The Hindu Business Line : Shopping in ‘warrior’ land

Xian was one of the world’s largest cities and the fabled beginning and end of the Silk Road in ancient times. The Terracotta Army is the main reason for visiting this city in China’s Shaanxi province, but there are many other draws, including world-class museums and the 14th-century City Walls. We left our hotel at the crack of dawn to pay a visit to Xian’s landmark heritage site.

Discovered only 33 years ago, the 8,000-odd terracotta warriors — a force designed to protect China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, are more than 2,200 years old. Three chambers containing the lifelike soldiers have been unearthed, but the emperor’s tomb hasn’t been excavated yet. We found busloads of tourists arriving though it was barely 9 a.m.; about 15,000 visitors drop in every day for a glimpse of the warriors. To really appreciate a trip here, you need background information and the best place to start is the on-site theatre where a documentary film is screened at regular intervals. The film proved to be an absorbing account of Emperor Qin, who commanded the foundation of the first road system in China, introduced a standardised system of weights and measures, gave the order to build the Great Wall and created a single written language.

The emperor was, however, a brutal tyrant and megalomaniac who achieved overwhelming power by destroying all opposition. His mausoleum was so large that more than seven lakh people spent 36 years building it. Emperor Qin was a man who believed he could take it all with him. He wanted to be well protected after death and he also planned to rule the world from his tomb. He was worried that the thousands of people he had slaughtered on earth would be waiting in afterlife to have their revenge. Hence the army.

As we came out of the theatre, our attention was drawn to a wizened man sitting behind a counter signing books on the Terracotta Army. He was apparently the farmer who had found the first warrior’s head in his field while trying to sink a well into the parched soil. If he receives a commission for each book signed by him, he must be the richest farmer in China!

However, life hasn’t been easy for him. Our guide said the farmer was illiterate and it had taken him three months to learn how to sign his name. We started with the largest pit, where around 6,000 warriors stand in a rectangular battle array facing east. They have a variety of expressions, hairstyles and uniforms and range in height from 6ft to 6ft 6in. Each face is unique, be it through a raised eyebrow, the set of the lips or the twist of a moustache. Every warrior has a military speciality: there are archers, spearmen and swordsmen. All the figures were apparently painted in brilliant colours, but few traces of colour have survived the ravages of erosion and 2,000 years.

Unfortunately, visitors are robbed of the opportunity of coming face to face with the warriors and some people come away feeling disappointed.

There is a viewing platform, but it was surprisingly empty at the time we were in the pit. I thought it was strange because the place was otherwise teeming with tourists. I soon found out why: visitors who wanted to stand on the platform and take photographs would have to fork out 70 yuan (Rs 364) per person. No wonder, people were steering clear of it!

Pit 2 has over 1,000 soldiers and you can examine at least five soldiers up close: a kneeling archer, a standing archer, a cavalryman and horse, a mid-ranking officer and a general. Pit 3 is the smallest pit and has less than 100 warriors.

A number of high-ranking officers were unearthed here and some of the figures have been sealed in glass cases. Impatient shutterbugs awaited their turn to photograph and be photographed alongside the legendary warriors in the cases.

Bronze Chariots.

As unusual as the soldiers is a pair of bronze chariots and horses unearthed just west of Emperor Qin’s tomb. In the tourist stalls, an opium pipe made of bone caught my husband’s eye. A great deal of haggling followed and the shopkeeper finally agreed to part with it for 150 yuan. Deal finalised, he handed over two crisp 100 yuan notes. The shopkeeper, however, did not seem to be in a hurry to return the change. Pretending not to understand us, he pointed to a jade flute that was coated with a thin film of dust. He had seen my husband admiring it and was determined to foist it on us.

The guide was not much help; she was unusually quiet and would not translate our pleas to him. She told us later that she did not want to fight with the shopkeeper. We would go away, but she would have to face him the next day. More negotiations followed and the crafty fellow finally announced in a patronising tone that he would let us have it for 50 yuan. It was an act of kindness that we could have done without!

It was now time to move on. The parking lot is a good 15-minute walk from the site and so we hopped on to electric carts that zoom back and forth to the ticket office. Our guide looked gloomy as we walked back to our car. We had spent a long time in the shops but she would not get a commission from our purchases.

She suggested sarcastically that we take a shopping tour in Shanghai, which would enable us to move in and out of shops all day long. Unfortunately, when we did reach Shanghai five days later, time was short and we could not enter a single shop.

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