May 12

Hello from Xi'an! This morning we got to sleep in a little before checking out of our hotel at 8 o'clock. We hopped on the bus and drove about 30 minutes until we got to the Terracotta Warrior factory. On the way there, we got lots of information about the Terracotta warriors from our tour guide, Maggie. The Terracotta warriors were from the first dynasty of China, the Qin Dynasty, around 2,200 years ago. Emperor Qin wanted an ornate tomb for him and all his possessions for when he died, totaling over 300 tombs, including his burial tomb. His burial tomb was built in a mountain and had a ceiling of jade to look like the sky. In order to protect him and his things, he built thousands of clay soldiers, known as the Terracotta warriors. The entire process to build his multitude of tombs took 38 years and over 700,000 workers. Emperor Qin died at 49 years old, and after his burial, his tomb has not since been opened. We first started off our tour at the factory where they continue to make the warriors. First they put the clay in the mold and then place in a fire up to 1000 degrees for 7 days. Today, a warrior takes 2 months to build. However, back in the Qin dynasty, the soldiers were all carved by hand to make them all look unique and different, like a real Chinese army. After we learned how to make the warriors, we headed to the museum itself. The museum was founded in 1979 after a local farmer, Mr. Yung was digging a well and found pieces of a warrior and brought them to the local cultural society, who sent archaeologists to the site and began the digging. In the museum, there are four pits. The first one we went to was pit 1, which is the biggest. This one houses 2,000 soldiers standing in line and 4,000 underground for preservation. During the semester, the class learned about the "pushiness" of the Chinese people, and today at the first pit it definitely caught us by surprise! It's hard to try and inch to the front when you have your midwestern politeness holding you back. The second pit was pit 3 which is the smallest. In this pit, there were three sections arranged in a U shape. In the first section, archaeologists have discovered animal remains, such as deer bones. This led them to believe there were sacrifices done in this section. The second section had body guards because they carried weapons with no sharp end, just for decoration. The middle section has 4 horses arranged in a line as if they were carrying a chariot. This is believed to have been the area for the general of the army. After these two pits we had a buffet style lunch at the museum site. Then we visited one more pit, pit number 2 and that was the medium sized pit which had four sections, the Infantry, Archers, Horseman, and Calvary. In this pit they had full sized soldiers on display to be able to get a closer look at the warriors. Then we went to one more area where they talked more about the horsemen and their horses and chariots. Once we were done here, we walked through a large marketplace where all the locals attempted to sell you everything under the sun. Then we hopped on the bus to go to a large dairy farm.

When we arrived at the dairy farm it was hard to believe because there were flowers and gardens all around. The dairy's name is the Shaanxi Provincial Dairy Cattle Center and is owned 30% by the government and 30% by a yoghurt processing plant, and 40% by a private company.  This is just one of 3 locations in China and covers 110 acres from this arrangement.  The farm consisted of 3,200 cows that were a mix of American and Australian Holstein breed.  Before we were able to start the tour, we had to put on medical surgical full body suits for biosecurity, and they did not fit some of us well. They're not designed for people over 6 feet tall!   We started the tour in the milking parlor where they have a carousel that milks 350 cows an hour.  Their milk output is 35 Kg (80 pounds) of milk per cow per day, which is about the same as the US.  We then got to tour the barns of the dry cows and lactating cows.  As we continued on with the tour we noticed that the farm is very similar to the average dairy farm in the US.  The barn set ups were the same, as well as the cows ration, but they would substitute chopped green wheat for alfalfa hay in the dry cows ration.  The farm was under construction as they were working on expanding by building a barn for their calves so they can leave the hut earlier, and also more cow barns and silage bunkers.  Talking to the manager, one problem that he was asking us about was having high mortality in the baby calves during the summer time when the huts got too hot.` A couple unique items that stuck out to us were that they import 30% of their hay from the US each year, but the tariffs might be putting an end to that. The other unique item is that they recycle the manure by processing it and getting a dried manure that they use for the cows bedding and the cows had an exercise lot that was outside of the building.

After a busy day, we are headed to the airport to fly to Hohot, where some of us are hoping we find a McDonald's within the airport! Until next time, goodbye Xi'an!

 

A "WOW" moment for Drs. Clay and Thaler.  While going through security at the Xi'an Airport, they checked our passports, tickets, and took digital pictures of each person, which is pretty normal.  However, after making sure all the students had gotten safely through security, we stood in front of the display that tells you which gates to go to for each flight.  While trying to find our flight to Hohot, a camera at the display took our picture as we stood they, and "magically" our names, flight, and gate popped up on the display screen.  They had used facial recognition software to match our picture from in front of the display to that of going through security, and were then able to pull up all our information.  It's a brave, new world, but a little disconcerting.  However, we've seen a great deal of technology adaptation here in many sectors.

 

 Dairy calves

 

 Milking

 

 Pit

 

 

 

SDSU Warriors