Over-indulgent Emperors

The weather is back to cold and gray. Suddenly Xi’an doesn’t seem so grand. I’m not sure if it’s true of American cities, but Chinese cities get a disproportionate amount of cloudy days, thanks to pollution. I wonder if the migrant workers know this before they move from the country in search of a job that pays more than farming does. I’d be pretty pissed if I gave up my country home in a sunny village only to find that the city is noisy, dark, and polluted. But then I don’t really know much about the daily life of a farmer, either.

This morning was all about the first emperor of the Qin dynasty, the first to unite China, around 200 B.C. And man was that guy self-centered. His tomb is a 70-meter high manmade mountain. The emperor, (who combined the words ‘god’ and ‘king’ to come up with the Chinese word for emperor, which he then had everybody call him) lies inside along with all of his concubines, anybody who worked on the tomb, and his most valued treasure. The concubines were buried alive with him, because a guy can’t be expected to enter the afterlife without his concubines, obviously. The workers had to die as well, for security, since they would know the secrets and booby traps protecting the tomb. The emperor was gracious enough, however, to spare the lives of some 10,000 soldiers, and allowed for a mere life size clay representation of his army to be buried for his protection.

The terracotta army is impressive. Some guy discovered it in the 1960s when he was digging a well for his farm. He’s still alive now, and he’ll sign your postcard, for a price.

After seeing the selfishness of one emperor, we skipped ahead about 1000 years to another horny emperor. The story is that of a woman so beautiful that she single-handedly brought down the Tang dynasty, the mightiest civilization in the world at the time. The emperor took this woman as a concubine, built her a palace outside the capital, and spent all of his time with her there, neglecting his duties while the rebellion gained momentum. There was a statue of her in the garden there, you can judge for yourself if she is stunning enough to bring down the greatest empire in the world.

In other news, we’ve decided to skip Hong Kong, or any other travel after the program ends. We’re out of money and out of energy and out of ambition to see more of China. Our tickets have been changed to December 1st, the day after we get back to Shanghai. Anyway, if I saw all of China on the first time around, I would have no excuse to come back. Except for the ’08 Olympics in Beijing. That’s a good excuse.