Back from long trip to Asia
Sorry for the huge gap in recent posts. Have just returned from a 24-day trip to Asia, including nine days in China. Travel schedules and the vagaries of Net connections made posting more difficult than I expected.
Will be catching up soon, with notes from the Asian brand scene, especially China.
Trip note: get your own Terra Cotta Warrior
I can report that at the Hyatt hotel in Xi’an you can purchase your own full-size (6-ft.) replica of a Terra Cotta Warrior for about $1500 US, including shipping and insurance. Around 220 BC the emperor Qin Shi Huang was buried near Xi’an with more than 8,000 clay warriors to safeguard his soul in his afterlife. He must have been a big icon guy.
Unfortunately, icons make poor soldiers. Emperor Qin’s enemies ransacked his necropolis five years after his death. With one or two exceptions, the fascinating “whole” warriors we see today have been painfully reconstructed from a tomb of shards. They’re a marvel of the curator’s art as much as the craftsmanship that originally fashioned them.
