Terra Cotta Farmer story

So, in my last post I was talking about the farmer who found the Terra Cotta warriors after they had been buried for thousands of years. After he told the government about finding a head of a warrior, archeologists moved in and found a lot more. The Chiense government then seized the farmer’s land and moved him somewhere else. Xiao Fei asked us how much money the man got as compensation for finding this incredible piece of history (which now generates millions of dollars a day in revenue for China).

 

Ready?

 

Two dollars and fifty cents.

 

$2.50!!!

 

Even Xiao Fei agreed that the farmer got ripped off. Xiao Fei then told us a really funny story about the farmer. Obviously, the farmer did not speak English. A few years ago, Bill Clinton was coming to visit the TC Warriors and Clinton said he wanted to meet the man who had discovered them. So, the TC museum folks got this farmer and thought it would be a nice surprise to Clinton if they taught him some English so he could speak with Clinton. They tried to just get him to memorize a few phrases that they figured would naturally happen in a short conversation. They envisioned it would go like this –

 

Farmer – “Hello, how are you?”

Clinton – (any response – probably “fine”)

Farmer – “Me too.”

 

What could go wrong?

 

Well, the farmer got nervous, so instead of saying “Hello, how are you?” he spoke with a poor accent and Clinton heard him say, “Hello, who are you?”

 

Clinton’s response… “I’m Hillary’s husband.”

 

To which the farmer, as instructed, replied, “Me too.”

 

That’s some funny stuff right there!

 

As we leave Terra Cotta land, here is a picture of 500 or so warriors about to bend over and moon me.