After a day of waiting, our Xi'an group finally arrived at the Terracotta Warrior Museum. The warriors were built during the Qin Dynasty. There were different soldiers such as cavalries, infantries and a lot more different classes of soldiers. Their faces were once a real soldier's face. They were colored but after they had interacted with the air for five minutes, the colors would faint away. Archeologists are trying to find a solution to preserve the Terra Cotta Warrior's color after they have been above soil.
Next, Jerry, Raymond, Michael and I reached to the other wing of the museum in which the colored warriors were still all below soil. Suddenly, some local Chinese people walked toward us and talked to us in Chinese. “Do you know where the Terracotta warriors are? Did people move them away and keep in another place? Did they…” Then, our small group of people took turns answering the questions in Mandarin. Even though they asked us a lot of questions but we still answered them patiently and clearly. We explained the parts they didn't understand. The questioners originally thought that this part of the museum was useless and a place only full of soil.
After minutes of chatting, we finally finished our conversation. They were really nice because they said sorry to us for taking up so much time. However, we said that there was no need to apologize and it was our responsibility to answer the questions. In the end, we changed their thinking of the museum and left a good memory that this wing of the museum was one of the most valuable treasures in the world. At last, they thanked us, complimented us and we also left a great image of our school to them.
This was the longest moment we had interacted with local Chinese during China Alive. We had a great time practicing our Mandarin and our small group were really proud of ourselves after they had complimented us. We made them happy and they left a smile back.
