Xi'an Reports

Tuesday, April 9th, 1997

This morning, at seven o' clock in the morning, we had breakfast at the hotel. Soon we departed for a museum. We took an hour bus ride out of Xi'an to the famous Terra - Cotta Warrior Museum. The people think of it as the eighth wonder of the world. I agree. It is huge. First we entered a small, round building for a short, 20 minute, film presentation. The show taught us about the first emperor and the war as well as how they discovered the tomb. When the first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, died in 210 BC, his people had worked very hard on his underground tomb. When it was finished it was 6,210 meters in perimeter. Inside, there were clay statues of chariots, cavalry men, generals, soldiers and more. Now, only part of it is dug up for the public. Some of it is shattered and some of it is repaired and glued together. The worst and black parts are where some soldiers from another army found the tomb and wrecked all the soldiers and statues with fire. The museum has opened three pits (sections). One is all the soldiers and horses lined up the way it was. Another is showing how it was covered with logs and mats. The third pit shows the main headquarters, but it is severely damaged. Outside there are lots of shops trying to sell you mini replicas of the terra - cotta soldiers. If you persist for a lower price, you can bargain really low. At around noon time, we got on the bus to have the special Bell Tower Hotel box lunch with yogurt, sandwiches, fruit, and eggs.

Dear Friends,
Hi! This is General Chu. I come from the Terra Cotta Warrior Museum. As usual, there were lots of visitors. But today there were kids. They weren't local kids. I think I heard them say, they were from Hong Kong. Luckily they were not allowed to take pictures, or else it would have blinded me. I can tell that they had a really good time seeing different face expressions we have. I even saw them picking rocks from the side of the museum. Some of them had sketched a picture of me. Boy, didn't I feel important. I've seen some good and bad sketches of me. But I knew that they all tried their best. I also saw them taking notes. I overheard that they are doing "Virtual China" Talking about kids and visitors, I missed my other clay warrior friends. I am seperated from my other friends. I had glass surrounded around me. It felt uncomfortable. And some of my friends even crushed in to little pieces and broke their head. Which includes peasants, horses etc. Boy I missed the time when I was with them. Well it was all because of the Hand Dynasty . They burned us and destroyed us. But seeing people coming to see me will be good enough for me to fell lonely

12:30pm-We were on the bus for about 45 minutes. We were singing fun songs.
1:00pm- When we arrived at Wei Jia Village, a crowd of adults and mostly kids formed and circled around us. We interviewed the Ma which is a farming family. We visited a local school and saw how kids spend their break. 3:30pm-When we arrived in the city wall we started walking and taking scenery pictures. The weather outside was warm and breezy. 4:15 pm- We went to the Xi'an Beilin Museum. We just saw calligraphy art and pretty much just walked around. 4:45pm-We went to Scholars Street. We went shopping for about 45 minutes. The different sounds were bicycle bells and car horns and a lot of Chinese bargaining. We saw a lot of shops outside on the street. We met with our ground and had dinner at a local restaurant. The taste of noodles, from my opinion was delicious. 6:30pm- We had just finished eating dinner so we decided to start heading to the Bell Tower Hotel to prepare this report.

Today was a unusual day. I saw many people walk around the fields. These people wore very colorful clothing and brought a little black box (camera) which flashes. I didn't like these people much because they seemed so noisy and curious and they stared at me. These people were brought by the old man named Wang. Wang seemed to be happy and he allowed them to look at me and take my picture from their black boxes. That caused me to be very scared, soon I was released by Wang and I ran to my mom. But only got close to my mom for a few seconds and the old man brought me back and tied me up again. I tried to get away again but couldn't. Five minutes later they left me and we had some peace and quiet.

This morning I woke up just like any normal morning. I got out of my pig pen and looked up in the sky. When I look up I have a very good view. I have a good view because I live in a valley in the Wei Jia Village. There is a field which is a spring green color which has a field of fresh corn. Behind the fields are a few dirt mountains with a few green trees. Then I heard my baby piglets oinking for their breakfast. I fed them my milk since they were just born a few weeks ago. Then I ate the scraps that my owner, Ma Bao Min, gave me for breakfast. I ate as fast as I could so I could watch what my owner was doing. All of a sudden I saw my owner and his family making Chinese tiles. The tiles had raised Chinese characters along with flowers distributed to the four corners formed by cross. By the time I saw all this excitement I was ready for my morning nap. After I woke up I saw my owner with his grand child. He was a young boy with black hair and dirty clothes on. He was looking at me but I didn't want to look back. After a while he walked away, not interested in my piglets. Like many other Chinese families, my owner also has a wall around the house and a yard. Grandfather and grandson were locking the gate as it started to get dark. When I looked around I saw that my baby piglets had already fallen asleep. It seemed to me that today was a pretty busy day in the village of Wei Jia.

Interview with Ma Bao Min (a man in Wei Jia Village)

Today we went to a village which was 20 km east of Xi'an. This village is called the Wei Jia Village. It took us one and a half hour bus ride to get the At the village our group met a family. There was a old man whose name was Ma Bao Min. He is really nice. He brought us to see the little pigs. Then I interviewed him. He has a job, he was in charge of the farm. He is 55 years old. And he has a son and a grandson. His grandson is 3 years old. They start school when they are 5 years old. Mr. Ma loves to eat rice and drink goat's milk. They have goats for pets and the youngest goat is called the "shiao yang er", small sheep. They have pigs too. But they are not pets. They sell them to make money. Another way to make money is to sell wheat. They grow their own rice and they make their own clothes too. I think they are really smart and they are hard workers.

Lane, Xi'an group Today was our third day in Xi'an. It was a really "cool" day today 'cause we went to the Terra Cotta Museum which is what Xi'an is famous for. There were 3 pits each with something different. There were over 6,000 soldiers in the first pit with tons of chariots and horses. Pit 2 and 3 had about the same things but pit 2 was "L" shaped and pit 3 was "U" shaped . There were soldiers, chariots, and horses which were in display cases in pit 2. They were of officers and generals. We had to draw pictures of them in our workbooks. Inside the museum it was very dark and cold. But it was very interesting. There were many miniature Terra Cotta Warriors to buy but it was all very expensive , there was almost no bargaining! Outside there were T-shirts, colorful quilts, miniature Terra Cotta warriors etc. Everyone was grabbing you to buy their items telling you how cheap and good it was! I got a lot of stuff, and all in all it was a really awesome morning!

On April 9, 1997 we went to several different interesting places in the afternoon. Our first destination was the Wei Jia Village. The village had a lot of kids. The village had around 400 inhabitants. They had several different animals for example a few goats, chickens, pigs, piglets, a cow and dogs. The villages had big families with a lot of kids. When we gave some candies to them more kids rushed towards us. Some of the villager people didn't speak Mandarin, but their own dialect. The next place we went to was Heping Gate. At the gate (around a 10 minute walk) you could see a lot of temple gates. We then went to Scholars Street. Along Scholars Street I could see a lot of shops full of Chinese brush paintings, Chinese brushes and antique stuff, you could also bargain along the street. The people there are nice and friendly. The buildings there are nice (like ancient Chinese structures). The last place we went was Luoma Night Market. The market I thought was horrible, it was extremely crowded, people were impolite and it was really noisy. Other than that the day was fine.

My name is Dong Dong and I'm 7 years old. I live in a small village called Wei Jia and my dad is a farmer. I have almost never seen foreigners but I did today. During school some people came to visit us. I was playing with my friends because it was break time. Mang Dong, a boy in our school and some other kids were walking around and saw them coming. They were wearing weird clothes like the adults. They also carried huge bags and black boxes which had shiny buttons on them. I tried to see what they were but they would just say, "Hello?" and go away. They talked funnily too. I got bored with them and started to go away but the others were following them so I did too. They would squat like they were in a bathroom or stand up and push little buttons of the small mechanical boxes. There would be a flash and with a satisfied look they would go away. I thought that maybe at least the adult lady would have some common sense but she did it too! There was this thing too. If we ask for candy, they would smile and take them out. And because we wanted some we would all push and fight. There isn't anything wrong with that right? NOT! They would frown and say "No! No!" then run away. Gosh! Make up your mind, I wanted to say. You said you were going to give us some! These visitors are really weird.

I am a piece of clay that was molded into a soldier. The person that made me was called Wong Xian Shang. It took him about 3 months to make me. After I was completed I was put into a little "hot" room with all these other soldiers. We stayed in these for 1/4 of a day. We all turned stone hard and a gray color. I overheard some peasant slaves talking next to me.

"Did you see all those statues the king ordered for!" All of a sudden I was being painted in all kinds of colors! I was then carried by 5 peasant man to the little "hot" room again, where I stayed with other painted warriors for about 1 day. When I was taken out of the little "hot" room Wong Xian Shang gave me a long, sharp and bronze sword. Before he gave the sword to me, he dipped it in a liquid, which said something but I think it was to stop the sword from rusting. He stared at me for a long time walking around and pushing me to see if I was firm on all sides. Then the same, 5 peasant slaves that carried me to the little "hot" room, then they carried me to a big mountain tomb. It took them a couple of hours to get me to the mountain. I was put onto a trailer with wheels. I was the first on, then more soldiers came. I have never seen so many soldiers like myself before. After the trailer was full, 25 peasant slaves pulled and pushed us soldiers inside of the big mountain tomb. I couldn't believe my eyes! There were so many other soldiers that looked like me. I was placed up front near the south wall in pit 1. For about a week we heard news that the king just died. After he was buried, in 1 year all the soldiers and horses heard all these people banging on the door!! Suddenly, the door broke and thousands of rebels came in with fire. The rebels stole my special sword and then something happened, a man got a stick and hit my head off and smashed me to pieces with the stick, then everything went dark.

I wanted to know how business was in Xi'an. I decided to interview a businessman, and I found Mr. Meng Hui, the manager of the Bell Tower Hotel Goods Department. I wanted to know how business was for an average businessman.

Q: How did your business start?
A: I started as a salesman in a business building which was located near a historical museum. The building was going to be torn down soon, so everybody had to quit until the building was rebuilt. I decided to get a new job. The Bell Tower Hotel had a new shop, and they interviewed me, and I was qualified for the job, so they hired me. I signed a contract for three years, so now I signed two contracts (six years). We have an agreement: the store must make at least seven to eight thousand yuan a month. My operation is independent.

Q: How do you manage your operation?
A: I get merchandise by two ways: going out to buy the item from a store or people come to me to sell the item. Some products are on consignment (people give me the product, I sell it, give people the price they sold me for (I buy something for 600, I sell it for 900, I give the people who sold me the item 300 yuan, and the store keeps the rest.) If at the end of a month the store makes profit, I get 20 or 40 percent of the profit, and that is my bonus.

There are three workers under me (2 salesmen, 1 woman.) I hire people by going to a college, finding graduates familiar with foreign languages, interview them, and if they qualify I hire them. I train them for about one and a half months (I train them in sales experience and I get them to be familiar with the different products), then the salespeople can work independently. They sign a contract for at least one year.

I work for 8 hours a day (the maximum the hotel will let people work for). There are two shifts: first one is from 7:30 AM. to 2:30 P.M., second one is from 2:30 to 8:30 P.M.

Q: Is business good in your store?
A: Generally speaking, the store is profitable, but we're not allowed to put high prices on items. We have a certain percentage we can add to the price. I compete with others by assuring better quality and better service. Things might be more expensive, but customers are assured better quality.

Q: What are the average salaries for people in Xi'an?
A: Average people in Xi'an are having a 250-280 yuan a month for a starting salary. I don't know about the average salary of workers because there are so many jobs, some have higher pay, some have very low pay.

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