Our journey to the west

When we got to XiAn the first thing we did was see the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. It's a 7 story tower that was built around 650 AD to house sacred Buddhist artifacts and scriptures, most of which were brought back from India from a famous Chinese Buddhist named XuanZang. 

The idea of some old Buddhist tower may not sound incredibly interesting to westerners (and we really didn't think it was worth the $12 USD to go inside), but the story of XuanZang traveling to India and back to seek out sacred texts is very important in Chinese culture. A very famous story was written about this event called Journey to the West.

On the left is the monkey king, who is actually the main character of the story. The monkey king is still prominent in many other Chinese and Japanese stories today. Next is the monk, and the last two characters are a half pig/human character and then a sand monster general banished from heaven. The 3 are all trying to help the monk in his journey. What makes this story personal is that, in the 80's, a TV show was made about it that Sharon watched all the time during her childhood. Here is a nice clip.

The next day, we went to see the Terracota Warriors. I had heard people say it was both awesome and lame, so I wasn't sure what to expect. We ended up thinking it was pretty awesome.

Qin Shi Huang was the first emperor to ever unify China. By defeating all the other warring states, he unified the country around 250BC. He also did a lot of other things like burn books and kill scholars, unify the writing system, built lots of roads, started the great wall, etc. In sum, he is one of the most important people in all of Chinese history.

They say there are about 8000 soldiers in this army that he built to help him rule in the next life. He made sure all of them were unique, and you can actually tell that each one looks different. They weren't discovered until the 1970's, so the site is really unique in that it hasn't been pilfered. Most tourist sites in China are fairly expensive (this one is $17 USD a ticket), but we thought it was worth seeing.

About a mile away is Qin Shi Huang's actual tomb. For some reason they haven't opened it yet, and it is believed to be in tact. It will be pretty neat to see what they find when they open it up.

This big hill is actually the tomb. There has to be a ton of cool stuff in there!

There was a 10 minute performance at the tomb site which was pretty entertaining.

Then we took the bust to HanZhong and saw Sharon's brother Peng Peng.He joined the internal security branch of the army. He was able to get a day of leave and stay with us for about 24 hours.

This means that whenever there are riots, rebellions, or protests like Tianamen square her brother would be part of the crew that comes in to take care of the situation. He said that things have been especially strict recently since the revolutions in the Middle East. I'm not sure how accurate this is, but he says he knows a soldier who got sentenced to 14 years in prison for sending an incriminating text message that implied he would support a rebellion in China if it happened.

People in China sort of have a tacit agreement with the government: you pave the way to prosperity and we will be willing to forgo certain rights and liberties. Considering the century of wars and poverty the people have experienced, it makes sense that the economy is their first concern. The standard of living in China is higher than it has ever been, and it is difficult to argue with a government that has brought this relative prosperity. However, the gap between the rich and the poor is probably widening at a faster rate than before and there has also been high inflation. I believe one of the government's biggest fears is that, one day, the economy will stop growing and a host of poor Chinese people will demand change.

I can't keep Chinese history straight. Dynasty after kingdom after dynasty after state get overthrown by dissent and intrigue as one topples another. I think the government is paranoid this will happen again, which is why they censor their media so strictly. On the internet, all content is monitored for sensitive topics and promptly banned or censored. Facebook, youtube, blogger, twitter, and many other sites are banned, probably because the government wants to limit the influence of our ideas of democracy and civil liberties. They also are probably not keen on Chinese people seeing that the average westerner's standard of living is still far higher than in China. I am able to access these sites because I am logged into a virtual private network through the UofA, which basically makes the internet think I'm on campus in Tucson, AZ.

As China gets more and more prosperous, I believe their tight security will lax. The richer they get, the more human rights their government will feel they can safely afford to provide.

Back to our trip..........

This is the alley where we stayed for a night. All the red signs are different motels. We got 2 rooms for a total cost of under $12. Both had a TV and ours had a private bathroom. Turns out you get what you pay for, because the walls were paper thin the bathroom echoed the noises of all other bathrooms in the building extremely well. We went to a much nice place the next day for about $13.

Saying goodbye to Peng Peng as he left for his base

The whole family except for dad

We then went back to XiAn so we could catch the train. We walked around the central part of the city and Enoch had a blast. I took this short video to show how crowds of people would literally gather around him in awe.

This next picture is great. Behind him is either the big drum tower or bell tower. Can't remember which one, because they both look exactly the same.

In our last stop, we saw Sharon's aunt and cousin.

OK, sorry for the long post, but nobody stopped you from skimming if you got bored. Not sure what we're going to do for the next 11 days before we fly to Shanghai and then fly home.