China’s vein of paradox runs deep within its past just as in the present. Chairman Mao is still held in such high regard by some generations. His singular vision to bring progress to his country is recognised in statues and portraits everywhere we go.
Such unfaltering belief can be a dangerous thing, as we found from the stories of China’s ancient past. History made precious often because of Mao’s attempt to eradicate it during the cultural revolution. An enactment of his own unfaltering belief that to embrace the future one must first destroy the past.
History Reburied
In the late 60’s when farmers unearthed the first broken pieces of what would become one of China’s greatest discoveries, they reacted with fear and trepidation. The shattered soldiers likely seemed as if petrified by some cursed creature. If they dug any further would the same beast be uncovered and they too be smashed into the dusty earth?
This curse turned out to be a blessing. For the terracotta warriors, hastily reburied by the frightened farmers, would not be found again until 1974 – a time just after the destruction of the cultural revolution had subsided.
Now the modern Chinese government takes great care of this discovery. Even laws exist to prevent future excavations of the gargantuan tomb until such time as it can be safely preserved.
That Yin and Yang I’d seen elsewhere in China spins silently here. A site of peace and beauty, though dark and terrible at the same time.
Souls in the Clay
The warriors themselves stand motionless as they have for over 2000 years while all around them a buzz selfie sticks and shutter clicks.
The soldier’s neutral expressions and weaponless grasps bear none of the ferocity nor brutality of their story.
It all began with another great figure in Chinese history. The very first emperor of China: Qin Shi Huang.
By the time of the Terracotta warriors though, any great achievement had been shadowed by great tragedy. The emperor’s mercury addled mind was poisoned by a belief that the substance would preserve his soul in the afterlife. This was a world that consumed his every thought in the twilight of his life.
Originally, he had wanted the whole 20,000 strong army to be buried with him. This as well as a few hundred concubines, eunuchs and even children – their innocence a currency in his imagined world.
The Awful Alternative
The terracotta warriors were an awful alternative. Though each of their faces were unique, their cores were all hollowed to receive a soul. A doomed slave, killed and burnt in the very clay ovens that made each model.
Now countless rows stand in pointless formation, waiting for a day that will never arrive. Forever trapped in prisons smooth and serene. Those unique faces, epitaphs to undervalued lives.
Qin like Mao is still held in high regard. In less than 30 years the maps of seven kingdoms had indeed been unified, giving birth to the China we know today.
The cost I fear, in its people, language and culture, all burnt away in the name of unification, was too great. Twenty thousand lives turned to ash and remade to the emperor’s specification. A mass cleansing the likes of which would not be seen again until the whole world was at war with Hitler’s Germany.
Now the sun occasionally warms the patient faces of the warriors. Their souls are baked deep and safe from the horror of that time.
Breached Defences
Looking forward to the Great Wall I wondered if a similar tainted history would run like a foul cement through each stone block it was built with. After all, riding bikes on the Ming dynasty walls in Xi’an had already cast a long autumn shadow of doubt over the experience yet to come.
Just as in Vietnam, the bike ride had brought us all together, freeing us from the shackles of the buses and trains to which we’d become so familiar. The walls themselves however were set fast and very much part of the modern city now.
Height restrictions hardly stop the imposition of the modern buildings. Traffic flows in through several engineered breaches of the ancient defence – a sign of the arriving future.
In the evening light with crimson lanterns standing regiment, our guide Lei Lei gives a voluminous history, breathing some life in to the structure.
We lap the devious killing courtyard and ceremonial gates. As we pass the Samsung Galaxy Gatehouse however, I find it hard to believe Ming would approve. The kaleidoscopic projections are a substitute it seems, for something else that leached away. History sucked out from the same arches bringing the future to this city.
