 |
| Hiking to the Wild Wall |
Hope you are all enjoying a beautiful Easter weekend! (It is already Easter Sunday here since we are 12 hours ahead.)
For our next adventure, Anne had booked a driver she found on Trip Advisor for our trip to the Great Wall. John was a great choice, a funny guy who kept us laughing all the way to and from the wall. John collects American slang so we taught him some new phrases. His favorite was “go for it.” Every time John would start to pass another vehicle (which happened a lot), Frank and John would start shouting together, “Go for it Johnny!!” The one time he held back was when we had a police car in front of us. Johnny said that it was not a smart idea to pass “Big Brother.”
John talked about his life and cultural differences. He lives with his wife and daughter and also his parents who he supports in the traditional Chinese way. He originally wanted to marry a professional (a nurse or a teacher), but his parents introduced him to a traditional, uneducated girl. He married her and now he says his parents were right. John’s marriage was not arranged, but you get the feeling that parents want to find the right girl, not just for the son, but also a girl who will take good care of them in their old age!
We asked how the Chinese people feel about all the recent changes, and John said they love it. “All Chinese people love the current government because it takes good care of them.” Another interesting subject was gun control. The government outlawed all guns in 1978. Johnny said.
“So if you knew your neighbor had a gun, you would report it to the local police station.” Sounds like the old Communist “rat out your neighbor” tradition is still alive and well. We do have to say that the Chinese people are very polite (even when cramming on to the busy jam-packed subway), no arguing, (that we see anyway) and everything is clean and orderly.
We chose to visit The Great Wall at Mutianyu, a less visited section than the more famous Badaling. We walked the gauntlet of souvenir sellers, bought our tickets at 40 yuan/person, and took a 9-minute cable car ride up to the Wall (no waiting!). Amazingly, we practically had the wall to ourselves even on a bright sunny (but cold and windy) day. We saw maybe a dozen people during our first hours on the wall.
The Great Wall is simply awesome -- one of those unbelievable engineering feats. The wall itself is impressive enough, but to build it in this unforgiving terrain is insane. We were thinking these forbidding mountains should have been enough of a barrier to deter invaders even without a wall.
Hiking the wall was a very demanding feat. The wall undulates sometimes very steeply, up and down, and the peds and legs need to be strong for this kind of serious hiking. (Anne used her “soft knees” that she learned from tai chi and that really helped when climbing all those steps.) We did about 3 miles of hiking the wall in 2 different directions, and we were totally beat!!
We first hiked to the left where the wall snaked up into a mountain top. The 12-foot wide wall has crenellated sides like the edges of a huge castle; it was 20 to 30 feet high, varying often in height depending on the terrain. With watchtowers spaced along the route and well-positioned drainage ruts at strategic places, this is one clever design. In spite of the sunshine, it was cold up there with a howling wind. All we kept thinking is that you sure wouldn’t want to pull wintertime duty on The Wall back in the days when the wall was patrolled by the Emperor’s soldiers.
We also walked in the other direction along the wall down to the next entrance point where we had a choice for our descent: open ski lift, toboggan, or walking trail. We elected to hike down, and it was a surprisingly difficult, but serene walk; our legs were very “wobbly“ from the steep incline of the trail. We bought the obligatory “I Walked The Great Wall” t-shirts after some major haggling with a couple of persistent hucksters, and then “go for it” Johnny drove us back into town.
We consider ourselves real Beijingers now, and on Friday we tested our subway skills with a convoluted trip out to the Summer Palace. The subway is very modern and easy to use with lots of English signage and announcements. Speaking of English signage some of the translations are hysterical. We had a good laugh when we read the rules for riding the cable car at The Great Wall; one rule had an admonition that stated “not to bring any exploding, erooing, or stinking materials on to the cable car“. Here in China, I guess they don’t want no stinking stuff on their cable cars! And don’t even think about that “erooing” stuff!
The Summer Palace is a gorgeous spot outside the city where the royals would come to escape the summer heat in The Forbidden City. A totally different atmosphere: The Forbidden City is all about power and impressing visitors while this place is a pure pleasure palace. The Summer Palace is huge including the very steep Longevity Hill and the sparkling Kunming Lake. We hiked up and over the hill (quite a climb) and down to the lake on the other side. The hill is covered with colorful pavilions and the most beautiful pagodas. Down at the lake, we marveled at the Marble Boat (more like a marble pier shaped like a boat) that the crazy Empress Cixi built using funds that were supposed to be used to modernize the Navy.
We are constantly amazed that we are such an oddity here. When we see little school children, they jump up and down and yell, “Hallo! Hallo!” A couple asked to have our picture taken with them -- one pic with us and the husband and one with us and the wife. We start to feel like an attraction ourselves (Frank is thinking we need to start charging!!)
One brazen Chinese man walked up to us (no more than 2-feet away), pulled out his camera, and started taking pictures of us. Not a word from him was spoken; so, we just hammed it up, waving and saying “Ni hao.” He cracked up and kept snapping away.
After all that exercise, we needed a good meal so we returned to a restaurant recommended by our hotel. No one speaks English, but the menu had English descriptions and great color photos of all the items. We had Tsingtao beer, a plate of cold, spicy funghi (I know most of you will find this hard to believe, but mushroom-hating Frank loves the Chinese variety of black mushies), excellent fried rice, spicy noodles, and veal chops. What a feast!
Frank continues to learn Mandarin from the little Chinese girls at the front desk. He loves to learn the language, and they love to teach him a few new words each day.
Yesterday we took a tour with the China Culture Center, an organization for expats that also welcomes tourists. We returned to the wall, but this time we visited the Wild Wall (which is what they call the unrestored sections) at Zhuangdaokou. Our sweet Chinese guide, Sunny, gave us a great day visiting a rural Chinese village, climbing the Wild Wall, and wolfing down a Chinese food feast at the end.
The village was built within what was once a military garrison for soldiers manning the Great Wall. The visit to the Chinese home felt uncomfortable as we all traipsed thru Mr. and Mrs. Gao’s modest home, but of course, they are being paid to let us in. The Gaos are retired (seems like the government confiscated their farmland), and they live on a government stipend of 200 yuan a month (less than $30 for a month!). The most unusual sight was their bed which was a hard brick and cement box that is heated from within (like an oven). With only a bamboo mat to lie on, this gives a whole new meaning to firm!
Our walk on the Wild Wall was spectacular, as well as demanding. The climb was steep and the steps were broad. We loved the isolation here with nothing but the old wall surrounded by forest and chestnut tree groves. This area is known for having the best chestnuts in China; however, Uncle Li (a local guide who joined Sunny for this hike) told us that last year’s harvest was poor because of the ongoing drought.
Beijing is a cultural anomaly, a thriving international city of multiple people-types in the middle of a developing country . This day trip into rural China gave us a look at the real people of China. Our Lonely Planet guidebook tells us that the Chinese government issued a statement “it is good to be rich and it is okay if some become rich before others.” Quite a radical statement from the home of the People’s Revolution! It is hard to see how the peasants won’t be left behind as China continues her warp-speed development into a modern and much more capitalistic society. Maybe the real question is, “What will happen when some people never get rich?” The dichotomy of the haves and have nots has to become an issue soon.
Enough for now -- it is always good to share our thoughts with you.
Zai jian (goodbye in Mandarin),
Frank and Anne
No comments:
Post a Comment