XI'AN

Xian houses the army of Terracotta Warriors, one of China’s top historical sights.  2000 years ago, some egomaniacal king decided that his dead body should be buried with, and protected by, 6000 terracotta figures of warriors and horses.  This was a costly and time-consuming undertaking--every figure differs in facial features and expression, and they were given 10,000 real weapons.  After the tomb was completed, the king killed almost everyone who knew its location, so that his grave would be undisturbed.  The tomb remained a secret until 1976, when a farmer digging a well stumbled upon it.

Chinese pet peeve: The loud, incessant, indiscriminate spitting of the locals.  It’s tough to enjoy dinner when it is interrupted every two minutes by the earth-shattering sounds of another patron coughing up a loogie and spitting it on the restaurant floor.  Brazen, vigorous nosepicking and the female underarm hair were also somewhat irksome.

The Chinese seem to love pugs and Chihuahuas.

Biggest challenge: the language barrier.  It’s literally 50 times worse than in every other country we’ve visited so far, where a least one person spoke some English.  That is not the case here.  Without Keith’s herculean efforts with the English-Mandarin dictionary (and actually learning the language), communicating even the simplest things would have been impossible.

We stayed in the same hostel as these four 18-year old high school girls.  Incessantly giggling, they accosted us in the common room and forced us to pose for pictures with each of them (apparently they come from a town where seeing a white person is a rarity).  They were actually extremely friendly and nice—until, that is, a certain sensitive subject came up.  I was reciting the names of the countries we had already visited, but upon hearing “Thailand,” they interrupted me, shrieking “Taiwan is part of China!!  Taiwan is part of China!! Taiwan is part of China!!”  Clear enunciation calmed them down: “Thailand, not Taiwan.”  I breathed a sigh of relief too soon, though, as Keith rejected my plea to “leave it alone” and barreled forward to engage them on the Taiwan issue.  They were adamant not only that Taiwan should belong to China, but that it already does.  When Keith asked them to explain President Chen’s electoral victory, the fact Taiwan has a separate government and military, they simply cried “No! No!,” followed by “I am very angry.”  Then they wrote “Taiwan is belong to China” on the blackboard and stormed off to bed.  Desperate to change the subject, I wrote “FREE TIBET” on the blackboard instead.  I felt better when we told the story to a 40 year old Chinese businessman the next day, and he laughed hysterically, saying that they “brainwash them pretty well” these days.