Feet of Clay

The main reason I came to Xi'an, of course, is to see the famous Terra Cotta Army that was unearthed in the 1970s. The clay warriors are supposed to guard the tomb of China's first emeperor Qin Shi Huang, which remains too dangerous to excavate to this day. The site lies to the north of the city, an hour away by bus.

It was a miserable grey day, and it started to to drizzle as I walked to the bus terminal to catch a ride out, and by the time the bus approached site it was raining steadily. My iPod with its Chinese translator saved me from getting off at the wrong place, as most of the people piled out in one town town centre which I thought might be the location of the dig site. Typing out "warrior" miraculously pulled up the chinese characters for "Terra cotta warriors" and I showed it to the conductor, who then motioned that it was  much farther away, and when we got there she told me to get off at the right place.

The place was much larger than I expected, and consisted of three pits which are now under permanent buildings. The largest one resembles an aircraft hangar encloses the main array of 6000 soldiers and horses, some of them yet to be carefully excavated. It is incredible that someone had the absolute power to command such a seemingly useless grand project, using so much resources and labour for something practically nobody would see at that time as it was secretly hidden underground and not even recorded. I guess Qin Shi Huang is getting his immortality now, a return on his investment as millions come to see his mad creation.

The rain and wind intensified as I left the site and the fifteen minute walk back to the bus stop left me completely soaked. When I returned into the city, I braved hopping the local bus to the hotel but my wild guess on the route number took me one kilometre short of my destination. The rain had rendered the dusty streets of Xi'an into a muddy mess which soaked into my shoes, tinting them a fitting brownish terracotta hue at the end of the day.