Hesitantly, Ming crept forward. He gingerly righted the clay head.
“Much better! Now, sit down,” the head ordered.
Ming pulled up a wicker chair with a shaking hand and plopped down.
3
GETTING ACQUAINTED
“H-H-HOW CAN YOU T-T-TALK?” MING stammered.
“Don’t be afraid. I know how you feel.” The terra-cotta head’s now flat and unhurried voice made him sound like one of the old men at the teahouse about to tell a suspenseful tale.
“How could you know how I feel? You’re—you’re made of clay,” Ming protested, trying to smooth the fear out of his voice.
“I used to be a human like you, though not as thin and brittle.” The head paused and sniffed derisively. “As you can see, I was better built.”
“Better built? I bet if you had grown up on nothing but buckwheat noodles and old cabbage, you’d have turned out differently,” Ming replied bitterly.
The head glanced at the chipped bowl sitting on the end of the desk. A few strands of thin noodles clung wetly to the edge.
“Is that what you are eating? Hmmph. My mother cooked the best noodles! That is probably why I was much taller and stronger than the other boys my age.”
Ming wanted to say that his mother used to cook him all kinds of delicious food, but the head didn’t give him a chance.
“I heard those men call you Ming. My parents named me Stone, Shí, 石!”
“They called you Stone? Why not Mud?”
Shí gazed balefully at Ming. “Don’t you know that unattractive names were given to children so ghosts would not steal them? Besides, my name was prophetic. Here I am, strong as a rock!” The head wiggled from side to side.
Shí’s sarcasm and good-natured taunts reminded Ming of his friends in Xi’an.
“You must have a pretty generous definition of ‘strong.’” Ming tilted his head at the broken terra-cotta pieces.
Shí grinned. “I’d like to see how you would look after being buried for two thousand years!”
“Two thousand years!” Ming’s face lit up with excitement. “What were you doing down there all that time?”
“I’m a brave soldier in the army that protects Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum!” Shí grinned proudly.
“Army? How many of you are there?” Ming’s heart pounded.
“Thousands! But I can’t tell you the exact number,” Shí said guardedly.
“My bā ba was a history professor. He knows all of Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s secrets!” Ming retorted.
“What’s a professor?”
“A teacher. He used to teach at the best university in Xi’an.”
“Xi’an? Where is that?”
“Do you know of Xi’anyang?”
“Of course! That’s where Emperor Qin’s capital was.”
“Well, they call it Xi’an now.”
“Hmm … that’s far away. How did you end up here?”
“It’s a long story.” Ming sighed. “Our leader, Chairman Mao, favors the peasants and workers who supported him, but he dislikes the educated men and women—the ‘intellectuals.’ My bā ba wasn’t very enthusiastic about Mao’s policies, so the government sent our family here to be ‘reeducated’ by peasants.”
Emperor Qin took the throne in 246 BCE, at the age of thirteen. He ruled until his death in 210 BCE, at the age of forty-nine.
“Emperor Qin did not trust scholars, either!”
“I’ve read that he burned some of them to death.” Ming picked up a book from a stack on the desk. “My bā ba has a lot of books on Emperor Qin, and I have read them all. I know exactly how Qin became the first Emperor of China, Zhōng Gúo, 中国.” He held the book up in front of the head. “It’s all in here!”
Shí stared blankly at the brown cover.
“Wait … can you read?” Ming asked suspiciously, pointing at the characters History of Qin, Qín Shi, 秦史.
“Reading and writing is for scholars and merchants.” Shí sounded embarrassed. He paused and said haughtily, “I doubt that book can tell you the whole story, as I can. I was there! You may be smart, but apparently not smart enough to keep from interrupting me.”
“Sorry! Please go on.” Ming leaned back in his chair, grinning with excitement.
4
SCHOOL
PRIOR TO THE QIN DYNASTY, CHINA WAS DIVIDED into seven warring states that constantly fought one another. Emperor Qin conquered and unified China in eight years. But soon a new enemy emerged.
One day when I came home from gathering wood, I found my mother weeping and my father squatting next to the stove. When he saw me, Father led me into the courtyard, away from my mother.
“I have been drafted to work on the Emperor’s Great Wall, Cháng Chéng, 长城. You are fourteen now. Promise me that you will take care of your mother.”
My heart sank. For months, I had heard about the Great Wall being built to defend the northern border against the Mongols. Tales of the enemy pillaging supply caravans, causing the workers to starve to death, had been swirling through the village.
“The chances of my surviving the harsh working conditions—” My father swallowed the rest of his sentence when my mother came toward us.
A famous saying crept into Ming’s mind: “The Great Wall was built on workers’ bones.”
Metallic crackling interrupted his thoughts. A man’s voice spilled out from the loudspeakers scattered around the village. “Good morning, comrades! Time to work. Let your actions show your support for our glorious Revolution and make our benevolent leader, Chairman Mao, proud.”
Ming sighed heavily and stood up. “Sorry. I have to go.”
Shí’s eyes darted around. “What’s happening? Who’s talking?”
“That’s the Political Officer—he’s the leader of our village. I’ll explain later.” Ming stuffed his books into his schoolbag and hurried toward the door.
“Really? Abandoning me already?” Shí sounded indignant.
Ming hesitated, turned, and looked at Shí, wringing his hands anxiously. “I can’t be late for school. Last time, my teacher complained to my bā ba, and he was upset with me for days.”
“All right. I will wait. It’s not like I can wander off anyway.” Shí arched an eyebrow at his broken parts.
Ming thought for a moment, then ran back to the desk and picked up the head. Carefully, he placed it in front of the radio.
“Here, this should keep you entertained. You might even learn something.”
Switching on the heavy dial, Ming waited for the radio to flicker to life. Suddenly, a revolutionary song poured out of the cracked speaker.
The east is red, the sun rises.
From China arises Mao Zedong.
He strives for the people’s happiness …
The head stared at the radio, mouth agape.
Ming grabbed his heavy cotton jacket and hurried out of the house.
The weak sun was feebly attempting to banish the dark clouds in the sky. A stiff wind brought the stale smell of burning coal and cooked rice. Tiny snowflakes sifted through the air. Ming locked the courtyard gate behind him and ran toward the west side of the village.
By the time he could see the red flags waving from the roof of the concrete schoolhouse, Ming was out of breath. He stumbled past the pride of Red Star, the tallest sculpture of Chairman Mao within nine miles, in the courtyard.
Inside the schoolhouse, children were singing at the top of their lungs.
March on, march forward, revolutionary youth!
March on, march forward, revolutionary successors!
Victory is calling,
The red flag is guiding …
Ming experienced a familiar sinking feeling in his stomach.
Along the great revolutionary path opened by our forefathers,
Push forth the wheel of history.
The morning’s political singing had already started and he was late, again.
Mankind grows stronger in
stormy wind and waves,
And revolution progresses in raging flames.
It was now or never. Ming stopped in front of a door with a wooden sign inscribed GRADE 7. He cracked the door open, hoping to slip unnoticed into his seat in a corner.
A typical village classroom during the Mao period.
Facing the future,
Taking responsi—
A middle-aged woman in a baggy green Mao-style uniform standing in front of the class made a chopping motion with her arm, abruptly cutting off the singing.
“Ah! Look who has decided to join us!” she sneered.
The large bags under her eyes always reminded Ming of the pandas at the Xi’an zoo.
“Sorry, Teacher Pand—Zhu. I was … um … helping my father.”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses!” Teacher Panda waved her hand dismissively.
A few girls giggled softly. Ming slouched to his seat.
“Look at the holes in his shoes,” a girl with red cheeks said to the boy sitting behind her, loud enough for the entire class to hear. “Where did they come from? It’s not like he ever works in the fields!”
“Good observation, Hua!” Teacher Panda mocked. “He must have worn them out walking to the teahouse.”
Everyone broke into laughter.
Head down, Ming dropped his bag onto the desk in front of him and pulled out his English textbook.
Teacher Panda waited for the commotion to die down before addressing the class. “That’s enough singing for today. Let’s review how to greet comrades in English. Hua, why don’t you lead today’s practice?”
The red-cheeked girl jumped up and skipped to the front of the class. Ming wondered why Teacher Panda always rewarded the students who were mean to him. Was it because he wasn’t from a working-class family?
“Hello, Revolutionary Comrade. How do you do?” The red-cheeked girl’s voice rose an octave, making her sound like a leaky balloon.
“Fine. How do you do, Revolutionary Comrade?” the class chorused back.
Ming rifled through his bag. He’d accidentally brought along his bā ba’s notebook, which had the same black plastic cover as his. They had been gifts from Comrade Gu, the director of the Xi’an museum.
Hiding the notebook under his desk, Ming flipped through it and found some folded yellow pages.
Red Cheeks: “Revolutionary Comrade, how are you?”
Students: “Very well. How are you, Revolutionary Comrade?”
As Ming unfolded the pages, he noticed tiny holes along the crease lines. The pages appeared to have come from an old textbook. They were heavily worn, with dark smudges that obscured some of the words. The text on the upper half of one page was lost in brown stains. The ink on the lower half was smeared, but the words remained legible.
… who has studied his reign believes that Emperor Qin initially planned to have his ministers and army accompany him to the afterlife. However, his chief consul, Li Si, convinced him that clay soldiers would last much longer than their human counterparts and were thus superior alternatives.
Red Cheeks: “Wash face, Young Comrade!”
Students: “Have you face wash, Young Comrade?”
In the margin someone had scribbled, “Li Si was a hypocrite. He didn’t want to leave his comfortable lifestyle.” Ming chuckled.
For thirty-six years, Li Si oversaw the construction of eight thousand clay soldiers.
Eight thousand? There were only three hundred people in Red Star, but whenever Ming went to the village store, he always had to wait in a long line. He grinned, imagining eight thousand terra-cotta soldiers tearing apart the shelves, scattering ginger candy left and right as they fought over the eggs and meat.
Red Cheeks: “Homework!”
Students: “Have you homework finished, Young Comrade?”
Brave Qin soldiers were chosen as models. Sculptors were sent to the battlefront to take molds of soldiers’ faces.
Red Cheeks: “Stir-fry!”
Students: “Have you eat stir-fry yet, Revolutionary Comrade?”
To speed up the process, the sculptors created eight basic designs. They used them to mass-produce arms, legs, and torsos. Initially, the parts were solid. However, the top-heavy statues couldn’t be balanced upright, and so they were hollowed out.
Looking around, Ming pictured all of his classmates having the same bodies and different heads. The girls would look even less attractive with bony arms and flat chests.
The early batches of terra-cotta soldiers were baked whole. But when the temperature reached 1,000°C, they exploded. After many experiments, the sculptors learned to bake the soldiers in pieces before assembling them.
Stacks of unassembled terra-cotta soldiers.
Red Cheeks: “Mumble mumble mumble.”
Students: “Mumble.”
“Do you think so, Ming?” A piece of chalk pelted Ming’s forehead, snapping him back to reality.
Ming had no idea what the question was. He chuckled nervously. “Uh … I hope so.”
The red-cheeked girl threw back her head in laughter.
“Lazy city parasite!” Teacher Panda shouted shrilly.
Stir-fry. Wasn’t that the last phrase he had heard? Why should he care? He had no food to stir-fry.
Ming looked at the boy sitting next to him, who was about to whisper something when Teacher Panda called out, “Don’t talk to him! Ming, go stand in the back!”
Ming’s face burned with shame. He stuffed his notebook into his bag, hunched over, and shuffled to the back.
Leaning against the cold wall, Ming thought that he might have a few friends if Teacher Panda didn’t always yell at anyone who spoke to him. Would she dislike him less if he hadn’t challenged her?
Two years ago, the villagers had followed Mao’s command: “Dig tunnels deep, store grain, and prepare for war.” They had dug tunnels in the fields, in the village square, in the school’s playground, and even inside their homes, crafting hiding places and storing food in preparation for the inevitable Soviet attack.
One day in class, Ming had asked Teacher Panda, “Why would the Soviets want to bomb this tiny village?”
“Why do you want to eat three meals a day?” she had asked icily. “Are you questioning our Great Leader’s judgment?”
Since then, she often used Ming as an example of someone who was arrogant and lazy.
Despite Teacher Panda’s steadfast belief in Chairman Mao, the Soviet attack never came. What did come were intriguing artifacts—ancient bronze swords and arrowheads—that popped out of the newly dug tunnels like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, prompting the government to establish an outpost for the Xi’an museum in Red Star to streamline the processing of relics between the village and the city. After three months of working in the fields, Ming’s bā ba had convinced the museum to grant him the outpost’s archaeologist position.
It was a long morning for Ming. He had to stand through all his classes: English, Communist Revolutionary History, Political Studies, and Math. He wished they taught something interesting at school, like ancient history or electronic circuitry. He was so relieved when the Political Officer’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker, “Good afternoon, Revolutionary Comrades! Lunchtime!”
He snatched up his schoolbag and made for the door.
“Ming, turn in your homework!” Teacher Panda yelled after him.
Ming ignored her and raced out, brushing past his classmates.
5
THE TEAHOUSE
THE DELICATE SNOWFLAKES HAD TURNED TO HEAVY cotton balls. They clung to Ming’s face, becoming droplets of water. The wind had picked up, and it cut through his jacket, chilling him to the bone.
Ming’s mind whirled like a rewinding cassette tape. He remembered a conversation his parents had had on a cold, snowy day like this, shortly before his mother’s death.
“If only you had shown more enthusiasm for the Revolution, we might still be in the city!” his mother had said, her knitting nee
dles clicking rapidly.
Bā ba’s bitter voice had dropped a pitch. “Oh, really? Then why did they send my colleagues away too? Mao just hates all intellectuals!”
Mother had hushed him, glancing out the window nervously. “Don’t say that! You know what happens to people who talk like that. They disappear!”
Ming blew on his numb fingers and rubbed them together to restore circulation. He hurried along the only paved road in the village, heading toward home. Bracketed by Li Mountain to the north and the Wei River to the south, Red Star curved from west to east before tapering off in the foothills.
Snow was starting to encrust the roofs of the gray mud houses that lined the road. The houses were spaced evenly apart, and most had an enclosed front yard. Ming stopped outside one without a fence. Despite the heavy cotton flaps hanging over the door, he could smell the mouthwatering scent of roasted peanuts. The characters Chá Guăn, 茶馆, teahouse, were painted on a wooden board that hung above the doorway.
Bā ba and Ming often visited the only teahouse in Red Star. Ming enjoyed listening to the elders’ stories, which grew more outlandish as the hours passed and the piles of empty plates grew taller. His favorite tales were about tomb robbers, secret traps, and fierce battles. The mystical accounts of the first Emperor and his mausoleum had fueled his passion for history.
Pausing now to inhale the aroma, Ming wished he had one yuán, 元, to buy a bag of roasted peanuts or even soybeans. He peered through the window and saw groups of elderly men huddled around four tables covered with chipped teacups and peanut shells. Next to a small wooden stage, a large tin teakettle sat atop a stove that was three times bigger than the one at Ming’s home. A spindly old man, eyes half closed, was playing a song from the revolutionary opera White-Haired Girl on an èr hú, a two-stringed bow instrument. The man standing next to him, who was as thin as a chopstick, was circling his hands in the air in time with the music and singing along.
A typical rural village teahouse of the 1970s.
Secrets of the Terra-Cotta Soldier Page 2