The
drive to the Great Wall was quite interesting.
First it was just the super congested city with lots of seemingly near
misses - - Oh, how they live their lives on the edge! Drivers so close to each other, motor bikes
so close to buses and cars, and fearless pedestrians wading through the
chaos. [Side note: the trick, as a pedestrian, it seems, besides
being fearless, is to be steady. Walk at
a steady pace, because the moving vehicles are gaging their trajectories in
trying to avoid hitting you by predicting your movements. If you make any quick or unpredictable
movements, though one may have the urge to dart across an intersection, it’s
certain to throw someone off and get you hit.
Slow and steady stays alive.] Gas
powered motorbikes aren’t allowed in Beijing because of the smog they create,
so it’s the bikes against the cars, electric bikes, trucks, and buses. Also, we learned from Lily, there have been
various attempts at curbing the traffic, like restricting cars with licenses
ending with certain numbers on the streets on given days. Turns out, the rich circumvent this by buying
more than one car in order to have multiple license plates! Anyway, nail-biting traffic with pedestrians
taking their lives in their hands at every turn.
At
one point while we were stuck for a moment, waiting for a clot of cars to
clear, we watched a little family drama play out: A family was stuck in the median with a taxi
that was obviously broken down, its hood up.
Three women, one holding a baby, and a young boy, all looked a bit
forlorn. Perhaps he was bored or just
frustrated, but the young boy (maybe eight years old or so) whipped out his
business and started peeing in the middle of the median. He really had to go, because as he let it
flow, he had time enough to slowly turn and seem to get as close as he could to
peeing on the feet of the women folk in his company. He was rewarded with a few swats on the
behind for his mischievousness. Yes, he
just peed right there in the median in the middle of morning traffic. [This was a good follow-up to the baby on the
dragon boat whose mother HAD put him and his doughy dimpled bottom right there
directly on the seat!]
As
with all of the cities we’ve been in so far, on the outskirts, there were lots
of HUGE apartment complexes with banks and banks of GINORMOUS apartment
high-rise buildings. These complexes
gave way to more lush areas dotted with lower buildings, and occasional plots
of cultivated land, until we came to a vacation area near to the Wall: a
beautiful area with lots of camping spots, small hotels, streams for fishing,
orchards of fruit and nut trees. Lily
assured us that the only reason it was so quiet was because we were there in
the middle of the week, otherwise it would have been packed with people. Well, if I were Chinese, I’d go there to get
out of the city, too. One interesting,
curious, and beautiful thing along the way were large tracts of land planted
with a singular species of trees - - just willows all along a waterway, rows
and rows of aspen-looking trees, others that looked like honey locusts, and
then actual orchards. It’s like the
outer reaches of Beijing serves as the nursery for the entire city. Kinda weird but totally beautiful.
Lunch
was another opportunity to sit down at a table already set with food that we
didn’t have to choose, in a lovely little roadside restaurant en route to the
Wall. Unanimously, we agreed this to be
our best meal to date. Our favorite
dish? Kung pao chicken with plum sauce and cardamom. We all thought we’d had kung pao chicken at
home, but this version was on another plane.
Lily told us everything in our lunch was probably picked from gardens
just that morning, and whether this was entirely true or not, it certainly
tasted super fresh.
Our
excitement was not unfounded. We got out
of the van in the parking lot and headed up a walkway lined with vendors,
predictably, and into an official entrance.
(Having stopped to look at a little plastic Buddha in a stall, and
having so excited the proprietor with my interest, I assured him that I would
stop back by on my way out. I so hoped
that I hadn’t made a promise I couldn’t keep.)
We were at the base of the mountain, and the wall is at the top. Thankfully we didn’t have to climb to the top
of the mountain to get to the wall.
Instead, there is a chair lift, like at a ski resort, which, at least at
this section of the wall, takes you to the top of the mountain. So, there we were, scooped up and feet
dangling down over the valley, taking in the ultimate in a picturesque view, as
we made our way, high in the sky, slowly to the top of the mountain. We could look down and see the toboggan slide
below us as we ascended. That would be
for later. For now, it was all about the
wall.
We gathered, the five of us, with
Lily as we got off the lift, and hammered out a game plan. She pointed the way to accessing the wall - -
down a path that was strewn with apricots fallen from a tree. She told us that this was a good place for us
to climb, and that we could go up and come back, and to be back at 4:30, so
that we could ride the toboggan down the side of the mountain. Then, we were left to our own devices and set
off. We
made our way over the apricots and down the cobbled little access path, and
then, at long last, we were standing on The Great Wall of China!!!!! What!!??
Yes, we were totally excited! And
yes, it was totally amazing! We were all beside ourselves, as none of us had ever imagined that we would some day stand on the Great Wall of China. It was just something to look at in books and marvel at on the History Channel. But there we were, with no authorship, narration, or dramatic background music, walking along the Wall. We knew that it was big and wide (and to our understanding, we were not at one of the wider sections, but we were definitely struck by its steepness. Given its rise and fall, there were as many, if not more, steps than flat walkway. There were a lot of steps, which were of an irregular height at times, and very steep; one needed to lean in order to maintain balance. We may have been giddy, but this was no place to frolic. After we got over the steep steps, there was the realization that the Great Wall looked just like it had in the pictures we’d seen; big, impressive and imposing, and quite, well, “defensive.” And oh my, the views were dramatic at every stride and turn. At every stopping point (as there was a fair amount of huffing and puffing involved) we oohed and ahhhed and marveled at the size, the scope, the labor, the history, the view, and again, the reality of us being there.
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| Yep, that's a canon aimed at approaching Mongols. |
We made our way up and around a bend or two, past a couple of hardy vendors with water and a few wares to sell, and an occasional tourist or two. Overall, our little stretch of wall was uninhabited, which was magical. “Uninhabited” and “China” are not two words we combine very often these days. But we could look out over that vast expanse of countryside and up and down the wall and imagine and feel like we were looking into the past.
Pictures were taken and phone calls were made home (no matter that it was two in the morning in the U.S.) because how many chances does one get to say, “I’m talking to you while standing on the Great Wall of China?”
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| DeAnn on the phone with her husband, Mike. |
And then finally, we made our way to the “top” of that section of the wall, were there was a large fortification platform and room. And it was here, at what seemed to be our Great Wall destination, which we fell to weeping in disbelief at our fortune of being able to see this day, the day we walked on the Great Wall of China. As we three stood there, aghast, Nancy, a fourth teacher in our party, made her way through the arched doorway, and she was shedding tears, too. We just had to crack up at this! We were all such emotional messes; it was great! We checked out the impressive view, looking back over the parts of the wall we could see that we’d traversed, and then out over the deep valley below. It was spectacular, and we were snapping pictures galore and then just spending some time taking it all in.
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| This looks onto an overgrown section that is not open to tourists. |
Soon after this, a group of college-aged young men began to enter the fortification room (for lack of a better description or knowledge of what the different parts of a fortification wall are called). We had seen them along the way, as they had been running up the steps, and then stopping to laugh and talk (and catch their breath) and then run again. They had made it up, victorious, and like us, were much excited and satisfied. Unlike us, though, after catching their breath and gaining their bearings, they broke into song. Oh. My. Gosh. The rest of us in the fortification room fell into stunned and joyful silence, as it truly was a once-in-a-lifetime moment. They had such great voices; it was obvious that they were a choir. And as we tourists, from the US and Europe, all stood around together and listened to these young men experience their own memory of singing together on the Great Wall, we reveled in our gift of being able to bear witness, as well as share it. We could not have planned a more moving experience in our visit to the Great Wall, even if we’d tried.
As we headed back down the Wall, we passed a photo-shoot of a lovely woman in a dramatic red dress, as well as another model in a traditional white wedding dress. No telling what one will find on the Wall. The walk back down was easier in some ways (as going down often is) but trickier, in that falling up is less potentially damaging than falling down.
We finally arrived, not all together, but all safely, at the designated meeting spot in order to take the toboggan down the mountain. DeAnn had the “thrilling” experience of riding down the mountain with the workers who maintain the slide both in front and in back of her, with the one behind her bumping her occasionally (like in bumper cars), nudging her to go faster. Lisa and Linda ended up riding the sky lift down, rather than taking the toboggan, because the workers at the slide decided that there weren’t enough people going down to bother with keeping it open, so, on a whim, they decided to close early and shut us out, along with an irate Taiwanese family. This unfortunate situation did not conclude without incident, as we’d been very much anticipating the novelty of tobogganing down the mountain. The Taiwanese family’s dad and an unnamed American among us pitched a fit (maybe even had a most regretful tantrum). It could have become an international incident…truly, with the Taiwanese dad shouting and the American teacher tantruming, but the toboggan workers were not budging, and we all had to get over it and ride the lift down…disgusted but trying to recover perspective, as the ride was just as lovely as it had been going up.
Quote of the day, or maybe of our stay so far in China, talking to our tour guide, Lily, after relaying to her the “toboggan incident” and how the workers wouldn’t abide by their posted closing time, and how they even seemed to be cavalier about the inconsistency: “If you wait for Chinese to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ you’ll be offended a lot.” And this is a pushy place; a place where people freely cut in line, squeeze past breathing room into elevators, and speak in perceived raised and sharp voices more than might be expected. Such incongruities to the religion of politeness, graciousness and saving face. Such an amazing place…
An unexpected treat (given that Lily was not much on communication) after our visit to the Wall was going to a cloisonné factory. We had heard of cloisonné, but did not know of the tedium involved in its production. We got to see how a piece of work is created, first by attaching copper wire to the base (whether it’s a vase, bracelet or picture) and then how the wire outlines of whatever the design is, are filled in with enamel dust, then fired. When fired, the glaze flattens out, leaving the wire edges still raised. The spaces between the wires must be filled in again, then fired, and then refilled, up to eight times! Um, tedious! Super time consuming. Once the areas between the wires have been almost completely filled in and the enamel is close to level with the wire, pieces are polished and buffed to perfection…ta-da! It was all quite impressive and lovely. And…of course there was a showroom for purchasing wares. Best of all in the showroom, was the prominently displayed picture of Mao over the cashier’s counter. His presence continues to be quite pervasive.
The cloisonné factory, hands down our favorite factory tour to date, was followed by a Peeking (Beijing) duck dinner – giant beers, a questionable beef appetizer, etc… Then we were shown how to dip delicious tender duck with delectable crispy skin into a yummy duck sauce and then wrap the delight into a little buckwheat crepe-tortia-ish wrapper with maybe leeks or chives. Yumm-eeeee. Wow, what a way to end another amazing day in China.
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