Chinese History Lesson: Xi'an

I decided to make these next few blog posts a little different, by telling you what I have learned from this last vacation. I went to Xi'an and Beijing, and learned some cool things about Chinese history and culture. I am not an expert and still feel like I have a lot to learn but I really enjoyed this trip and hope to learn more about China. I hope you enjoy these next posts, whether it is hearing about our fun adventures, what I learned, or even just the photos.

Xi'an

So Friday we headed out after school for Xi'an. Our school bus took us directly to to the train station after school, where we boarded the fast train to Guangzhou. Then we had to get on the metro from the train station to the airport. 

Xi'an in chinese means "Western Peace". It has also been called numerous names including "Xijing" which means Western Capitol. This city is one of the oldest in China and used to be the capitol a long time ago. Before 200 BC China was in a period called the "Warring States" period. There were 7 kingdoms in China and a man named Qin united all the kingdoms and named himself the first Emperor of China. 

This Emperor ordered a huge mausoleum tomb to be built for his death- and over 8000 Terracotta soldiers to guard him! 

The tomb where the Emperor is buried is actually not even at the Terracotta Army site, it is a ways away. Turns out there is a HUGE palace underground with his tomb and lots of treasures and neat stuff. It is not yet open to the public yet as the excavation is still in the works....unfortunately.

This is the guy who discovered the Terracotta Warriors in the 1970's (I think it was). He was just a farmer and was digging and came across pieces of it. Unluckily for him he doesn't really get any money from it because it technically wasn't his land and his rights or whatever...but at least he gets to know he discovered them and that's still pretty cool right? Poor guy sits in the museum all day signing books about the Terracotta Army (that he didn't write) and he looked kind of sad just sitting there. 

----

 Right after we got our tickets (thanks student discount! I lost tract of how much money I have saved from those) a lady came up to us wanting to know if we wanted an English guide. And at a super cheap price we couldn't say know (I mean she spoke great English and it was GREAT having someone tell us what we were actually looking at or it wouldn't have been that cool). This is her- her name is Linda.

Here is our group right before going into Pit #1 (except for Kayla isn't in the picture because she didn't want to step in the puddle on the ground :p )

Alright! Now onto the Warriors....

Pit #1 - the main pit with the majority of warriors

As you can see in the back of this photo, the soldiers are partially burried and fallen all over each other/ broken into peices. This is how they were originally found.

Me in front of the Warriors- because of the lighting it was hard to get a picture where both me and the background was in focus

As you can see some of the soldiers on the left are facing a different direction; this is because the soldiers needed to protect from all sides

A side view. If you look closely the warriors in the front do not have armor. These guys are supposed to be the bravest (because they don't need armor).

See this rock? NOPE. It is actually a piece of PETRIFIED BAMBOO WOOD.

No two terracotta warriors are exactly alike. They all have different facial features, shapes, sizes, details, even the way the soldiers are positioned (arms/legs/etc) are slightly different. As you see the guy on the right is wayyy skinny. In this way the soliders can represent anyone. Also some have hats, some have no hats. This determines their ranking/status.

Another picture (from Pit #3) of how the soldiers were originally found.

They even had some in display cases so you could get pretty up close....

Also, the Terracotta Warriors were originally painted with lots of color some of which you can see here

LOOK at that detail on the hand! Do you see those hand wrinkles?...

If Kelita was a Terracotta Warrior....

Another cool thing is that excavation is still being done on these guys. They currently have archaeologists who work in here a few days a week, so if you get lucky you might actually see them working when you visit! (And no, we didn't get to see any work getting done when we were there).

They call this the "Hospital". This is where Warriors are being fixed up. They use special glue to put the pieces together and wrap in plastic wrap until dried (takes a few days)

Part of the pit is still buried. As soon as the soldiers are exposed to the air, the oxygen causes the color of the paint to fade. Therefore scientists are waiting until a better technique to preserve the color is available. (right now they use a lacquer made from a sap that is very expensive to get because it requires lots of trees)  

Not many people know that there are multiple pits of Warriors (well I didn't). This one is Pit #3, where the soldiers are positioned facing each other talking. This is where soldiers gathered to go over their strategy in war. 

There was also weapons buried with the soldiers (you may notice many of them hold out their arm as if they were carrying a sword). However some enemies stole most of the weapons from the tomb, only a few remained which you can see in the museum. 

After the terracotta warriors, our group split up. I ended up going with Maegan and Allie to the Xi'an City walls. They are very old (built during the Ming Dynasty 1300-1400s). Some parts of the wall you can tell are way old- so many pot holes and really bumpy. Some areas were smooth and you can tell were reconstructed, and they even had some parts currently being renovated. It was the perfect time to bike too, late afternoon just before sunset and you can get a tour of the city. The entire wall ends up being about 8.5 miles. The city of Xi'an is actually way bigger than what the wall encloses. It was a really fun experience!

Because these photos were just too funny to pass up

I mean I understand she doesn't want to lose her kid in the crowd but...I just feel bad for the kid. But It's hilarious.

Look closely at this picture. What do you see?....

A car on the side of a building. Yeah I don't really know why either. 

Because  1) I love the fall weather and golden sunlight so I couldn't pass up some of these photos. and 2) I sometimes I like to get a little artsy fartsy....and my friends all make fun of me for it but really they are jealous of my amazing photos :)

 

Stay tuned for my posts about Beijing: The Forbidden City and Great Wall!

Halloween is OVER...HAHAHA

Well, I can have a life again! Ever since we got back from our vacation in the beginning of October, it has been crunch time for Halloween. Especially this past week.

Who knew that at one of the grocery stores they would have a little Halloween section???

Don't get me wrong, I love Halloween! I worked in a Haunted House for three years. Which is why I signed up to be the "official" Halloween coordinator. Just getting info from our Chinese coordinators to our group, making sure things run smoothly and we got things in on time. It was actually a lot of work.

We also ended up having an additional Halloween party, the week before Halloween. There is a new English school they are trying to open up, and to get people interested in the school we've gone there for a few events and extra teaching, and they wanted us to have a Halloween party there too. We performed our dance, and played Halloween games as well as host a little "trick or treating". 

Trick or Treat Table; Pretty sweet decorations

Clara and Kayla

Throughout the week of Halloween at our school, we had different "dress up days". Monday was Orange Day, Tuesday was Pajama Day, Wednesday was Crazy Hair Day, Thursday was Black Day, and Friday was MisMatch/Opposite Day! I have some pictures of crazy hair day and mismatch day: On mismatch day I also had my hair half in a bun and half in a braid.

 

Linda and Mavis had the best crazy hair out of my classes

For our school we teach however there was a lot more! We had to come up with two performances for each of our classes. For Carina's and my classes, we taught them a Halloween song called "Halloween is coming" with a little dance, and we taught them a country dance to the song "Boot Scootin Boogie". 

I was a little disappointed in the performance Halloween night though. Because my kids practiced SO HARD, they knew ALL the words, but the music was so loud we couldn't hear them at all :( I just hoped the parents were still impressed.

We also made tons of decorations for the school. Since my class was on the third floor I was in charge of decorations for thay floor with the other three senior teachers. Our theme was graveyard, we had tombstones with all the kids' names, a zombie hand, a giant skeleton, spider web and lots of spiders, hanging ghosts and bats. I think our floor turned out the best....only I forgot to take a picture admid all the hubabaloo :o

We also had to come up with a haunted house. We ended up having 4 rooms total. The pumpkin room and dining room weren't very scary, that way kids who were scared could leave. The last two rooms, the graveyard and witch room were supposed to be the scary ones. I ended up helping out in the dining room. We had grapes and spaghetti kids could touch (eyeballs and intestines) and a platter with a real head (thanks to Shalee)! It turned out pretty awesome, especially with the limited supplies and time we had.  I didn't get a lot of pictures of the finished Haunted House but here are a few in the process:

For our group dance, we all pretended to be creepy dolls and there wasn't much time to change into different makeup for the Haunted House so I just put on a cloak and called it good.

Carina decided to dress up as a zombie in the graveyard...yeah she made a few kids cry. Especially one of our students, Karmen. She is a tough cookie I totally thought she would not be scared in the haunted house but she barely made it into the graveyard and she was running out, dragging her parents with her screaming. Poor girl.

While some of us were in the Haunted House, some teachers were helping out with games and trick or treating.

The kids costumes were great- and so were their parents! Seriously some went all out. One of my home group kids-Lok- won the award for best costume out of all the senior kids! 

Lok with his parents

This is April, one of my students. Her English is REALLY GOOD she knows a lot of words and she doesn't stop talking ;) she was one of the "hostesses" of the night

This is Celina, our main coordinator at school

Snow White (Serena) and I

A pirate (Leona), a creepy doll (me) and a Superhero (Rachel)

A skeleton (Ami) and creepy doll

A zombie (rachel) and a creepy doll

One of the best things was we got to eat lunch that day with our kids!! And it was buffet style. Seriously I LOVE my kids!! They make me happy :) 

Kris, Mavis, Tim, Jim, Cherry, Matthew

Left to right: Linda, Karmen, Aaron, Emily, Connor

Billy, Debby, David, April, Judy

Karmen and Lok

David

Aaron and Linda

Aaron Linda Karmen and Lok; this is the table I sat with :)

-----------

Oh it was also my birthday Monday. My room got heart attacked! Hearts everywhere and some nice notes. In the evening we went out for dinner, and then got dessert (I got cheesecake sooo yummy), then played games (pictionary telephone and mafia, of course!) 

----------

After Halloween I spent all Saturday with my Chinese friends (literally 12 hours). I went to the park with Sarah and her daughter Laura, then we ate lunch with two other families and their daughters. It was a farm with little huts to eat in- all the food is grown and raised right there on the farm! 

I had lots of fish-actually not as bad as I thought. Also pigs feet and pigs stomach....I went back for more so I guess it wasn't too bad ;). It was the type of place where they put all the food in the middle and you just take whatever you want from several dishes.  

After we went to another park, Sarah's husband was having a work activity there. They had teams and were blindfolded, having to get to the other side without stepping on the land mines. It was really funny to watch actually.

Then Susan invited me over for dinner where Allie and Carina met

up with me. We had lots of crazy little girls- Laura who is Sarah's daughter, Melanie and Yoyo who are Susan's daughters, and then Jacklyn who is Pheobe's daughter (also lives in the neighborhood). Apparently they make dinner the same way- the mom makes several different dishes and you just take some of each. It seems like a lot of work. She also said they don't make leftovers, they make whole new dishes every day! Because of course, that is the wife's job in China, especially with the high class. I asked Susan if she liked to cook and she said "I have no choice!" haha. Of course I helped her by doing a lot of chopping and she said I am a great helper!

Dinner at Susan's house that I helped with 

Sarah and Susan at Susan's house for dinner

Me with Sarah's daughter Laura

Sarah and Me at the park!

Does it look like November 1st to you??

Shoebee, her mom Kelly, Yoyo (not pictured cause she is hiding), Susan, Melanie, Hans, Sarah, Laura :)

Finally got a picture of Yoyo haha!!

Remains of pigs feet I ate

Just look at her face. I had to enlarge the photo so you could really see it