In case you haven’t been able to pick up on this yet, I’m writing this blog and the two before it all at the same time. I’ve had a huge chunk of time this evening which was been SO nice, and this is how I’ve used it :).
Anyway, the Terra-Cotta Warriors. They were awesome. The entire experience in fact was awesome! We went on a tour that set out from our hostel, so everyone that we went with were essentially our neighbors. This made the social atmosphere a lot more active, unlike the other two tours we went on we had really great and really long conversations with a number of the other tourists. And they’re all so cool!
One of the things I love most about traveling is meeting the other travelers. It’s so fun to be a part of this kind of community. Everyone here has such great stories, not only of other places that they’ve visited but just where they’re from in general! We’ve met people from Bangladesh, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Australia, England, India, and Canada. And while we’re all so different, we all have the fact that China is very foreign to us, and that bonds us together. What I love most about is that we would be just as lost if we were in one of their countries as we all are here! It’s just a beautiful irony.
Back to the warriors. Our tour guide really made the whole day that much better. Her Chinese name is JaJa, but she says her English name is Lady JaJa :). And she was so cute! She had a long silly toy flower that she would hold up so we would know where to go, and was very adamant about us all be together at the same time and place. Apparently she lost somebody on her first tour and was determined to never do that again.
There are three main pits at the Warrior site, and we started at Pit 3 and made our way to the first (and best). Pit 3 was really amazing, but not what you typically think of when you hear about the Warriors. Most of them were broken and at first it looked like a very grotesque scene, I kept having to remind myself that all the body parts I was seeing were broken clay and not actual humans.
The second pit was also a bit disturbing as that area had not been finished due to the emperor dying, and so most of the warriors didn’t have their heads. It was still amazing though, as all the bodies were standing and stacked up in a way that looked like they were still in the process of being built.
Pit 1 is the pit that is mostly publicized, because that’s where most of the soldiers are. There’s thousands of them, all lined up and ready for battle. There are four types of warriors: general, archers, officers, and calvary men. The horses used by the calvary men were my favorite things there. They had so much expression in their faces! They seriously looked more angry and ready for battle than the soldiers did.
One thing that really struck me was how every single warrior had a different face. The first time I heard this I was skeptical, because I was imagining a handful of expert clay workers to have made the whole army and I just couldn’t imagine how much creativity that would take to think up thousands of different faces.
But apparently each warrior was made by one worker, and the worker would model their warrior’s face after their own. The tragedy was that once the worker had finished, the emperor would have them killed in order to keep this clay army secret. So since there are at least 8,000 warriors, that means that just as many real humans died in order to build an army that was intended to protect a man after he himself died. Something’s not quite right here.
I have to admit I get really upset when I hear things like this. What kind of man would think it’s okay to kill that many people in order to protect himself after he is no longer alive? He obviously had some ego problems.
I’m just so overjoyed to know that one day humans won’t have so much authority over other humans. If there’s one thing I’ve learned here it’s that there are a LOT of people in the world, how could just another one of those people ever have what it takes to make sure all those people are safe? Especially considering that person is sinful just like the rest of us and is bound to make mistakes. What an encouragement to know that we were not meant to be governed by each other, and that is is possible for the one who created us to know us each individually and do what’s best for everyone in the world. And he has!
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