2025-09-13 Xi'an the terracotta army

 The Big Wild Goose Tower

We started the day by seeing The Big Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an. A monk by the name of Xuan Zang travelled to India to learn about Buddhism. He was away for 17 years but got back with a lot of scrolls and a Buddha figure. He convinced the emporer to build a Pagoda and a monestary. The monestary was huge, but no longer. Today there are still several monks but not with the large fields anymore. The local government has renovated the area around with buildings in the old style from the Tang-dynastybut totally modern and with squares and parks.

The terracotta army 

Then we drove to the absolutely outer parts of Xi'an to see the terracotta army. Before 1974 this area was just a village, but then two brothers Young dug a well, and then the terracotta army was found. It was originally thought to be a small tomb, but it just grew and grew. Today the village has been removed to make a.beautiful garden with different trees, among other things the fruit trees from the village!

There are 3 pits, the smallest contains 56 soldiers and 4 horses, the largest, the well, contains 6000 soldiers and animals. All figures are broken and it takes up to 3 months to collect the 3D puzzle of one soldier. So if you like 3D puzzles then there might be a job for you! 

They haven't excavated everything as they need to have the resources to collect and preserve. It looked a bit weird as some of the soldiers were wrapped partly or wholly in plastics. It is to protect the original colours, so it made very good sense. I have seen an exhibition in Denmark with a few soldiers and then explanations. There was a very good illustration of how the soldiers looked like with the colours. It was a pity that there weren't any such explanation. The soldiers are made as a hollow standard body, arms, head and then they were "personalised" with different ears, eyes, nose, arms, hands etc. I wonder if anybody would realise if soldier A has gotten soldier B's head or part of head ... probably not, but I also guess that everything is catalogued and described into the every little detail, so the probability is small.

The soldiers were created to protect the Qin emperor 2000 year ago, founded by Ying Zheng, the first Qin emperor. He started to rule when he was 13 yo, and he started to build his mausoleum then. It took 38 years to finish and was created by 700 prisoners and more than 300 more. The area of his mausoleum covers 56 km².

When he was 22 years old, he started to attack his neighbours and when he was 39, in 221 BC, he had collected "all of China". He standardised many thing, money, measures, e.g. the language, money, the length of the weel axis, and transport via the road and waterways (canals). But, he was also a tyrant who didn't wanted people to read, he burned books and buried scholars alive.

He died age 49 due to mercury poisoning as he believed that it would give him eternal life!

Ying Zheng's mausoleum is known but not excavated. But his extravagant mausoleum may have inspired later emporers to make other impressive mausoleums. There are 11 mausoleums of the Han dynasty, and 18 from the Tang dynasty, and graves of noblemen. Treasures with amour and life-size bronze animals, and smaller sized terracotta soldiers. There has been a nearby town of 30.000 people working on the mausoleums and tombs.

The Han dynasti 2000 years ago, came after the Qin dynasty. It was the start of the silk road, 119 BC, which ended in Rome via Istanbul and Venedi. Originally the road was created to explore what was outside, to see if it was monsters, but it was just normal people where trade could be established. And then the silk was introduced to the Roman empire ...

However, the trade also went the other way. Lions came to China but the wild West-African Lion is now extinct in China. Buddhism also came to China from India. Unfortunately not all good things came via the Silk Road, the black death probably came to Europe from China.

The Tang dynasty came 1300 years ago. They have made exquisite pottery with beautiful patterns. The tombs from this time contained glazed figures that look like something created today!

Then the capital moved to the east because it was attacked from North and West by differenttribes. That ended 13 dynasties ruling in Xi'an.

The city and surrounding area was then forgotten until 1974 when the Young brothers digged for water and discovered not just one small tomb but 8000 soldiers.

They got a small reward, but lost their land. So, then they signed books to sell to tourists. Bill Clinton met one of them, and so have I. I bought a book and got his signature and the honour a picture taken with him. They are now around 80 years old, but still show up almost every day. In another shop, it was another villager who signed books. How do I know that I have the signature of one of the original brothers? Well, it isn't that important to me. I bought the book despite a hefty weight, but I worry about that when we fly from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan ...

Small Wild Goose Pagoda

Then we drove the hour back to the city, and saw the Small Wild Goose Pagoda. My brain had stopped working, so I took pictures of two sisters 5 and 6 years old together with one of the other Danes. The Pagoda was originally placed in a monestary founded by another monk who had also been to India for 17 years. There is no longer a

monestary here but a beautiful park. It was very funny to feel how the microclimate changed when we stepped into the parc, the temperature dropped quite a bit!

We visited a museum with more information on the Silk Road incl. a presentation of the many different roads there are and how long it is. Typically, the goods were not transported by one caravan the whole way, but changed hands multiple times. Some might have been rich on this, but there must also be some merchants who have lost fortunes by doing some bad deals, also due to robbers, and the harsh conditions.

The evening 

Then shortly back to the hotel, drop off the book and then out for dinner and city walk. We passed a square with the Pagoda at the far end, and a fountain in the front. There is sometimes a water organ, music and the fountain moving to the music, and laser show. We were so lucky to pass it at such a time. One of the new houses had screens in all the windows with a film showing with a dragon and figures dancing. It was so well made that we first thought the dancers were real but we realised that it was a movie when a dragon flowed from one window to another!

The dinner was really good, especially the local piang piang noodle. The name is an onomatopoeia, a word created to mimic a sound, here when making noodle. It's a local Xi'an sign, that is very complex. There are 80.000 signs in Chinese, each sign is a word for a thing, a feeling, anything really, but for everyday life only 3.000 are used. This means that modern people have to have a dictionary to read old texts. It also makes it difficult to type Chinese on a keyboard, for more on this interesting story that has had immense important for the technological leap that China has taken thanks to solving this problem How China Conquered The Keyboard

But back to the noodle. Our guides ensures that we get local food. Piang piang not being an exemption, so we tasted it for dinner. It is a very wide, handmade noodle served with delicious vegetables and sauce. It was one of the best, if not the best dish I had in China.

Unfortunately, I got a bit dizzy, so I took a taxi back to the hotel with the aid of our local guide, as I did not have the address in Chinese. I was so fortunate to pass the water organ again and I heard the music from the open windows. I also saw some dancing at a square. So, I might not have seen the nightlife but I still got to see something.