14/02/02 (cont.)
Hua Fe works part-time in the club we went to last night to fund her English study at Xi'an University. She came over to our table to practice her English and we quickly struck up a conversation, shouting to each other over the dance music.
The first thing I noticed, as usual, were her eyes. They're huge, like the exaggeratedly wide eyes of a character in a Japanese manga cartoon; deep, dark black with a shimmering hazel glow, they mist over like a rainy day when she's tired or bored, but widen and sparkle when she laughs into two luminous planets. She wears her hair short, spiked and gelled, has perfect tiny white teeth, and a sensuous expressive mouth. When she frowns her forehead wrinkles like a baby's, when she laughs the wrinkles melt away, and two large dimples appear underneath her cheekbones. Her character, as I found out, is a messy, perhaps even unstable mixture of the fun and the serious, the modern and the conventional, the fearless and the timid.
I was quite proud of my own bravery, as we were leaving the club the night before, to pluck up the courage and ask her out on a date in front of the giggling bar staff. She pulled her serious face, wrinkling her brow, then the dimples appeared, she smiled, and accepted. It was only later that I realised that we'd be meeting on Valentine's Day. At MacDonald's, no less, which was packed full of couples taking advantage of the western-style fast-food 'romantic specials'. I got there at three on the dot, Yesterday by the Beatles blaring at a cringe-inducing volume from the restaurant's speakers, and waited. I thought she was going to stand me up, but no, here she was, short, curved figure, short, gelled hair, big eyes all aglow.
We went to an expensive coffee bar which had a great view of the main shopping street, hordes of couples arm-in-arm, families, kids, street beggars, pickpockets, all down below. The staff were unfriendly and abrupt, perhaps because they had to work on Valentine's Day, perhaps because they objected to seeing a local girl with a western man, perhaps because they were just miserable bastards. The coffee was extortionate, the banana chips stale. After the first gush of formalities and polite phrases, a silence descended, too soon, on our date. To gee things up a bit, I asked Hua Fe to teach me some Chinese that would be useful for my travels and bless her, she did, thoroughly, scribbling down the words on paper napkins and the backs of receipts.
When that gimmick had run out of steam, I tried to ask Hua Fe about her life. She resisted any questions she thought too personal or off-limits, and more than once I found myself backtracking, changing the subject, even apologising. I felt like I was pressuring her, but didn't really understand in what way. Simple questions about home or study brought back that furrowed brow, that narrowing of her gorgeous eyes, a tsk! noise from her pursed mouth. What I found out about Hua Fe:
She was very tired, perhaps even depressed. Her family lived in a small town outside of the city and couldn't afford to fund her studies. She had to work nights in the noisy, smoky club, harassed by men, belittled by bosses, to pay the bills. She came home every night with a headache, exhausted, but couldn't sleep. This played havoc with her study: she regularly fell asleep in lectures, forgot new vocabulary, or simply had no free time, so she was falling behind and getting low grades. I compared Hua Fe with some of the richer students at the Star, and pondered the unfairness of the world. She missed her family, but due to lack of money and her work, hadn't even been able to go home for the Spring Festival. She didn't even know if she could continue at university next year, but had no idea what she would do, what kind of job she could get, if she had to drop out.
Hua Fe was working that evening at 5, but her life story, winkled out of her bit by bit, took up so much time we didn't leave the coffee shop until well after 6 pm. When I told her I was leaving the next day, she offered to come to the station to make sure I got on the right train. I told her not to worry, I didn't want to trouble her. She took umbrage to this. I relented, backtracked, said of course that would be very kind. She changed her mind, said she wouldn't come if I didn't want her to. I ended up telling her I did want her to, although by that stage, I really didn't.
Phew! Our first, and last, tiff, in front of the grumpy waiting staff, who looked at her with cold told-you-so expressions on their faces. Hua Fe exacted her revenge out in the street: she had to rush to work and, when I offered to walk her there, she refused point-blank, stomping off without looking back.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The Terracotta Warriors
14/02/02
Forty-five minutes on the number 306 bus took us to the Terracotta Army.
After running the gauntlet of tourist shops on the approach to the site, we were met by a series of buildings that resembled a business park (which is kind of appropriate). But for the numerous signs advertising the Warriors, we could have been looking at call-centres, car dealerships or offices, neat landscaped trees and patches of grass completing the effect. For some reason, I felt a surge of disappointment. Still, it wasn't the outside of the buildings we were there to see.
On entering Pit 1, a huge aircraft-hangar of a building, I was suddenly struck by a flashback to my childhood. I was about ten years old, queuing in the rain with my parents on Waverley Bridge in Edinburgh. A long line of people were waiting patiently, excitedly, to see these ancient pottery warriors, recently discovered, and come all the way from China. I remembered standing opposite these strange old soldiers, not much taller than myself, and aping their expressions and poses, each one of them different, inscrutable and eerie...
Pit 1 houses the main collection of troops, the size and number impressive. You're not allowed to take photographs, so Danuka spent most of the time glancing about furtively, before firing off secretive snaps. I felt sorry for the broken warriors, jagged and cracked, left to lie in discarded piles at the edges of the pits like bits of sliced-up dead around a battlefield. Despite the casualties, however, there's a standing army of thousands.
By far and away the best pieces are the ones in glass display cases, which you can scrutinise close-up. You can really appreciate the detail that's gone into each unique figure, and it makes you wonder if they were actually modelled on real soldiers, now long dead, but cast into a strange immortality they could never have imagined. A portly, jolly looking general grins out at you, an archer takes aim with an intent expression of concentration, a cavalryman proudly holds a beautiful horse by its reigns.
Of course, these warriors were never meant to be unearthed, but were to protect the tomb of Qin Shi Huang from looters, invaders, mortal and immortal enemies. It's estimated that, in the three pits, there were originally 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses. I wonder if he's now turning in his grave
Tam, Danuka and Rebecca decided to visit his tomb, but I had more contemporary concerns. I had a date.
Forty-five minutes on the number 306 bus took us to the Terracotta Army.
After running the gauntlet of tourist shops on the approach to the site, we were met by a series of buildings that resembled a business park (which is kind of appropriate). But for the numerous signs advertising the Warriors, we could have been looking at call-centres, car dealerships or offices, neat landscaped trees and patches of grass completing the effect. For some reason, I felt a surge of disappointment. Still, it wasn't the outside of the buildings we were there to see.
On entering Pit 1, a huge aircraft-hangar of a building, I was suddenly struck by a flashback to my childhood. I was about ten years old, queuing in the rain with my parents on Waverley Bridge in Edinburgh. A long line of people were waiting patiently, excitedly, to see these ancient pottery warriors, recently discovered, and come all the way from China. I remembered standing opposite these strange old soldiers, not much taller than myself, and aping their expressions and poses, each one of them different, inscrutable and eerie...
Pit 1 houses the main collection of troops, the size and number impressive. You're not allowed to take photographs, so Danuka spent most of the time glancing about furtively, before firing off secretive snaps. I felt sorry for the broken warriors, jagged and cracked, left to lie in discarded piles at the edges of the pits like bits of sliced-up dead around a battlefield. Despite the casualties, however, there's a standing army of thousands.
By far and away the best pieces are the ones in glass display cases, which you can scrutinise close-up. You can really appreciate the detail that's gone into each unique figure, and it makes you wonder if they were actually modelled on real soldiers, now long dead, but cast into a strange immortality they could never have imagined. A portly, jolly looking general grins out at you, an archer takes aim with an intent expression of concentration, a cavalryman proudly holds a beautiful horse by its reigns.
Of course, these warriors were never meant to be unearthed, but were to protect the tomb of Qin Shi Huang from looters, invaders, mortal and immortal enemies. It's estimated that, in the three pits, there were originally 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses. I wonder if he's now turning in his grave
Tam, Danuka and Rebecca decided to visit his tomb, but I had more contemporary concerns. I had a date.
Xi'an
13/02/02
We emerged from the depths of Xi'an train station, sometime in the early morning, into a dazzling throng of touts, tourists, travellers and taxi drivers, the rising sun shimmering madly in the craterous puddles of a recent rainstorm.
The people from the Youth Hostel, who we'd spoken to on the phone the day before, had promised to meet us at the station, but never turned up. After a deceptively short taxi ride, for an exorbitantly high fee, we eventually arrived at the hostel, which is situated in a dark little nook beside the South Wall, to find everyone asleep.
The hostel was damp and dingy. There was no hot water until 5 pm and the charges per night were much higher than we'd been quoted on the phone. We briefly discussed finding another place to stay, but exhaustion got the better of us. We were shown down to a dank stale-smelling basement, to rooms that looked more like torture chambers than dorms, which were 35 Yuan per night. Danuka and Tam took one room, with four hard beds and a bare electric bulb the only adornments. Rebecca, our new travelling companion, and myself, asked to be shown to the luxury suites upstairs, which also proved to be cold rooms with hard beds and bare electric bulbs, only not as damp as in the basement. Which, I guess, explained why they were fifteen Yuan more expensive.
After a cold shower, we went out into the ancient fortified city to get our bearings. Four high walls enclose the old town of Xi'an, with gates to north, south, east and west like a giant square compass. Dead in the centre lies a huge ornate Bell Tower. Follow the hand of the compass west along a straight road and you come to the Drum Tower, so-called because a huge red drum has somehow been built into the structure of the building, and hangs enormous in a feat of improbable engineering. The Drum Tower is a gateway into Xi'an's Muslim Quarter, which is the most interesting and atmospheric part of the city: narrow, smoky, tree-lined streets, filled with all kinds of food stalls, bird markets, and junk shops. You can buy anything from an ocelot fur to a mina bird in these narrow smokey streets, which are full of noise, cooking and people. The Muslim men wear flat round white hats and talk in a language quite different from the guttural Mandarin I've become used to.
Situated in the heart of the Muslim Quarter, the Great Mosque is interesting for its Chinese, rather than Arabic, architecture and landscaping. It dates back as far as the Tang dynasty. Apart from the Hui muslim minority people actually using the place for worship, we were the only ones there.
Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for the Dacien Si, or Temple of Grace, which was chock-a-block with tour groups. The Big Goose Pagoda towered sombrely above the multitude of people pushing and shoving below it. We decided not to bother, and instead went to the Shaanxi History Museum, which was expensive, but worth every Yuan. Shaanxi province is a major site of archaeological interest, full of artefacts proving this part of China to be one of the oldest civilisations outside of Africa. The museum is modern and well-lit, and takes you through the ancient history of this country via weaponry, cooking utensils, pottery, brass and jade, china and wood, crockery, clothing, ornaments and religious and funereal paraphernalia. I could have spent two days, rather than two hours, in the place.
On the way back from the museum, we accidentally stumbled across a rough and ready little fair, hidden inside a high-walled courtyard. Coconut shies, shooting galleries and candyfloss stalls mingled with large penned-off areas full of cans of fizzy juice, beer, packets of cigarettes, remote control cars and other children's toys. To win one of these prizes you had to roll a plastic hoop along the ground, hoping it would fall and encircle one of them. You could keep your prize, or gamble it against winning another one. Crowds of people were rolling rings, gambling, gesticulating, cheering and groaning, kids everywhere, men spitting and laughing at their friends' good or bad luck.
I felt that, in one afternoon, I'd seen the many faces of developing China: the spiritual, the historical, and the here-and-now. What they had in common was being sliced up and sold off to the highest bidder.
One wonders if China will win the big prize, or gamble all and lose.
We emerged from the depths of Xi'an train station, sometime in the early morning, into a dazzling throng of touts, tourists, travellers and taxi drivers, the rising sun shimmering madly in the craterous puddles of a recent rainstorm.
The people from the Youth Hostel, who we'd spoken to on the phone the day before, had promised to meet us at the station, but never turned up. After a deceptively short taxi ride, for an exorbitantly high fee, we eventually arrived at the hostel, which is situated in a dark little nook beside the South Wall, to find everyone asleep.
The hostel was damp and dingy. There was no hot water until 5 pm and the charges per night were much higher than we'd been quoted on the phone. We briefly discussed finding another place to stay, but exhaustion got the better of us. We were shown down to a dank stale-smelling basement, to rooms that looked more like torture chambers than dorms, which were 35 Yuan per night. Danuka and Tam took one room, with four hard beds and a bare electric bulb the only adornments. Rebecca, our new travelling companion, and myself, asked to be shown to the luxury suites upstairs, which also proved to be cold rooms with hard beds and bare electric bulbs, only not as damp as in the basement. Which, I guess, explained why they were fifteen Yuan more expensive.
After a cold shower, we went out into the ancient fortified city to get our bearings. Four high walls enclose the old town of Xi'an, with gates to north, south, east and west like a giant square compass. Dead in the centre lies a huge ornate Bell Tower. Follow the hand of the compass west along a straight road and you come to the Drum Tower, so-called because a huge red drum has somehow been built into the structure of the building, and hangs enormous in a feat of improbable engineering. The Drum Tower is a gateway into Xi'an's Muslim Quarter, which is the most interesting and atmospheric part of the city: narrow, smoky, tree-lined streets, filled with all kinds of food stalls, bird markets, and junk shops. You can buy anything from an ocelot fur to a mina bird in these narrow smokey streets, which are full of noise, cooking and people. The Muslim men wear flat round white hats and talk in a language quite different from the guttural Mandarin I've become used to.
Situated in the heart of the Muslim Quarter, the Great Mosque is interesting for its Chinese, rather than Arabic, architecture and landscaping. It dates back as far as the Tang dynasty. Apart from the Hui muslim minority people actually using the place for worship, we were the only ones there.
Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for the Dacien Si, or Temple of Grace, which was chock-a-block with tour groups. The Big Goose Pagoda towered sombrely above the multitude of people pushing and shoving below it. We decided not to bother, and instead went to the Shaanxi History Museum, which was expensive, but worth every Yuan. Shaanxi province is a major site of archaeological interest, full of artefacts proving this part of China to be one of the oldest civilisations outside of Africa. The museum is modern and well-lit, and takes you through the ancient history of this country via weaponry, cooking utensils, pottery, brass and jade, china and wood, crockery, clothing, ornaments and religious and funereal paraphernalia. I could have spent two days, rather than two hours, in the place.
On the way back from the museum, we accidentally stumbled across a rough and ready little fair, hidden inside a high-walled courtyard. Coconut shies, shooting galleries and candyfloss stalls mingled with large penned-off areas full of cans of fizzy juice, beer, packets of cigarettes, remote control cars and other children's toys. To win one of these prizes you had to roll a plastic hoop along the ground, hoping it would fall and encircle one of them. You could keep your prize, or gamble it against winning another one. Crowds of people were rolling rings, gambling, gesticulating, cheering and groaning, kids everywhere, men spitting and laughing at their friends' good or bad luck.
I felt that, in one afternoon, I'd seen the many faces of developing China: the spiritual, the historical, and the here-and-now. What they had in common was being sliced up and sold off to the highest bidder.
One wonders if China will win the big prize, or gamble all and lose.
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