Wednesday in Xian

On Wednesday, we saw the Terracota Warriors. These are statues of soldiers that were discovered about 40 years ago when some farmers were digging a new well and found the head of a warrior. There are over 7,000 warriors that were buried with the first Emperor of China in the Qin dynasty. It was not the first dynasty, but was the first to control so much land to be called Emperor. He believed that by burying all of his soldiers with him he could control them in the afterlife. An advisor convinced him that the soldiers would revolt against him and he would lose control if he insisted on his plan, but that he could make statues with the faces of each of the soldiers and they would still protect him in the afterlife. The Chinese consider this the 8th Wonder of the World. I'm not sure if it carries the same recognition around the globe, but it was fascinating.

It was over an hour in the van each way and the kids had both had enough by the end of the trip. In hindsight, it was probably not realistic to expect them to handle that long of a trip. There were quite a few meltdowns and at one point, Wu Ning broke away from Laura with surprising speed and gave us all a scare. It is pretty obvious that she is testing the boundaries. She is an adorable kid, who I think is very smart, curious, self-reliant, and has a very strong will. She will test us because that is what 4-year-olds do, but her smiles and infectious laugh far outweigh the tests.

Gwen has been a trooper through all of this. She hasn't really said anything, but it's obvious that she's struggling with not being the only child and not getting all of the attention. She has been very supportive and has been sharing her toys without complaint. The language barrier is probably holding them back a little. I think once Wu Ning learns English, they'll start to bond more. Dolores has been a great help through all of this. Gwen pleads to sleep in her room each night and I think she is giving Gwen the one-on-one attention that she needs to keep going. There's no way we could have brought Gwen without Dolores' help.

We went to a dumpling dinner / traditional Chinese dance performance that evening. The dumplings were delicious and kept coming and coming. They must have brought at least eight baskets of dumplings, maybe 20 different varieties in the end. I've never been so full in my life.

The dance performance was traditional and not something I need to see again, but the kids seemed to like it.

Bye for now,

Jeff and Wu Ning