The Whip, the spurs, the axe
It will give you a sense of the jam-packed nature of the Xian tour when I say that in a single day, we visited a Han Dynasty mausoleum, a Buddhist temple, a museum, the tomb of China’s only official female Emperor (Wu Zetian; as opposed to dowager empresses or powers behind the throne), and dinner theatre.
At the extremely historic Han mausoleum, Oyce and N and I were most excited by the extraordinary-to-us sight of a completely iced-over pond, which we spent some time throwing pebbles at to see if we could crack the rippled ice, and watching pigeons waddle about on it.
The mausoleum featured several ancient sculptures that were national treasures, several of which were boulders with a few simple lines added to enhance the natural shape and make them into giant toads and frogs. One was of a man and a bear biting each others’ lips. The guide said it represented the triumph of a general over an invading tribe, but I think it represented bears eating people. A museum on the grounds featured a water clock, early plumbing, and a crossbow. It never fails to impress me how sophisticated and technologically adept many civilizations were thousands of years ago.
My other big insight into ancient cultures concerned toilets. Many of the toilets were the squat kind, which I am used to from India but don’t like. But they take on a whole new level of unpleasantness when they are located in an unheated building at below-zero temperatures, and you have to extract yourself from six layers of clothing to use them. So however did people function in the many times when they were wearing long layered robes, kimono, etc? Our guess is that servants held up the robes. Ew.
Next was a historic Tang Dynasty Buddhist temple, whose architectural style had clearly been swiped by Japan since it looked very similar to many Japanese temples I’ve seen. What was not familiar to me from Japan were the many and highly incongruous Disneyesque small, concrete, painted and spotted mushrooms placed randomly throughout the grounds.
There was also a modern temple and museum within a gigantic diamond-shaped looming frame thing. Apparently the diamond is supposed to represent folding hands. Especially in comparison with the old temple, it’s remarkably hideous. So were the plastic lotuses floating in the iced-over pools. This edifice was at the end of a huge concrete path flanked by giant gilded Buddhas. It’s striking how enormous so many things are in Xian, especially as the architecture is similar enough to similar buildings and complexes in Japan that I subconsciously expect them to be the same size, but they turn out to be three to ten times bigger. I assume it has to do with the relative sizes of the two countries and that, like Texas, everything is bigger in China.
The museum had some great displays, and also repeated references to its central treasure, the finger bone of Sakyamuni (the Buddha.) By the fifteenth time I read a mention of “the immortal fingerbones” or “and then they worshipped the fingerbones,” the very word began to crack me up. Possibly my time at the ashram made this seem even funnier.
Wu Zetian clearly got a bad rep due to being a woman. I'm certain many male emperors were just as ruthless. Supposedly, her son had to erect a plaque in her honor, but couldn't say anything bad about her due to filial piety, but also had nothing nice to say. So he left it blank.
The story about her also goes that she took up the challenge to tame a vicious wild stallion, saying that first she would use a whip, then spurs, and then, if those failed, an axe to cut off his head! Oyce and I have been saying to each other at appropriate moments, "The whip, the spurs, the axe!"
About the dinner theatre, I will describe it in more detail later as I have to run, but for now will only say: Tang Dynasty Las Vegas.
At the extremely historic Han mausoleum, Oyce and N and I were most excited by the extraordinary-to-us sight of a completely iced-over pond, which we spent some time throwing pebbles at to see if we could crack the rippled ice, and watching pigeons waddle about on it.
The mausoleum featured several ancient sculptures that were national treasures, several of which were boulders with a few simple lines added to enhance the natural shape and make them into giant toads and frogs. One was of a man and a bear biting each others’ lips. The guide said it represented the triumph of a general over an invading tribe, but I think it represented bears eating people. A museum on the grounds featured a water clock, early plumbing, and a crossbow. It never fails to impress me how sophisticated and technologically adept many civilizations were thousands of years ago.
My other big insight into ancient cultures concerned toilets. Many of the toilets were the squat kind, which I am used to from India but don’t like. But they take on a whole new level of unpleasantness when they are located in an unheated building at below-zero temperatures, and you have to extract yourself from six layers of clothing to use them. So however did people function in the many times when they were wearing long layered robes, kimono, etc? Our guess is that servants held up the robes. Ew.
Next was a historic Tang Dynasty Buddhist temple, whose architectural style had clearly been swiped by Japan since it looked very similar to many Japanese temples I’ve seen. What was not familiar to me from Japan were the many and highly incongruous Disneyesque small, concrete, painted and spotted mushrooms placed randomly throughout the grounds.
There was also a modern temple and museum within a gigantic diamond-shaped looming frame thing. Apparently the diamond is supposed to represent folding hands. Especially in comparison with the old temple, it’s remarkably hideous. So were the plastic lotuses floating in the iced-over pools. This edifice was at the end of a huge concrete path flanked by giant gilded Buddhas. It’s striking how enormous so many things are in Xian, especially as the architecture is similar enough to similar buildings and complexes in Japan that I subconsciously expect them to be the same size, but they turn out to be three to ten times bigger. I assume it has to do with the relative sizes of the two countries and that, like Texas, everything is bigger in China.
The museum had some great displays, and also repeated references to its central treasure, the finger bone of Sakyamuni (the Buddha.) By the fifteenth time I read a mention of “the immortal fingerbones” or “and then they worshipped the fingerbones,” the very word began to crack me up. Possibly my time at the ashram made this seem even funnier.
Wu Zetian clearly got a bad rep due to being a woman. I'm certain many male emperors were just as ruthless. Supposedly, her son had to erect a plaque in her honor, but couldn't say anything bad about her due to filial piety, but also had nothing nice to say. So he left it blank.
The story about her also goes that she took up the challenge to tame a vicious wild stallion, saying that first she would use a whip, then spurs, and then, if those failed, an axe to cut off his head! Oyce and I have been saying to each other at appropriate moments, "The whip, the spurs, the axe!"
About the dinner theatre, I will describe it in more detail later as I have to run, but for now will only say: Tang Dynasty Las Vegas.