Today is our final day in Xi ‘An. Our guide, Callie, met us again in the hotel lobby this morning to take us on our final tour of this city. She has been a valuable resource for us here, though we have been surprised by how much English we have encountered. It seems to us, that at least in this area, the Chinese are very interested in attracting tourism. So, today we were taken to the Xi’An Beilin Museum. This is a preserved site of the temple of Confucius, and the building structures themselves are close to 1,000 years old. Trust us when we say that they have been preserved extremely well! This museum stores many ancient artifacts, but the most interesting to us were the Steles (pronounced stales). Steles are stone tablets, where the teachings of Confucius were carved by the hands of his disciples. We learned today, that his original writings were first painted on sheets of bamboo, but were then etched into stone as a more permanent record. Let me tell you, you can’t get much more permanent – the tablets vary in size, but most were 7-8 feet tall, 3 feet wide, and 8-10 inches thick! Oh yeah, and did I mention that there were over 3,000 of them?? By transcribing the teachings into stone, copies could easily be made by placing a sheet of rice paper over the tablet, and rubbing or brushing the paper with ink. The detail of the carvings are incredible, especially considering they were done by hand, using only a primitive knife. The site is more commonly called the Forest of Stone Tablets, because there are so many tablets, like trees in a forest. If there is one thing certain about Chinese history, there are layers upon layers of meaning in just about everything. We have thoroughly enjoyed exploring this area, and learning as much as we can about China’s history and complex culture, as we have been counting down the days until the time arrives when we will get to the real reason we are here – our sweet little Mia! Since we arrived in China, we have been keenly aware of each of the young girls we’ve seen. We are so curious to know what she will be like, and what will she think of us? We can hardly wait until next Monday . . . And Sydney says . . .
The museum was kind of fun today, because I got to take a lot of pictures. It was also a little boring, because my mom wanted to stay a long time, and know what every sign meant.
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Lisa LynchLisa is a world traveling mom that took the ultimate adventure Archives
December 2012
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