Hey everybody! No, I didn't forget about you, I've just been crazy busy running around China. You've been caught up on my Shanghai trip, but two weekends ago I went to Xi'an (pronounced She-On), a city famous for two reasons: because it is very near the burial ground of the first Chinese emperor and his Terra Cotta Soldiers, and, perhaps more importantly, because it's the public urination capital of the world. You read that right. More male Xi'anites(?) freely lower their flies in public per capita than any other city on earth (fake). In fact, Xi'an has very few public bathrooms just for this reason (not true at all). They've even adapted a famous Chinese idiom about returning natures bounty...alright I'll stop. Point is, they have a problem.
I'm not sure when this trend caught on, but personally I like to believe that in ancient times two famous scholars decided to settle a philosophical argument via drinking contest. The argument was only settled when the victorious scholar challenged the other scholar to a "pissing contest," spawning the phrase as we know it today. The tradition of public urination was then subsequently passed down through the generations, becoming less and less taboo over time until the present day, where it is an established part of the city's culture.
As I said, I like to believe that, but in reality, I have no idea why. Every. Single. Day. I was in Xi'an I saw a man stop, whip out the family jewels, and spray away at the many conveniently placed trees dotting the sidewalks. This happened in broad daylight too, so it wasn't just people getting drunk and having no shame. Furthermore, it wasn't even just a couple of homeless guys, which I could have understood. I saw two sharply dressed businessmen perform the deed, simultaneously, while having a conversation (I wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, and probably wouldn't have understood it anyway, but maybe they both said, "Hey, look! Foreigners! Let's piss in front of them and freak'em out!). But perhaps absolutely most egregiously, during our bike ride atop the ancient city wall, I saw a man on his cell phone take a piss ON ONE OF XI'AN'S CULTURAL RELICS. Nothing. I got nothing. I was shocked.
I asked our student coordinator and one of the CLI teachers who tagged along (in addition to myself, Victoria, our history professor, his wife, an older CLI student, and the always cab-fearing Paul) and they didn't really know either. They were less shocked, but they were both from the south of China, and assumed it was just a northern thing (China is approximately the same length North to South as the US, and has just as much diversity between regions, if not more. Just as northerners in the US look down on southerners as hillbillies and southerners look at them as prissy city slickers, the Chinese have their own regional rivalries, but it's mostly based on province and the main North vs. South feud).
Apart from the urine, Xi'an is pretty cool. We hit up a Muslim walking street to find some food and buy some souvenirs. In an unusual reversal, the food was actually rather expensive, whereas the souvenirs were pretty fairly priced. One meal we wanted to have before we left was You-Po-Mian (literally means Oil Dripped Noodles). In Guilin, our my favorite place to eat is a yopomian place, and yopomian originated from Xi'an, so we were all I was excited to try the original. We I shouldn't have been. Xi'an's yopomian was bland, cold, and three times the price of Guilin's. Maybe I'm just biased towards my local mom and pop noodle shop, or maybe it's because our yopomian has enough MSG to kill a small horse in each serving, buuut I didn't like it at all.
Another Xi'an specialty is Biang-Biang-Mian. Biang is an ancient onomatopoeia for the sound the noodles make when the chef slaps them against the wood to prepare them. The character for Biang is arguably most complicated character in Chinese (in fact, if you ask a typical Chinese person, which I did, they don't know how to write it, it's just a specialty thing):
Unfortunately, due to its fame, BiangBiangMian is expensive, and because of our other experience with Xi'an's noodles, we decided to skip it.
So far I've been giving Xi'an a pretty bad rap, but it does have it's plus sides. If for nothing else, it is worth the trip just for the history of the place. It served as the capital of several dynasties (called Chang'An back in the good 'ole days) and while the city's dirty sprawl has replaced all of the previous grandeur, the sites just a short bus ride away more than fill the void.
The first we went to was a series of tombs from the Tang Dynasty (618-907AD). They each had their own interesting back stories, including enough court intrigue to make even the biggest Game of Thrones fan's head spin (for example, one of the tombs was the royal prince's. He was killed by his grandmother, an Empress-Dowager for allegedly bad mouthing the emperor's (her) rule. Oh yeah, and by kill I mean beaten to death with blunt wooden sticks. But, because he was royalty, a more proper cause of death was given to the common people, and his tomb bears the same lie.
Descending into the tomb:
The next spot was the famous burial ground of Wu Zetian, the only female Empress and an all around bad ass in her own right. She consolidated her power by killing her political rivals, even family members, but once she did, she led China through a period of economic growth and territorial expansion, so the Chinese brush that first part under the rug.
Outside her tomb, the statues of foreign envoys. I'm 82% sure they originally had heads...
Since we spent 3 full days in Xi'an, We got to explore a bit and see the sites. Back in the day, Chang'an was divided into very strictly regulated grids, with walls dividing each sector. The city had a curfew, and when the drums started beating, or bells ringing (it was a complicated system), it meant get your ass home, or face the consequences. This is the famous the Bell tower with some aftermarket neon:
Xi'An also has two very old, very famous pagodas. This is the smaller of the two:
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. What made my journey through Xi'an's piss-laden streets and your journey through my piss-laden words worthwhile: The Terra Cotta Soldiers. I have to admit I wasn't really prepared to see them. I kind of brushed it off. But when I was walking into the huge complex that houses them, my heart felt like it was beating out of my chest. We went early in the day, and on a nasty, rainy, cold day at that, but you could still hear the clamor of people inside. My inner History nerd was livin' the dream. Right when you walk in you're hit with this:
(plus a few hundred other people pushing and shoving to get a good picture)
You can walk around and get a 360 view, and the sides were much more manageable. What concerned me though, was the lack of security. You had to pass through metal detectors and get patted down to get in to the complex, but once you were in, a 4 foot high guard rail was the only thing between you and warriors. As a self-acknowledged history nerd it would be unthinkable to mess with something as priceless as the warriors, but all it takes is one jackass. There were only three or four security guards too (which didn't really matter because if you f'd with the warriors you'd get attacked by a thousand very angry (very real) Chinese people-turned-warriors. Anyway, once I worked through my fear of someone being "that guy" I took the time to appreciate it as much as I could:
Obligatory picture with me in it:
So. Damn. Cool. It's one of the few experiences where I've been left thinking knowing, "I will remember this until the day I die."
On our last day we decided to ride bikes atop the city wall. You rent them for an hour and it's a good way to see a good bit of the city. These walls were from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the originals are long gone. As you can see, they are still pretty imposing:
An arrow tower:
Paul enjoyed got duped into the experience of a tandem bike:
Shot from atop the walls. Old and new all in one. I'm artsy, I know:
All in all Xi'an was a good trip. It was the dirtiest city I've visited, with the worst food, but I bought some cool gifts and saw some amazing things, things most people will never in their life see in person. How can I really complain?
[insert one last urination joke here]
Complimentary picture of our student coordinator Cecily (we wear her out):
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