Learn Mandarin in 30 Minutes
Nov 2nd, 2007 by Eats Wombats
I took the Russian Princess to see the Chinese Terracotta Warriors this evening. The exhibition is in the reading room of the British Museum, which provides a spectacular backdrop (photos). A false floor has been installed and the space converted temporarily for the exhibition.
Finally, I am taking cultural advantage of living in London, never having made the trip to see them when in China.
The security was quite aggressive and seemingly deliberately conspicuous, not understated and discreet as one might expect. “No mobile phones or cameras” we were told on entry. “I’ll just switch my phone to silent” I said, taking it out of my pocket.
You will switch your phone OFF
I was advised with truly exemplary rudeness. I would gladly have refrained from making calls or taking photographs, but… being dictated to in that manner about whether I could receive a text message? Where do they get these people? Blackwater?
Later, it was hard to concentrate on reading the signs on the displays as alarms kept going off and men in uniform were running around; and when they were not running around, one had to endure them speaking loudly into crackly radios that made noises like the Star Wars character R2D2.
In a way, it was appropriate. The First Emperor was undoubtedly surrounded by goons ready to do away with you if he snapped his fingers.
My wife suggested later that they were anxious to avoid a repeat of this incident. Who knows what kind of serious criticism they received after that?
I was thankful not to have been one of the hundreds of thousands whose lives was expended by the Emperor in the execution of his projects–he is said to have killed a million people. Where, I wondered was the graffiti? Is it possible that all those workmen building terracotta figures really believed the Emperor was divine? (He survived three assassination attempts). Did nobody at all inscribe
The Emperor is impotent
or worse, inside a terracotta figure before it was sealed up? Or could there have been goons to ensure that nobody dared?
The first soldiers were dug up in a farmer’s field in 1974, at the tail end of the cultural revolution, luckily. A few years earlier and perhaps they might have been destroyed. Mr.Yang, the farmer who discovered the first head, warrants a photo in the exhibition, but nothing at home it seems.
The contrast between the empty fields then and now (Google satellite image of the area) is striking. This photo may be more recent. The tomb is 1.5km from the terracotta army, who were guarding an exposed flank.
Only a fraction of the tomb has been excavated. According to historian Sima Qian’s account, written one hundred years after the emperor’s death, astonishing riches may remain. The tomb was looted and burned after the emperor’s death but perhaps not completely.
It’s said that his own tomb, contains a bronze model of the known world, with gold and rivers of mercury. The emperor built himself new palaces after conquests, and decorated them with beautiful women and objects of art from the conquered people. They were laid out in a pattern that echoed the positions of the stars. His tomb may contain a model of all of this.
The Chinese have decided not to excavate it for now but are busy studying it with remote sensing techniques.
A few months ago they found the tomb of the first grandmother and a secret chamber. Here’s an impression I found on a Chinese web site.
As we left I returned a brochure about the museum’s program of events for the evening. Chinese soldier’s drinking games was one, but it looked as if they were going to use tea.
Would you like to learn Mandarin in half an hour?
a nice lady asked me at the Welcome Desk. If she’d been Chinese I might have been tempted. Mandarin in half an hour? Who wouldn’t. Instead, I sighed wistfully and said that I was skipping class already and had to get back.
The only time I ever had my fortune told I was told I would go to China someday and marry a Chinese woman.
Did I just blow my chances?
