by Kait Fowlie
When I kick the bucket, I’d be happy with my kids saying a few humble words in my honour, getting really drunk together, and then continuing on with their lives. Other than that, I haven’t done much planning vis a vis my (hopefully) timely demise. Ying Zheng, the first emperor of China, made big plans. Something along the lines of, oh you know, arming himself with 8,000 life sized terracotta warriors complete with horses and weapons and threatening facial expressions to accompany him into the afterlife to lend a helping hand where needed.

Now, if I had single handedly built an empire that rivaled that of Rome in its heyday, I might throw in a keg or something. But this guy mapped out exceptional tactics to ensure an afterlife of heroic proportions. The life sized bad-boys he had made for his tomb have been excavated from three pits near the Emperors tomb complex in Northern China and brought all the way to the ROM to begin their Canadian tour. They’re newly excavated and have never even left China before. In other words, they are still glowing with the residual magic of afterlife! If you think I’m lying, go to the ROM and gaze into the eyes of the “Kneeling Archer.” If you don’t get instant shivers and have 5 consecutive nightmares, you have no soul.

So basically, this is how the whole thing happened. Back in the 70’s, some farmers in northern China accidentally dug up some buried fragments of the terracotta statues and other artifacts at the site of the elaborate underground tomb complex of China’s first emperor. Since then, archaeologists have found about 2000 full sized terra cotta warriors and horses. They are still finding more and more everyday as the dig continues. They have been meticulously restored, as you can tell from the picture depicting a bunch of fragmented figures lying in the ground in shambles looking like a metaphor for my life on a Sunday morning.

The exhibit is much more than terrifying statues that cause tears to well up in my eyes at the thought of hanging out with them in the ROM alone. There are nearly 250 artifacts from the Qin Dynasty, dating mostly to the first millennium BC. It’s pretty cool to check out aristocratic jewellery, crazy ritual vessels, and what appeared to be cute little action figures of cavalry soldiers on horses – ancient artifact steeze. The site which originally housed all the relics has been referred to as the 8th wonder of the world, and what ancient Greek sculpture is to us, these figures are to China.

For y’all out there who like to get down with Eastern philosophy, a series of 14 lectures will accompany the exhibit from June 26 till January 2 2011, and will discuss issues like art and the afterlife, love and war, China’s green revolution, writing fiction about China as a foreigner, and MUCH more. You don’t want to miss this haunting and historically momentous exhibition.