China Blog #15

Tuesday, we left pretty early and took an hour long bus ride to the home of the terracotta warriors. These were discovered by a Chinese farmer digging a well in the mid-seventies. There are over 6000 of these warriors, some in good condition, most are broken. They are "guardians" of some Chinese emperor's tomb, circa 200 BC. They obviously aren't doing a very good job of it...The Chinese quit excavating them, because the paint fades or completely falls off instantly when unearthed. They won't dig any more out until they figure out how to stabilize that paint. Each one is different, no two are the same! It was really interesting; but after you've seen oh, say 2359 terracotta warriors, you FEEL like you've seen them all, even if they are each one different.

Here at this museum, a perfect stranger walked up to me and asked me if he could get his picture taken with me; I complied. So weird! Our culture is so used to other cultures being a part of ours, we take it for granted that others are used to seeing people unlike themselves, but not so.  

When we got back to Xi'an, we stood in line for the bus, when here comes some old duffer begging for money; my soft-hearted mother-in-law gave him 1 yuan (about  $0.15 cents), so I had to spot her another for the bus ride. (I have a firm policy of never giving money to beggars; I will buy a meal or fill a tank of gas, if I'm convinced there is a need) Then here comes another, walked right up to us.  I told him very firmly NO!, but he just kept after us, moaning, and nodding. Darrel had his One Yuan bill for bus fare in his hand, and the old guy turned towards him and kept acting like he was deaf and dumb or something. I knew this very difficult for my tender hearted-gentlemanly father-in-law, so I tried to physically remove him. He finally left, after we refused to give him anything. I was wondering if my policy still held true in China, where drug and alcohol abuse aren't as rampant as in the States, when he went and sat down with the first beggar and started yukking it up. I guess mooches are the same wherever you are!

Haha, it looks like my mother-in-law is bowing to this general, and that Elvis is shaking his head at her, but I'm fairly certain she is reading the sign.