An American in Beijing

The Great Wall

Yes, folks, I finally went. The Great Wall of China, the sight I've been most longing to see over here... I finally made it! And what a trip it was...

Sara usually does the Great Wall with her volunteers every time she gets a new batch in, and she promised to hold off on this group's trip until Kevin got to Beijing, so we could all go together. After a bright and early start, and a quick trip to pick up a few dan bing fried pancake with egg(a kind of and scallions and lots of yummy sauce), I hailed a taxi, and, after an interesting ride in which my taxi driver stopped not once, not twice, but seven different times to ask directions (Sara's apartment is sort of out of the way) finally made it out to the Sixth Ring Road. After some hellos, especially to Sara's Chinese friend Yannan, whose English isn't the best but who was accompanying the rowdy group (of mostly 18-20-year-old boys) to the Great Wall as well, we all piled into the van for the hour-long drive to Shixiaguan, the relatively-newly-opened section of the Great Wall closest to Beijing, known for its strikingly steep ascent and the beautiful foliage that covers the mountainside around it.

It was a mistly day, and Sara, Kevin and I munched our dan bing and chatted about the day's plans as the 9-person-van barreled along the highway, taking us from Sara's apartment in the suburbs of the Sixth Ring Road to the truer countryside, where homes and factories began to mingle with farms and grassy areas. The smell of animals and manure began wafting in through the windows and great green mountains began to loom ever closer in the whitish, misty air.

It was already quite hot when we reached the starting point -- a smallish parking lot filled with buses and cars and eager tourists, with the Great Wall winding its way up and over the moutains on either side. We purchased our tickets (mine, a half-price student ticket, also involved a sort of oral quiz from the lady selling me the ticket, which tested my Chinese more than proved my identity -- her: [suspicious scowl] "What year are you?" me: [confused] "Umm... here I am a second-year student -- second year Chinese student -- but in America I am fourth-year...?" Although I'm still not quite sure what she meant by the question, I must have passed, because without another word my ID was returned to me and a student-priced ticket was forked over shortly thereafter) and wandered over to the entrance.

The climb was simply beautiful -- there's really no other way to describe it. A word to the wise, however: anyone who thought that the Great Wall of China would be a nice stroll through the mountains on a nice raised walkway ought to be disabused of this pleasant notion as soon as possible. The Great Wall was constructed not as a kind of outer retaining wall against nicely settled areas, but to create a system of lookout posts and a means of transferring messages and information across great unsettled expanses of wilderness. According to some historians (although not the one who came to speak to us at the beginning of HBA), the Great Wall also served to create an elevated military roadway through the rugged terrain by speeding the deployment of soldiers from one area to another along the Wall. If that is true, I can only express my deepest sympathy for all those soldiers who needed to make treks like the one we experienced yesterday in full dress and carrying all their gear, because it was hard enough in light summer clothes and a backpack carrying little more than some water and my camera!!

Difficulty aside, however, the climb was amazing -- beautiful -- simply stunning. The section of the Wall we climbed has been restored, but although many of the stones are not original the layout and construction are mostly the same. Pausing (for breath!) at many of the watchtowers and guard platforms staggered up the slope, I loved to duck inside and just imagine all the men who had made this spot their home, who had paused in this same area many hundreds or even thousands of years before I, too, had reached it. Did the sweet smell of the purple flowers growing up along the edge of the Wall inspire them, too? Could they see farther across the green mountains in the days before air pollution and busses of tourists? What about the men who had built the Wall, or the invaders it was meant to keep out. Was this section of the Wall ever breached? Just how many feet had trod upon the stones now so warm beneath my shoes?

I made a few friends on the way up, too -- a guy from Westchester named Mark, who was up in China on a weekend off from the documentary he was shooting in South Korea; a Chinese woman and her daughter, who wanted to take a picture with me (sometimes it seems to me that Chinese people are more interested in seeing and photographing the foreigners they encounter at tourist spots more than the sights themeselves), and a guy from the Philippines who spoke excellent English but still wanted the same thing as the Chinese woman, and managed a very backlit picture of the two of us in front of a fort window by snapping a shot on his camera phone. [Speaking of pictures, as always, all the shots in this entry were taken by my and are "clickable," meaning that you can see them bigger and more in detail by clicking on them -- and there are more pictures of the infinitely gorgeous Wall and its scenery on my actual website here.]

We all reconvened at the top of the wall and took some pictures (including an all-China Care one, which Yannan and I exempted ourselves from), and began the long and sweaty trek back down the wall on wobbly legs, dreaming of showers and passing around bottles of water. After we all got safely down again, we hung out for a while beside a garden at this section of the wall's lower extremity, then enjoyed the hour-long drive back to Sara's apartment and headed out to lunch together -- Sara, Sara's Chinese friend Yannan, Kevin, and the other volunteers. There was some difficulty in finding a restaurant at first, as the area was (for a change) experiencing a power outage, and there was both no air conditioning and no quick way to make food in many of the local restaurants. Thankfully, though, we finally found a place, and dug into our rice and assorted family-style dishes with relish. (Many of the volunteers ordered two bottles of water, though Sara, Yannan, Kevin, and I held it steady at one).

After that, Kev and I bade the volunteers farewell and headed back into the city, and enjoyed an interesting, if slightly sweaty, stroll through the Wudaokou Market, where we stayed until closing time at 7:30. I didn't buy anything except an ice cream, but Kevin found a few things he'd been looking to get before his return to the States. It was fun, but I couldn't help thinking how much more enjoyable the shopping would have been if I didn't feel kind of greasy all over from collected layers of sunscreen, sweat, dust, and grime. "Do you think we smell?" I whispered to Kevin at one point, as we pawed through racks of polo shirts in a smallish stall. "Probably," he muttered back, "but I bet it adds to our authenticity." Authenticity, indeed.

posted by Kelly @ 11:34 下午