Virtual China '98

Arriving at the Terra Cotta Warrior Museum at around 8:00, we all got of the bus taking our Xi’an booklet and our pencils, we went through this little market street and waited for our tickets to enter this museum. At the museum there were separate buildings either souvenir shop or the three pits that contained the warriors. One of the first things we did was go through a souvenir shop to go to a round theater and learn about the history of the terra cotta warriors, which was about 15 minutes long. Since there were three farmers that discovered the terra cotta warriors, we wanted to get one of their signatures. So when we got out of the theater we saw one of the farmers and everyone rushed to get his signature. For this was one of the farmers that discovered the eighth wonder of the world.

When we were finished with getting the farmer’s signature we (our study groups) started to go to the pits. The first pit was the largest pit of the three, and it contained the most complete terra cotta warriors. There was a man taking pictures. And each group had a picture taken before them. It cost 150 RMB. Then we went to the second pit, which was not really complete (not complete as in the terra cotta warriors body parts), but at the second pit there were glass cases containing complete warriors. The third pit was very similar to the second one except that there were no glass cases of the warriors. After the third pit everyone went to the souvenir shops, and the shops on the small market street.

I’m Emily’s camera and my duty is to take lots and lots of photos of Xi’An. Today I went to see the terracotta warriors, but the bad thing was that I couldn’t take any pictures, which was really frustrating because I love to take pictures. The warriors were amazing! Their facial features looked exactly like real humans’. It was so exciting to look at artifacts that are more than 2,000 years old!

After we left the terracotta army we went to visit a small village community. I took many pictures of the cute children there. The houses there were made of mud, brick and some houses were in caves (not a really a thing we see often)! I found it so interesting to hear these villagers talk about where they live and where they go to school. The elementary school is pretty small, there is a small playing area and in the front of each classroom there is a big chalkboard. The children are very skilled at writing Chinese characters and reading. The villagers grow strawberries, pomegrantes and corn for a living. In their homes they have a beds called "Kangs" which are heated beds. They burn hay in the stove underneath the "Kang" which heats it up. I visited the farm where the villagers work. It was really cool looking at all the strawberries and fields of barley. It was really warm with breezes passing through which made it really beautiful and peaceful on the farm. There were many animals in the village such as cute pigs, chickens, goats and scary dogs! Adults in the village were very curious about us and invited Emily and I into their homes and showed us around the whole community. One family we met was called the "Hong" family. They didn’t mind my taking pictures at all! The village roads were very bumpy and it was really hard for Emily to carry me because she always dropped me. I could have broken! One old lady was really funny because she lost all her teeth except for one! This trip to the village was a great experience, but I’m really tired and I could sure use a new roll of film and new batteries.

Also, one of the strangers even used a black thing and flashed it on me too!!! I really don’t like it. I got a bit scared so I hid into my small cave thing. Too bad I am tied up. If I am not, I would’ve ran over and bit them.

Luckily, later one of my masters gave me some food to make me stop barking. It’s bread, and I really like it. I did and I ran over and gobbled up the food. At the same time, I stepped on my bowl of water.

They were about to go when I finished the bread. I was really happy. But then later, they came back again. They just came back to ask where is the temple. I was surprised. And I started barking again. But this time, no one gave me any bread. They all ignored me, so I stopped barking. They finally went away after that. I was SO happy!!!

Interview with a Villager

Today is April 22, 1998 . Though the weather forecast says that it is going to be some drizzle during the week, but it was very sunny today.

The interview I am doing in the village is called the Wei Jia village. Everyone has the same surname; at least most have the same surname.

Well, anyway this is the interview in Chinese (translated into English) I am doing on a villager in this village who is a farmer:

The villager I interviewed

Author: Bosco Hui

Date: April 22, 1998

Type of Writing: My P.m. Schedule

Today we went to a village in the middle of the street and I have no idea where it is. We had to interview the people in the village, but we had a lot of trouble trying to understand what they were saying. The people there didn’t understand what we were saying and we didn’t understand what they were trying to say.

We had to try and understand what they were saying, but they thought we were just dumb since we didn’t understand what they were saying. We asked where the temple was, but they gave us lots of different answers and we got lost for a while! I asked them where the temple was, but they didn’t understand what I was talking about so I had to get on the floor and act as if I was praying so that they would understand me, and ‘luckily’ they understood me! They just pointed in a direction and nothing else. We went and Nile took a picture of a sheep when it was letting out poop. We interviewed lots of people and they all gave us different answers so that we had to make a decision of what to write down for our booklet. I had lots of trouble when the booklet said, "How does a "Kang" operate?" I had to ask someone but I used the wrong tone for Chinese so they didn’t understand me at all and started laughing at me. When I was done, everyone wanted to get a picture since we were giving out pictures with our Polaroid camera. All the people asked and asked, and my group had to make up a lie saying that we had no more pictures… we weren’t happy with that and we also felt that we didn’t have all the power even though Mr. Lane said we would have all the power… The only problem was that we were overrun!

The Scholars Street was very fun! In the scholars street we saw lots of inscriptions of stones, dictionaries, image of Confucius, and lots of brushes for calligraphy. We went to the temple in the Scholars Street and it had lots of things about the famous historian Confucius! After that we left Scholars Street and went to have dinner at the one and only edible place to eat good food, and that place is……Kentucky Fried Chicken!!!!!! It did have excellent food! I then went to room 437 in Bell Tower Hotel and I wrote what you are reading!