explain this further however, I know they’re not all the same, but I have discovered distinct patterns and I’m pointing them out as I see them. Keep in mind please: I like China. If I hated China I wouldn’t be here.

Another thing I have noticed is that the Chinese are very curious about other cultures. Their culture is so strong and all pervasive that they really often have no clue as to what other cultures are like outside of what they see in movies or read in books (that are written by more people that are just as clueless as themselves). They often don’t know how to be culturally sensitive and assume that they are being culturally sensitive, no matter what it is they’re doing. They are curious about other cultures, but don’t know how other cultures are different from their own, assume they are the same, and often don’t respect the differences by observing them when they can (again, because they have so little interaction with other cultures they don’t know how to be respectful of them). This is why I find it so ironic when they demand cultural sensitivity but can’t/don’t know how to give it themselves.

This was not something I knew about before coming here. The curiosity is there, the yearning to understand is there, but the knowledge of how to respect cultural or racial differences is really, really not there. I have seen many many instances where they think that they understand, but in actuality do not. So I have often seen when they try to pay homage or respect and it falls flat or comes across as insulting to the culture they are trying to show honor to (though people of that culture probably won’t say anything out respect for Chinese culture of not losing face).

With this in mind, my parents and I got to witness one of the greatest examples of lack of understanding that I’ve ever seen. It’s an amusement park called “Windows of the World.” Be prepared for awesome:






This was at the entrance of the park. I’m sure you can tell how excited I am to be doing this. I had wanted to go to this theme park since I heard about it five months ago:





Here is an ad from outside the gate. Man, France looks awesome:






Here’s a picture of the main gate.

Now you know. This is a whole theme park devoted to imitating other famous places… in miniature! Just about every monument you can think of is here. It specializes in Asia mostly. The farther you get from Asia the farther your tongue goes into your cheek.

First thing we did was take the tram around the park so we could see what we got to look forward to.





If there’s anything the Chinese are known for it’s their racial sensitivity.

Lets go to Japan land!






If you frame it just right it almost looks like it’s really far away:

I don’t know what it is about coy that creep me out. I like them sometimes but something about them puts me off a little bit. I think it’s their constant desire to eat mixed with that sucking air sound they make. “Psuh slup psluh!” Plus I mean they’re just different colored carp. There’s nothing not disgusting about carp:






Mount Fuji:





Here’s the rest of Asia. I do actually have to give them some props for the craftsmanship on this stuff. It’s quite good. I mean what they lack in creativity they make up in straight up skills on making things. They’re very good at copying and producing in China, though the quality isn’t always good. However this stuff is all outside, it has to withstand the elements and people climbing on it even though they’re told not to. Pretty well made stuff and quite detailed overall. It also got me thinking of various places I’d like to visit:





Oh hey it’s Russia!

I’ve always kind of liked the design of this tower. It’s pretty cool. Very simple. I have of course forgotten the name of it even though I’ve been searching online for like half an hour. I’m impressed with this model because they copied the weathering patterns quite well with their little mini bricks:






This is probably one of my favorite churches (Sagrada Familia being my favorite I think). It’s incredibly cool looking. I’m so happy I got to stand next to it kind of:





My only regret is that I didn’t get the classic picture of me holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa… but like, I’d be a giant… :-/





Check out these sweet helicopter shots I got of the Vatican:

You know, when I first saw this I thought “Wow, a lot of teenage boys come through here…” but now that I think about it, average maturity levels on everyone here sometimes feels like it’s 7-10 years younger than the average in the US. Probably a bunch of 30 year olds or something:





Venice:





I now have no need to go to Australia, sorry Colin:





The Dutch:





A miniature golf course. Get it? Get it? Aahhhhhh…

Some of these I don’t know. They’re still pretty cool looking though. I would say this is 80’s Hollywood movie model making quality. Pack that castle full of explosives and have our hero escape unharmed while it explodes in slow motion? I’d watch it:

Yet another landmark that I recognize but I can’t remember the name or even where it is anything. The I’m pretty sure the recall ability on my brain has some inhibitor curse on it that gives it a -7 on all memory abilities:

This was one of the photos where I tried to see how many famous monuments I could pack into one picture. I got 4 in this one. It’s like Pokemon Snap but less cute and less swearing cause you couldn’t capture the perfect image of Mew:

I appreciate that they tried to replicate both Marseilles and its gardens with actual plants. I would have tried to match the scale on the palace to the scale of the plants a little more, but whatever, to each his own. Maybe they were short on time:

I’ve been to Stonehenge. It’s pretty cool. It’s very odd cause it’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s just a farm out in the country. However, you don’t get to walk around inside of it, just around the outside. Now I get to experience more than I did at the actual Stonehenge. Why even go see the original when I can see the miniature replication and actually walk around inside of it?





“Giant Baby Rampages Through Britain; Queen Saddened by Loss of Life”:

This afternoon a giant baby destroyed countless buildings around Buckingham Palace causing tens of millions of pounds worth of damage. 521 people were killed and 1400 more were injured in the attack. Survivors often took shelter behind fences and stone pillars hoping for the baby to just quiet down a little, even though they have nothing against babies:

Police tried to stop the destruction but were unsuccessful due to the baby’s openly defiant and cranky attitude.

“I don’t know, when he gets this way I kind of just let him go until he wears himself out” Mei Li, his mother, had to say. “Children have a natural curiosity about the world so I let him explore on his own. This afternoon might have gotten a little out of hand though.”

The baby eventually stopped destroying anything and everything in its path after finding a set of pots and pans in a fountain nearby. After two hours of deafening noise he started to settle down. Ms. Li was heard to have said it was probably time for a nap and took him home for beddibyes.





Parliament. If I was in charge of this park I would have had funk music playing near this one and seen how many people got it (probably no one). I would have liked it though. I love the tiny little bushes/trees:





London Bridge:





Here I am in Russia again!





I’m gonna say 5 on this one cause I got the front part of Buckingham Palace in there as well:





This is the only miniature that didn’t have a plaque saying what it was or where it was from. I did have a moment of confusion when first looking at it, but then I figured it out:






In all actuality the fake Eiffel Tower is pretty cool (as tacky as it is). I mean it’s constructed out of the same materials as the real one and it’s the same pattern of metal and all that, it’s just that it’s… you know… a little smaller. Still pretty big though and you can take stairs or the elevatop up to the top to look around.






Um what?





If there’s anything the Chinese are known for it’s their racial sensitivity:

I wonder if they know what’s in that stogie? I don’t know where to start with that one. I also can’t even comment on the white guy cause I don’t know what culture/ethnic group he’s supposed to represent. Maybe it’s white people? Neo Nazis? I don’t know. Whenever I hear about some politician in the US saying something slightly askew about race or something, I look at it with new eyes. Like really, at least most of the time with them it’s a slip of the tongue that probably only reveals a little bit about their biases. Sometimes it’s blown way out of proportion and people are a little overly sensitive, other times not. Culturally however, even among those public faces that are accused of being racist (A strong accusation to just throw around willy nilly I might add), they at least know most of the time that “whoop, that was the wrong thing to say/that was hurtful/etc.”

However, many people here really do hold those stereotypes to be true because they’ve never once been shown any differently. When they are shown something different they view that as the anomaly. Many of my students really do believe that most Americans own guns and that all black people ride around with cars that blast bass out of them. These are facts in their heads. There’s a girl in my program that’s black that I haven’t seen in a while. I talked to her earlier about what sort of effect it might have on her time here but I haven’t seen her in months. I really want to talk to her again because I’m sure she’s having a massively different experience in this country than I am.

At one point I was in Hong Kong and one of my friends became openly nervous near a guy on the street and moved away from him. I was like “What’s wrong?” and she said: “I think that maybe he might steal my money.”
“Why?”
“He is black.”
The guy was Pakistani. He was handing out flyers for a tailor shop, probably his family’s if I were to guess cause I saw some interaction he had with some other Pakistani people (see? I make stereotypical assumptions too). I was like “No he’s not. He’s just handing out flyers for a tailor shop.” However, he was black to her. Not Pakistani. She couldn’t tell the difference. All black people are criminals, so then this guy is a criminal as well. Now this a completely offensive thought in my mind because it’s so illogical that’s it’s purely based on racism. This is actual racism and bigotry, not that fluffy stuff that US politicians sometimes accidently say.

I mean 1) I’ve never been someplace where so much theft happens. We don’t have this many bars on our windows at home and the bars certainly don’t go 15 stories up. What kind of theft level must you have in a country for bars to be necessary on the windows 15 stories up? This is normal. 2) Let’s say someone steals from you. What is the likelihood, statistically, that a person of non-Chinese ethnicity is going to do it? There are 1,325,639,982 people in China and 600,000 of which are people from overseas working in China (including ethnically Chinese, but born in another country). I’ve looked at various estimates, that one was from 2000. Other estimates have put it at 460,000 as of 2004. However I assume that the numbers have only gone up, so I’m going to bump it up an extremely generous amount to 800,000 (which is likely much more than the actual number). Statistically that means you have a 0.06% chance of running into a non-Chinese born person across the entire country of China (the rate goes up a little in the city and depending on the city of course). For instance in Shenzhen, estimates say you have about a 1.6% chance of meeting an non-chinese born person.

How many of them are dark skinned? Because darker skin = someone who steals and that’s it. That’s the only requirement. From personal experience, I would say the expat population is about 45% non-European and non-Russian descent, I don’t know where to get statistics on that so we have to do it this way.

So here’s the statistics (which I could be doing wrong, so feel free to correct the art major):

Chinese population: 1,325,639,982
Non-Chinese population in China: 800,000
Number of “black people” in the non-chinese population: 360,000
Chance of running into a “black person” in China: 0.027%

Now those are just the statistics of running into a black person, not the chances of running into a black person that also steals (which, in China, is probably as high as a white person who steals). Granted, it also doesn’t take into account the people that were black and born here, but I’m pretty sure that’s quite a small number. China doesn’t release crime statistics or who commits crimes, but judging from the amount of bars on windows across the entire country, I get the feeling that it’s not just black people. If it were that easy you could easily pull a Hitler and move them all out. So really, with these statistics, why would you fear black people? What possible reason could there be to assume that a black person is more likely to steal than a Chinese person? There are waaaaaaay more Chinese people than black people so the statistics only go up the more people you have and the more down on your luck you are. If you’re a foreigner in China, you’re probably not that poor because you were able to afford a plane ticket over here to get a job and most of the time you at least need a bachelor’s degree. A Chinese person though? They could live their whole life on the street eating out of the trash and begging for money, but yet the black person that traveled here by plane with a degree in higher education is the one that’s going to steal from you.

This is racism. I’ve heard it from too many people here to feel that it’s only a few Chinese people that have this issue. It’s widespread.

Just to show the kind of hardline liberal teacher I am, to push the point home to the kids that there are people of other ethnicities out there (and that they’re just as capable as Chinese people at doing anything), whenever I have to show a picture of couple or someone of high power and prestige in a powerpoint presentation, I always make sure to make it a mixed race couple. I specifically try to find black men with Asian women or black doctors or something like that just because in their mind, that’s impossible. I want to put it right out in front of their face that their stereotypes are based on nothing more than their own fear of meeting someone that’s not their race. You only realize you have issues with bigotry and race when you’re suddenly confronted with one or many people that are not of your own race. Since they never have that chance, I try to make it happen. We’re going to be confronting this issue head on when we talk about dating a month from now. My hope is to encourage them to see these issues, even though every moment of their schooling they teach that the stereotypes are true. I have often heard the phrase: “No, Chinese people aren’t racist.” We’ll see how long that stance lasts when opened up to a little prodding.

Anyway, let’s move on to something a little more fun. Greece or Rome for instance:






Coolest sculpture ever. Love it. I give made props to the guy who made this thing. I hope it’s not a copy, though I’m sure it’s from a still in a national geographic or something:





Here’s a British hedge maze:






I wanted to visit Egypt, but now I don’t have to!





You too can dress up like an Egyptian and take photos in front of Egyptian stuff. This is how Egyptians dress afterall:





I don’t know what is going on here and I can’t explain it to you. I’m sorry:





This is an African mask because this is what black people look like:





See? It’s Africa! Ooga booga amirite?

They also had a place where they did live African dance. I would have given extra money to be able to see a bunch of Chinese people do African dance.

I’m sure you’ve been waiting to see what they included from America right? So far it seems there was nothing from the new world. Well here’s the history that America has to offer: The Grand Canyon.





There’s even one small group of cliff dwellers (which I have also seen a number of and recommend because of coolness):

Pretty amazing. Looks just like the Grand Canyon… or a set from a mid-90’s B-grade adventure movie.

Actually, have you ever seen the movie Congo? I watched it for the first time about a month ago. My parents wouldn’t let me watch it when it first came out, too scary. I’ve wanted to watch it since I saw previews for it in like 2nd grade or whatever though. The final part of the movie takes place in an area that pretty much looks exactly like this but with more giant killer gorillas in it:

See?

Check it out, it’s Brazil coming by on a car! Or Hawaii! They play the most obnoxious perfect music ever as well. Here’s a video I caught of them later. The first time I saw them they were dancing and yelling, the video doesn’t include that part as much. However I’m also going to point out that in the video they’ve switched from being in Brazillian attire to what appears to be Japanese Kimonos:

VIDEO OF WHAT I WANT TO DO WHEN I GROW UP









Love it. Just love it. I want that song.

Whoa look out! It’s Colombia! Also there’s like a storm or… a volcano or something!






These are the people taking photos of the “chaos”. It was kind of funny because they all stopped about 7 feet from the guard rail to watch the show for some reason. All of them. Then one person went up to the guardrail to get a closer look at one end, then from that end they all got closer, like a wave as they got more confident. Collective society at work.





Dude that car is TOTALED:





Oh… oh no:

No no no. No. Noooooooooooo. I wonder if there is a Chinese version of seppuku. There must be. I should probably do that now.

But then if I committed chippuku I wouldn’t be able to see the natural world wonder that is Niagra Falls!!

I honestly thought it was supposed to be some waterfall in the Amazon because of all the tropical plants all over the place. My bad. I should have known.

I wonder if blackface would be/is a hit in China?





So I think the concept of water rides fails a little bit here. The point is to get wet, that’s the whole reason you go on a water ride. I’ll give the benefit of doubt however cause it’s not like it’s summer right now:





This is a guy after the ride, just to make sure there’s no water on him after the water ride is over. I saw a few people do this:





I don’t know what this is for, I think it’s a ride or something, but I thought it was funny. The eyes move really slowly and I don’t understand why they move the way they do. It almost feels like a mistake, but I highly doubt it.

CLICK ME FOR LOLLING LOLS!









Okay there is actually more from the America (although almost all of it was made post US becoming a nation):






Hey it’s another mushroom like from Beijing. It has a speaker in it to plays the US national anthem and America the Beautiful. I wonder if they hide things in mushrooms in Japan. It would have a different meaning there I think.





As you can see the Jefferson Memorial has a few terrorists at the top of the stairs and lie-down protesters at the bottom:





I like the attention to detail on the change of bricks near the base of the Washington Memorial. Good eye. However there are supposed to be two windows at the top and two lights, not four windows. Close though. It’s still pretty well done.





Lincoln is even in the Lincoln Memorial. Off scale, but he’s in there:





America

The only other thing it needs is a flag and bald eagle lightly screened over the top of the image for extra cheesiness.

On another note, I’ve noticed that many people here care more about who did it first than who did it best. China did a lot of things first and I respectfully yield the floor on many things. However I’ve noticed the students like to claim other things as Chinese as well (adults less so but they still do it); best example being pizza. Chinese people made pizza first; didn’t you know? What happened was explorers from Italy came over to China, saw a dish that the Chinese have where it’s baked dough with things inside of it, then they tried to make it themselves. The problem was that they were too stupid to make it right so they ended up making pizza instead. No no no, it’s not that the Italians were testing their ovens with a cheap bread and then basically putting leftovers on it and selling/eating it so as not to waste food. It’s not that simple. The Italians stole it from China.

However I now remember one thing I can claim they didn’t do first whenever they get all nationalistic on me in class: Effin’ fly.






Oop, speaking of flying… *awkward turtle*

I know someone who went on the official tour of the park. He said that when the guides get to this part the say “The original Twin Towers in New York were destroyed in a terrorist attack; ours are still standing though.”

Here’s Jesus doin’ his thing:






I was waiting for at least a few things from South/Central America, but they didn’t have a lot. I don’t think they cover that in history class as much as we do:





Paris/Isla Nublar:

*Sigh* I knew “Isla Nublar” without looking it up. This is what’s in my head instead of names of old architecture that I like and important historical places. I don’t know how I feel about that.

Anyway I would say around the time we started getting into the Americas is about the time that the attention to detail started wearing off. In all the other cultures they really tried to copy the exact artworks, styles, etc etc. I personally really like Mayan art. I like their odd triangular heads and very line oriented work with things generally put into square shaped patterns. They were a very advanced people that had all sorts of calendars, maps, structures that aligned to specific solstices and equinoxes, plumbing, observatories, all kinds of stuff. They even were able to discover the Orion Nebula as a system of stars without a telescope. All of this done in a shorter time frame than the Chinese, the Greeks, or other cultures had because they had to spend however many years crossing the Bering Straight, migrating all the way down to Mesoamerica, and then setting up a civilization that would allow for scientific advances to occur. Very cool. Except of course the plaques would say things like “They might have had an understanding of astronomy” because as far as the plaque maker was concerned, again, the Chinese invented it. So complaints of unnecessary nationalism aside, this is what the beautiful Mayan artwork was reduced to:

Very unfortunate. It wouldn’t be a big deal to me if I didn’t believe that so many people would come through, see it, and then think that that was the truth.

Here’s some teepees from the plains Indians. As you can see the art on the side of their tents was well researched. As were the totem poles which the plains Indians all made (or didn’t, but they’re all from the same country so they’re all the same right?)

Here we have a Native American in extremely well researched clothes shooting his bow and arrow at a jaguar. As we all know, plains Indians had a lot of trouble with Jaguars (a god animal from Mesoamerica) in much the same way that the Maasai people are beleaguered with polar bear attacks or Fred Flintstone is bedeviled by a hyperactive purple brontosaurus:





I just I can’t even





Aright, lets do Jurassic Dinosaurs World instead:





Whoa look out!





They had motion-activated dinosaurs. This one had a voice and movement that I liked:

CLICK = ROAAAAAAAAAAR

This was my favorite dinosaur when I was a kid. My mom says so. I still like it. It’s original. It’s head it just doing it’s own thing:





Yeah! T-Rex eatin’ stuff! T-Rex wins!





Love the animatronics here:

LIFELIKE

More Not Snow White stuff? This amuses me because they thought it necessary to buy more than one set of Not Snow White statues (along with all the not dwarves to go along with it).
“Do you think the one Snow White set up is enough or should we move on to oth-“
“No! Get one more!”
“Why?”
“Don’t question me boy!”

Before I leave the park I had to get a picture of the statue of liberty done in an ancient Summarian art style. They did everything in that style near the front, but the Statue of Liberty really stood out to me:





Ah Windows of the World. What an unforgettable experience. You brought me joy, confusion, frustration, bemusement, anger, and food poisoning. I spent the rest of the night throwing up.





Next week I’ll talk all about Harbin and the awesome Ice Festival. It’s way sweet. You’ll like it. Stay tuned for: “Harbinthere, Done That.”

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Xi’an… She ahn… Sean… Sean Connery.

January 31, 2010 – 2:15 am

This post is not about Sean Connery.

I’m on a plane to Harbin as I’m writing this (actually we’ve been sitting on the tarmac for 2 hours so far). I should probably be wearing faded skinny jeans, a shirt from threadless.com, and a scarf. The only thing that could make me more cool than using my sleek silver Macbook on the plane would be to be drinking a mocha cappuccino/chai tea/my own feces because I look like an asshole. I really do like my Macbook, genuinely, but I don’t like the snooty message it brings with it. You just can’t escape it though. If you have an apple computer you look like an asshole. I mean just go to the apple store and talk to the technicians there (Note: The official title of their job is “Genius,” one guess as to what type of people call themselves that).

Anyway, off topic much?

While we were in Hong Kong we saw Avatar in Imax 3D. It was much more awesome this time. The 3d glasses worked better and there were English subtitles! Except there were Chinese subtitles the whole time so by the time an English subtitle popped up I had learned to ignore them and I would miss them… :-/

While on the plane I couldn’t help but notice these fun images on the safety guide. I love the stuff they pointed out that needed to be banned. At home all I can think of them banning is cell phones and maybe laptops at certain times during the flight. Maybe I just have selective memory:

Dang kids these days with their Walkmans and hand held Tyco electronics.

I’m also going to point out that on the plane apparently you must be entertained at all moments. Those TV screens were on playing a mix of Chinese Top Gear, Days of Our Lives in China, and China’s Funniest Home Videos for 2 and half hours. Also keep in mind that in China there is a tremendously high number of people that turn on their cell phones and blast awful music for everyone to hear. Still fun though, definitely not the hushed “inside voices” of a US domestic flight.

So when I arrived in Xi’an I would say the first thing to greet me was the smell (oddly enough one of the first things to greet you in many parts of China). It smelled like something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was kind of like wood smoke. Then as soon as I walked off the plane and up into the airport I noticed the haze. There was haze inside of the building. Thick haze too. It was sort of a brown gray color. It was so pronounced that I figured some natural disaster had occurred nearby. Like it smelled like wood smoke and everything looked like my eyes were half closed.

The other immediate thing I noticed was that everything was covered in dust. Everything. Like walking into house that no one has lived in for 10 years, that’s how thick the dust was. You could tell how long a car had been parked in one spot due to the amount of dust on it compared to the plants nearby.

The only other time I had experienced these things was in junior high when I went to Yellowstone and there was a big forest fire nearby. So I figured maybe, as ridiculous as it sounded, there was a forest fire nearby? No way could a place be so dusty and dirty and smoggy all the time.

Wrong. Lady at the hotel desk told me so. The city is just really dirty. It’s very dry in Xi’an so there’s no rain to wash it away.

So I hitched a cab ride into the city to my parent’s hotel. We were going down the access road for the highway at like 80 miles an hour (pay a toll? Eff that). It was a little scary at first, not because I was afraid of the speed, more because I was afraid of the speed combined with the fog. The smog in the city was so thick it made a fog that , though light, still obscured vision. It was the exact kind of fog the deer LOVE. My eyes kept darting to those spots that deer like to hang out near the edge of the road. I kept expecting a deer to come bounding out of the woods and smash into our car. Forgot it was China though, there aren’t any animals here.

So then I just sat back and relaxed as we sped through the night. Christmas tree and neon lights were all over the place and the driver blasted a remix between AC/DC’s TNT and My Humps by Black Eyed Peas.

My parents chose to stay at a Hyatt so I stayed there with them. I’m not sure I’ve ever stayed at a Hyatt before. Really ritzy. Made me uncomfortable. It’s one of those places where they try to put the napkin on for you and do everything for you. Really awkward. It’s the exact opposite of the place I’m staying in Harbin tonight (lol a bunk bed).

This was the view from the window. It pretty much sums up Xi’an. The smog was a lot lighter this day than the day previous. This seems like a city that doesn’t get blue skies very often:

So the next day is of course terracotta warrior day. Can’t really go to China and certainly can’t go to Xi’an without seeing the terracotta warriors. So we went over there, grabbed a tour guy, then had him show us around and stuff. It was a pretty cool thing. Here’s a big puppet of a warrior and an innocent little girl (you can tell she’s innocent because she’s wearing a dress and her toes are pointing together):

There were also these huge copper chariots that were made for one of the emperors to ride away to the afterlife in. Pretty cool. They were made at maybe… half scale? They were buried at the foot of the emperor’s tomb about 2 miles away. Apparently these chariots unlocked a lot of secrets about the intricate details of chariot design in ancient China. Over time all the wood from various chariots decomposed so they couldn’t get a good look at them. However, these chariots were supposed to look exactly like the wooden ones, every detail the same. So they were quite happy to find metal versions. I’m pretty confident the glass around them is to make sure Jet Li doesn’t pop out and start wrecking havoc on the world:

Aright so finally: the terracotta warriors. I don’t really have a lot to say about them that hasn’t already been covered by history class (thousands of them, each has individual features, etc etc). They were pretty cool. The whole warehouse smelled like clay oddly enough. Now for some stereotypical tourist photos from slightly above where they are:

So one thing that’s kind of cool is that it’s still an ongoing archeological dig. This means you get to see them still in their various stages of excavation. It’s winter though so they’re not digging.






Oh hey it’s me and my mom! Family fun time!

This is the other section of the dig that they won’t dig up. All the crinkled looking shapes are planks of wood. All the warriors had planks of wood above them. They won’t go down further than the wood because they don’t want to oxidize and damage the paint on the warriors underneath. They noticed when the air hit the warriors that all the paint flaked off and disappeared (thus why they just look like dried out clay). It’s kind of odd thinking about the statues in Greece being painted or the warriors being painted, but that’s how they were. They had some photos of what they looked like before the oxidation process; cool, but tacky. I’m guessing that ancient Greece and the ancient terracotta army looked a lot like an ancient Las Vagas.






You too can have your face photoshopped onto a terracotta warrior!

The gardens outside of the museum. In summer they’re a little more colorful, but I kind of like it all cold and dreary and past-it’s-time looking:






This is a happy frog I liked in the gift shop:

So guess what the terracotta gift shop area has that I haven’t had in months? A Subway! Look at that sandwich being made by the skillful hands of an expert sub sandwich craftsman:

I got a foot long Sub Club on honey oat bread. It was a hard choice between that and the Spicy Italian. Also the Chicken Teriyaki. Also the Chicken Breast. As you can see I basically shut down when I was faced with so many choices laid open at my feet/mouth. I got the Sub Club with Pepperoni, Salami, and Bacon added on for extra umph. Then I got the works in vegetables. I also had them add mayo and vinegar. I’m looking forward to going home so I can add cheddar and salt and pepper as well. Whoof… I’m getting all hot and bothered thinking about this sandwich:

God that looks wonderful. I’m so hungry right now. Why did I decide to work on this post? What novice mistake.

Outside the terracotta warriors you could also buy furs from vari… ous… animals…? Are those-? Yes, yes they are. Purebred too:

Why go through all the time and expense of owning a dog when you can just buy the fur instead? No taking it out for walks in -20 weather, no worrying about a sitter when you’re away, no paying for costly food and vet bills. Not only that but it’s easy to store! Just fold it up and put it in the closet! I’m just going to point out, there were lots of shops with these. It’s not like there was only one, there were quite a few.

Next up, this is the emperor’s tomb (Qin Shi Huang, first emporer of the united China). I remember reading about this tomb in college I think. Supposedly it has a ceiling made of diamonds and rubies to emulate the stars. The floor is a vast map of China with rivers of mercury running through it. They refuse to open it up though. Oxidation fear again. They want to wait until there’s technology to do it without damaging the pieces. Good on them. They did however do a bunch of testing around the site and found really high levels of mercury (which in turn shows that the tomb contains really high levels of awesome).






View from the top:

Then we went to the hot spring bath house nearby that wasn’t really real. It was burned down in the cultural revolution and then built again in like the 70’s or something. There were some rather tongue in cheek (for westerners) moments when they were explaining various things that happened in the cultural revolution. Definitely felt as though they were leaving certain bits of information out of the placards.






There was a sweet fountain that was a dragon’s head. The hot spring water would come out of it and make steam come out as well. It was awesome:

CLICK ME FOR A VIDEO





“Take your hat off in front of the naked statue sweetie.”






Apparently you can wash your feet in one of the caves? Or something? I don’t know, I never thought about visiting someplace to wash my feet. This place is very much more of a community center than historical site. They keep adding additions on to this place that I highly doubt existed before (like a big pool full of ropes and pulleys with fireworks display areas, really well placed bathrooms that are built for many many people, a concert hall, a ballet school, etc etc.) I’m sure this place is a blast in the summer. In the meantime however, it’s mostly got a foot washing cave in it:

After that we went to another archeological area. It’s a super super old village that’s however many thousands and thousands of years old. I don’t know what it is about going on trips with my parents but wherever we go we always find someplace to look at holes in the ground:

Normally that’s all we get, holes in the ground.

“This was where the fire pit was…”
“This was a storage room…”
“This was a post hole…”

The one thing that made this set of holes in the ground so much different from the other holes in the ground that I’ve seen over the years is that these holes in the ground had people in them:

They had all these various specific ways of burying their dead. It was kinda cool. Then I realized I was taking pictures of dead bodies and got a little weirded out so I stopped.

Probably one of my favorite things about Xi’an was the city wall. It’s the one of the best preserved city walls in the world. Only fitting that the former capital city have something so cool, but it’s really only useful against trebuchets and arrows, not so much against satellite-guided smart bombs. So it’s kind of just this big ancient thing that all the traffic goes in and out of. The whole city is based around this wall and roads kind of radiate outwards from it. It’s really cool. It’s so odd because it’s just normal to everyone in the city. It’s just this big huge old thing that’s still there and doesn’t really have a use anymore, but you can’t really get rid of it, so it’s just going to stay there forever as a standing monument to a feudal past:






It’s cold enough that the motorcycle taxis have built in gloves:






When I came back the maid had folded yesterday’s clothes and put them neatly on the bed. In Hyatt’s you are clearly not supposed to just throw your dirty clothes in the corner… :-/

The hotel serves hamburgers! Not the cheap Mcdonald’s kind that is the only kind you can get in this country, but the higher upper class style (though it still used American cheese instead of like cheddar or something… also there was an egg on it?). Look how satiated I look:






Something pretty cool about Xi’an is the lights they have. Right near the entrances to the city wall they have these lights up in the trees. Everything is lit up at night and it looks really cool. One thing I will definitely give China is that even though they like to waste power on spotlights, neon, string lights, and gaudy signage, it’s still pretty cool to look at:






Each of those downward white streaks was a special kind of light that made a dripping effect. Each tree had a bunch of them and they were all synched to “drip” at the same time.

VIDEO OF LIGHTS






The city wall at night:





This is the first time I’ve ever seen Chinese people patiently wait in a single file line.:

In the center of the city there are these two big towers called the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower. They’re about one block apart. Consistent with their names they each have bells or drums in them:

This is the Bell Tower. It was built during the Ming Dynasty. It was mostly a defense-ish kind of thing. They had a bunch of bells inside the tower and hundreds of years ago they would ring the bells at specific times of the day to ensure the city dwellers that all was well. Also it warded off dragons:






Inside the tower they had some people doing traditional Chinese music and dance:






This is up on the drum tower. Inside of the tower was an exhibit full of old drums (which people just couldn’t stop themselves from hitting as they walked past).






Up on the 2nd floor of the drum tower they had an exhibit on furniture including possibly my favorite, most inspiring piece of furniture:

FYI Desk lions are as large as my torso.

In between the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower was enough space for people to set up shops and such. Apparently it was the place to sell kites. They were long looooong strings of kites, hundreds of feet long. You’re going to have look hard at at some of these pictures to see the kites. Wipe off your computer screen so don’t mistake them as dust:






Of course, not 30 feet from the kite salesmen are the kite eating trees:

This was right next to the Muslim quarter (Xi’an was the end of the silk road), so we went down to check out the markets and stuff:






Then we went back to the hotel. The room was all cleaned again, but I put my clothes away so the maid wouldn’t have to clean them. Then I threw some stuff on the bed and we went down to dinner where I had cheesecake that has now made me suspicious of all cheesecake across China. It was made with American cheese, not cream cheese. Have you ever had cheesecake made with American cheese? Nope. I have though. Don’t do it. It’s a horrible experience. I couldn’t even finish it it was too much of a disappointment:






Seriously? I was out of my room for half an hour and the maid snuck in and folded all my stuff again? Wth? How did she know? Why doesn’t she go home?





One last look at the city wall before we leave:





Next post is one to look forward to. I highly doubt you’ll expect what you’re going to see. Stay tuned for the some the most fantastic displays of face to palm action!

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