Luoyang and Xian
12/26, Day 6: Louyang is the capital of Hunan Provence. It is much more gritty than Beijing- much more activity- less cars but more bikes. All kinds of weird sights. Sheep and donkeys walking down the street and everything bustling with a lot of small shops. I really feel like I’m in the center of China that is largely untravelled by westerners. First we went to General Kwan’s monastery. General Kwan is a historical figure who has become their god of martial arts. He used a weapon called a Kwan Do which is a long handled saber-like weapon. Again the monastery was quite peaceful but it looked a lot like the Shaolin temple. The monasteries are beginning to blend together- but each has it’s own unique feeling.
General Kuan’s Tomb
Then we went to the Longmen (Dragon Gate) Grottos. Along a river are thousands of carved caves full of tons of buddhas. There is also a hot spring full of a livid green seaweed type stuff. At the end of the walk is a huge buddha with the most sly eyes- amazing- with other figures carved around it. The figures were probably about 3 stories high. The eyes of this buddha (and others I saw) seemed to be piercing into your mind. I guess that was the intention when they were made.
Longmen Grottos
The last sight of the day was the White Horse Temple. This is another monastery but it had more monks. It is the oldest temple in China. A couple things hit me about this temple. The first thing was that there was a drum tower with one of the monks playing drums in it. The sound was reverberating through the entire monastary. The other thing was one of the 18 monk statues (18 monks is a famous # of monks- like the 12 apostles I guess). It had these calm eyes that were boring into me. I felt like he was telling me all was OK (well that was my interpretation anyway). It made me cry but then I was already feeling pretty emotional.
12/27, Day 7: We go to an old town market type of place. It has very old shops- many of which are closed. And a lot of shops that sell art supplies and such things. Then we take a bus to Xi’an. On the way we drive through this small crazy city that is much poorer and reminds me of Pittsburgh in one of the poorer neighborhoods. The city is largely composed of half-built or half-destroyed buildings (hard to say which) and one block of buildings is built right up a sheer dirt cliff- as if they cut into a hill vertically but didn’t put any kind of support in to hold it up except for the buildings themselves. We also pass by many cliff dwellings that I think are still being used. There is a lot of beige sand and it somewhat reminds me of New Mexico. We drive on this largely empty expressway and pass what looks like a nuclear plant like 3 mile Island but it may be a coal plant. Anyway they seem to be pretty proud of it as they show it in a film at the Terracotta Warriors the next day. We get to Xi’an in the evening and stay in a nice new hotel.
12/28, Day 8: First we go to an unearthed village that is 6000 years old! It was a matriarchal society called the Benpo People. The excavated sight is covered with a large building. After that we went to the Terracotta warrior factory where they make and sell small replicas of the warriors. Then we went to the real warriors. It was quite amazing. The main pit was probably about 3 football fields in size. Much of the soldiers had been destroyed by peasants. The terracotta soldiers were buried 2000 years ago in the Chin dynasty by the first emperor of China (same guy that built the Great Wall). Supposedly previous emperors usually acutally killed their soldiers when they died but this one was “nicer” and decided his warriors were too important to kill so he had them modelled instead. Excavators put the soldiers and their horses back together and placed them in the position they were found in. The other pits had different soldiers like kneeling archers and the Emperor. Many of the soldiers are different. I believe there are several models but not all are unique. The soldiers were buried by cutting furros into the ground about 8 feet wide with 8 foot walls of dirt between them. Then roof beams were laid over to protect the soldiers.
Terracotta Warriors
After the jade carving factory- which was very expensive and had a million dollar jade buddha- we had the best meal so far of many kinds of dumplings. Then at the same place we watched a Tang Dynasty show with beautiful women in costumes with long sleeve ribbons that they would whirl around. One of the male musicians played a type of reeded instrument that sounded like a duck- but then he’d also make the same noises with his mouth!
Tang Dynasty Show
Back to Shaolin Temple On to Wudan