They say domestic flights in China only have an 80% success rate of leaving on time. But given the twelve hours it took us to make the two and a half hour journey from Shanghai to Xian (and our plane was certainly not the only one delayed that day!), it felt like the number is probably closer to 20%.
We definitely should have taken the train. It’s only around 1000kms. A bullet train can do that in under four hours!
But to catch a glimpse of 8000 unique, life-sized statues built by a crew of over 750,000 slaves over 2000 years ago? The “eighth wonder of the world”, as they say? (Actually… I thought that was Petra)
Absolutely worth it!
…more on that in a bit 🙂
Eddie viewing the warriors
The Chinese Work Hard for Their Money
I am certainly no political scientist. And I’m no economist either. And I realize there are deep, dark secrets taking place under China’s sheen surface. I’m sure the same can be said of any country’s surface to some degree.
But I can’t help but to notice, the all but complete lack of homelessness in the two cities we’ve seen. Together their population totals somewhere around 45 million people. Give or take. And yesterday we saw our first and only person sleeping on the street, so far.
As well I can’t help but to notice the number of jobs there seems to be. There are police everywhere (that’s not to say that is actually a good thing! …or is it??). There are street cleaners everywhere. It seems every other vehicle on the road is a bus, driven by a bus driver. Sometimes with a second employee collecting tickets.
I was in a tiny corner store the other day and it had six employees.
Every subway station we’ve been to appears to employee a good dozen or more people. Yet it only costs 20 cents to ride the subway across Xian.
Why is it so completely different at home?
It all comes down to economics, I would think. We can’t afford to hire 12 people to work in every one of our subway stations. Because we would have to triple the price of a ticket to get on the subway. And that would be too much. Our subway tickets are already five to ten times higher than the ones here in China.
Obviously the people working the subway stations here are paid WAY less than at home. They have to be. But we can’t pay ours less for one reason or another. Either there’s a union in the way, or there’s a minimum wage, or, well, we just see it as being unfair or unethical. Which I guess it is, given the cost of living that’s constantly being driven upwards by things such as subway price increases!
What a conundrum.
Putting ethics aside for a moment, let’s say tomorrow we slash the minimum wage in half. And then start offering subway jobs at minimum wage. Then we can hire twice as much staff! And hence more jobs to be had!
Of course though we would then have to decrease what a person can make off our welfare system (obviously barring mental illnesses and other legitimate reasons to have a welfare system). Otherwise why would someone ever take one of the new jobs we’ve created?
Obviously this is all drastically simplified. And no offence to workers on the subway of course – the idea could have easily been applied to a host of other jobs.
But is reforming welfare and minimum wage a way to curb the amount of unemployment and homelessness in the world I come from?
Trip Update: Xian
Xian is one of China’s “smaller” towns clocking in at around 8,000,000 residents. It is closer to the middle of the country and thus higher up in altitude. Summers get up to 50 Celsius and winters down to -10. It’s clean, modern and bustling, with plenty to do.
For the first of our two days in Xian we spent the day climbing Mount Huashan. It is a holy mountain with four distinct peaks reaching 2000 meters in altitude at the top. We went on a Sunday which, is never an ideal situation in a place like China. But weekends come every week and you need to do something those days (or do you??). And in the end, the crowds actually weren’t completely unmanageable.
To get to the top we had to do this: walk, subway, bullet train, taxi, bus, cable car, walk (a lot). Getting home was the reverse of course. We took a cable car and a bullet train in one journey… How many people can say they have done that before!?
There is an insane part at the top called the sky walk. They say it’s one of the most dangerous hikes in the world. It is no more than three planks wide and sticking out the side of the mountain with a good thousand meter drop below you.
Unfortunately due to time restrictions we didn’t make it that far to see it (the southern peak), so I won’t say too much. But it is worth watching a video of it to see what I mean. It looks truly terrifying.
Absolutely stunning views at the top of the two peaks we did get to see: the North and the East.
Sunday evening in the main square waiting for our train back to Xian, it was a serious site to take in over some noodles and well-deserved Tsingtaos (beer!). If it wasn’t a class of martial arts kids or a troop of middle-aged/elderly dancers, it was the childrens’ video arcades, fishing pools, bizarre-flashy-light carnival cars, kids’ sandboxes, or a man in the corner cracking the whip he brought (!?). Perhaps you had to be there to understand.
Or perhaps not.
The Terracotta Army is truly one of the world’s marvels. Only a couple of bus rides out of Xian to get to, it alone was worth going a couple thousand kilometres off our route and back to see.
Built over 2000 years ago around 200 B.C. it was unknown until discovery by a farmer digging a well in 1972. Thousands of statues have been painstakingly reassembled using only original materials. There are thousands more to go and I would be surprised if it’s finished in my lifetime.
It is essentially a full-sized replica of a real army, built out of bronze and stone. It consists of soldiers of all military ranks and positions at the time (generals, cavalry, archers, etc), including the horses. Amongst other things, like animals and performers. The army is standing in formation, complete with flankers facing the sides.
Every statue is completely unique. And they are built appropriately for the soldier. For example, the generals are older and fatter than the younger infantry. The infantry were all bearing real weapons and armour when they were buried.
It was built by the emperor when he was alive at the time. And then buried with him when he died to protect him in the afterlife.
Again, there are around 8000 statues and it took around 750,000 slaves to build it.
The accomplishment truly cannot be understated. One of my all time favourite tourist attractions, for sure.
As I write this we are on that bullet train up to Beijing travelling 300 km/h.
And my calves are still aching from Huashuan.
Pretty cool!