Blinking in the sunlight after an overnight train journey, we arrived in Xi'an on a warm Tuesday morning to the shocking sound of birds singing in trees! Clearly Xi'an is a little different to Beijing...
The city reminded me of Kyoto a little. Both cities are littered with history. Xi'an's centre is surrounded by a 12 metre high wall inside of which are large Drum and Bell towers that mark sunrise and sunset when the 4 gates to the city used to open and close. The current wall was built in the 14th century after Mongols trashed the previous one. Once bitten twice shy, the wall was rebuilt to be 10 metres thick – big enough to ride a tandem bicycle around, should you so wish.
Both Kyoto and Xi'an also have large student populations, which makes for more open attitudes to religion, sex and politics. As we drove by the local government offices, we saw what we thought was some kind of military marching parade - it turned out to be very well-drilled students protesting housing relocations. Attitudes to sex were pretty clear from our one night out in town – more of which later – and from our enchanting hotel, which we discovered had an hourly room rate and midnight 'massage' cold-callers.
And both cities used to be their nations capital at some point. I think this may help avoid that chip on the shoulder that can come from being a 'Second City'. I love Chicago and Chicagoans, but you do sometimes feel that they're overly-worried they're the poor cousin of NYC. Comparatively, Xi'anites (?) seem to much more relaxed and content with their lot.
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Whilst Xi'an is nice to wander around – we especially liked the winding market streets of the Muslim quarter where we picked up a three course dinner from three separate stalls for a total of 65p – but the real reason most people come to Xi'an is to see the Terracotta Warriors.
The Warriors were discovered by a farmer digging a well in the early 70's. The museum's dramatic introductory film showed him excitedly pulling up a bucket filled with fragments of a warriors head. He had struck upon the very outermost edge of a pit housing 6000 warriors. Now you might think this lucky, until you meet the man himself sitting at a table in the museum gift shop...
When Bill Clinton visited in the 90s, he requested that he be shown the warriors by the man who found them. The presumably very-well drilled farmer showed him around the 3 main pits, and at the end of the tour Mr Clinton asked for the farmer to autograph his ticket. Embarrassed, the farmer said that he couldn't as never learned to read or write. Classic Clinton, he said not to worry, a thumb print would do - all embarrassment was forgotten. The Chinese government didn't forget however. They have since taught the farmer to read and write (his name, nothing else) and now his full time job is to sign thousands upon thousands of Terracotta Warrior guidebooks in the museum gift shop. From the look on his face sitting at his desk it's pretty clear he wishes he'd never built that well. And never met Mr Clinton.
Aside from the Warriors, we also visited the Mausoleum of Emperor Qing Shi Huang (The creator of the Terracotta Warriors AND The Great Wall, he was the first Emperor to unify China. Jet Li recently played a thinly-disguised version of Emperor Qing as the baddie in The Mummy 3). The actual tomb sits under a huge hill and is apparently too dangerous to excavate (I imagine because of the many ingenious boobie-traps), but a number of trenches surrounding the hill are open to the public These trenches – of which they think there are about 81 – are filled with ¼ size models of the Emperor's entire court. Eunuchs, concubines, advisors, hundreds of horses, sheep and goats, and – a nice touch – a selection of his best chefs, for fine dining in the afterlife.
Clearly this was a man who took his death very seriously. He started construction of this mausoleum as soon as he ascended to the throne – when he was only 13 years old. At one point he had 700,000 press-ganged workers on site and was devoting up to a 1/3 of the China's entire GDP on it! Needless to say between this venture and the construction of the Great Wall he wasn't a very popular guy.
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As I mentioned earlier, Xi'an has a great nightlife. A version of Perudo (a drinking game with dice) is popular, so after playing a couple of rounds of this and introducing our tour guide to a friendly game of Arrogance (which he lost, quite spectacularly), he decided it would be a very good idea for us to all go to a 'World Famous' club called 1+1.
Through the looking glass we went. We ordered a case of beer between us for £20, but to be honest we didn't really need to buy anything - as soon as we set foot in the club excited locals were offering us cigarettes, popcorn, beers, and even litre jugs of whisky and green tea. All because they wanted to say 'Cheers' or 'Hallow!' at some foreigners.
We settled down in the hip hop area, replete with podium dancers and cool looking patrons lounging around the room nodding to the bassline. Things were so much like being in any club back home, I started to forget I was in China. Then two guys dressed in full-body Donald and Daisy Duck costumes got onto the podium, danced along to a Chinese version of Happy Birthday and handed a drunken birthday boy a 5 foot pink cocktail with a hundred curly straws.
After that things got a little weird. All the lights and the hip hop were switched off. An ominous sounding music struck up and a spotlight landed on a man wrapped in a dark glittering cape and a mask. He swayed around to the music for a bit before throwing his cape back to reveal what can only described as a bongo-cock. Words fail me here, but luckily Sarah got video-footage...
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