A Little Aussie Fan's 7 Days Xi'an Beijing Chinese Culture Trip

Peter's email was simple. He said he wanted to bring his 12-year-old daughter Lily to China. The key was that she was especially fond of Chinese history. She had read about the Forbidden City and the Terracotta Warriors in her textbooks and was particularly eager to see them. He asked if I could design an itinerary that would allow his daughter to "touch" that history. The request was earnest and it put a little pressure on me.

I thought about it. Since Lily was interested in major historical events and grand architecture, Xi'an and Beijing were the obvious choices. Xi'an is the root where she could see the origin. Beijing is the later glory where she could see the continuation. A two-city journey would be a perfect fit for a seven-day trip. The core objective was a single thing: to make those names from her books feel real in a way she could understand and connect with.

But, how can we explain rich history in a way that captures a child's interest?

Fresh Approach to Cultural Storytelling

The centerpiece of the Xi'an trip had to be the Terracotta Warriors. I knew most tourists were content to be impressed by the sheer scale. But for Lily, we had to dig deeper. I contacted my friend Zhao. He was a veteran conservator who had been working at the Terracotta Warriors Museum for over two decades. I asked him, "If there was a young foreign girl who was very curious about how these figures were made and why they were arranged this way, could you show her something a little different?" Old Zhao was straightforward. "Sure," he said. "The main pits are too noisy and crowded. It would be tiring for a kid. It's better to take her to the small exhibition room next to the conservation area. We have some recently restored individual figures and a few fragmented samples there. She can see the details up close and it's quiet.”

Sure enough, that day Zhao didn't lead them into the bustling crowd. He first showed Lily a small fragment from a warrior's foot. Pointing to the broken surface, he said, "Look inside the clay. The colors are different and the layers are very clear. This is proof that the ancient artisans built the figures up layer by layer, shaping them before they were air-dried."

He then took out a large, high-resolution photo and pointed to a faint, almost invisible indentation behind a warrior's ear. He asked Lily, "Guess what this is?" Lily shook her head. Zhao smiled. "It's the artisan's fingerprint. Two thousand years ago, after he finished molding the ear, he instinctively pressed his thumb there and left his mark. This figure was made with his own hands." Lily immediately leaned in to look at the tiny mark. Her expression completely changed.

Zhao also showed her the different sole patterns on the shoes of warriors of different ranks. He explained that the higher the rank, the more intricate the shoe pattern. These tiny clues made the abstract concept of the Qin dynasty's social hierarchy tangible. Peter later told me that Lily spent that whole evening at the hotel sketching different shoe sole designs.

In Beijing, the Forbidden City was the main event. But how do you avoid the crowds and still get to the essence while making it relatable for a child? I found an experienced guide. Sister Zhang was a senior guide at the Forbidden City who specialized in tours for children. I emphasized, "This child likes to figure out how things work. She's all about the details. So don't just talk about the emperors and empresses." Sister Zhang understood immediately. "Perfect," she said. "We'll go backward. We'll enter through the Divine Gate and head to the Treasure Gallery. It's less crowded and there are lots of treasures that kids love. I'll focus on the 'secrets' behind the objects."

Sister Zhang took them to the Clock and Watch Exhibition Hall. Most kids find this room boring but Lily was captivated. Instead of talking about how valuable the clocks were, Sister Zhang took out a replica of a pocket watch movement that she had commissioned herself. It was a replica that could be taken apart. She handed it to Lily. "Feel these gears," she said. "Each one bites into the next. How did people hundreds of years ago design such a complex system? They had to precisely calculate the number of teeth on each gear. One extra or one less and the entire clock wouldn't work. It's the same as the mortise and tenon joints in these great halls. It's all the wisdom of precise calculation.”

In the Hall of Supreme Harmony square, Sister Zhang pointed to the massive nanmu columns. "When these timbers were brought here hundreds of years ago," she said, "they were transported by water and in the winter by pouring water on the roads to create ice slides. Can you imagine that scene? It's just like how the clay for the Terracotta Warriors was transported. They were both incredible feats of ancient engineering." With that one sentence, Lily was able to connect the details she saw in Xi'an with Beijing.

On the day they saw the Great Wall, we didn't go to the popular Badaling section. We went to Mutianyu, which is less crowded. The guide, a lively young man named Chen, knew that Lily liked details. He made a point of showing her the strange symbols carved into the bricks of the wall. "Look," he said. "This brick has the character for 'king' and this one has a strange circle. This wasn't random graffiti. It was a mark left by the artisan who fired the brick or the official who was in charge of it. If there was a problem, they could find the brick and know who was responsible. It was like ancient barcodes and quality control signatures." Lily listened intently, spending the entire walk searching for the marks on the bricks.

About a month after the trip, Peter sent me an email with a few attached photos. One was of a small, crooked terracotta warrior that Lily had made in a local pottery class. Next to the clay figure's foot, Lily had carefully carved two Chinese characters with a toothpick: "谢谢" (xièxie), "thank you."

In the email, Peter said Lily was now taking Chinese classes every week and was bugging him to find more books about ancient Chinese technology and craftsmanship. He wrote that his daughter's exact words after she came home were: "Dad, the books said the Terracotta Warriors were big and amazing. But it wasn't until I touched that fragment and saw the fingerprint that I felt a real, living person was there making it. It feels completely different."

I saved that email. The photo of the small clay figure, with its simple composition, has remained at the front of my digital folder. Every time I see it, it reminds me of the value of this job. It's about helping a child in a specific moment truly and tangibly "touch" a fragment of history. That's enough.