Dear Friends and Family,

Because pictures can save you all from thousands of words from me, here are a few more pictures of the Forbidden City.

A solitary soldier guarding Tiananmen Square – there were hundreds but I feared photographing groups of them.

Mao, enshrined at the head of Tiananmen Square, entombed at the foot.

Roof lines and “peach vats”
(bronze vats that actually held water in case of a fire).

Mouth-watering colors, intricate tile work.

Would you anger these lions?

The emperor’s throne in the incongruously named
Palace of Heavenly Purity.

Imperial garden “shelter” – a more accurate label continues to evade me.

Treasure.

More treasure. I’d want this globe, if I could read it!

A cunning clock.

This one can literally move.
The Clock Exhibition Hall was too dark for me
to convey any truly incredible clocks.

Jasmine Blooming Flower Tea.
A single ball of leaves blooms into a flower
that can flavor at least 5 cups of tea. Pretty and refreshing.

The Forbidden City.

--Laura

Dear Family and Friends,

A visit to China’s Forbidden City began my second morning in Beijing. The old city is set on a long north-south axis, making it very hard for a visitor to get lost. Perhaps it was the chill in the wind or my inadequate morning coffee, but the walk from the subway to the Forbidden City felt as if would never end. I emerged from an underground stairway, past a roped-off chokepoint of some eight unsmiling military police officers in long olive green coats and rounded fur hats. Outwardly I smiled at the officers but when my smile was neither acknowledged nor returned, inwardly I quaked at the sight of them. I am not accustomed to visible military control.

I began walking from the southern most point of Tiananmen Square, a square of tremendous proportions, paved in textured granite, edged by buildings with an air of importance about them, including the National Museum of China (a hulking skeleton in the midst of renovation) and the Great Hall of the People. Tiananmen Square, of course famous to us Americans as the site of the 1989 violent protest suppression, is actually a plaza of long-standing political significance. Named for the Gate of Heavenly Peace that dominates its northernmost point, the Square also once held a ceremonial gate of great importance latterly known as the "Gate of China" which used to remain closed except when the Emperor passed - commoner traffic was diverted to side gates. However, since the end of the Chinese empire, the Square has been open and the site of many well-photographed political events such as Mao Zedeng's proclamation that established the People's Republic of China, a host of military might displays on "National Day" and for rallies during the Cultural Revolution. The Square's significance to Chinese culture is such that it has been the site of many protests besides the well-known 1989 one. Today, the Square is not only colossal but it houses an imposing mausoleum with Mao Zedong’s body and a gigantic Obelisk monument to the People's Heroes. As I briskly continued north, my attempts to capture the size, the military control, or the feel of Tiananmen Square with my camera were fruitless.


Walking the breadth of Tiananmen Square, passing the hoards of early morning tourists posing for pictures with a portrait of Mao, walking under the imposing red of the Tiananmen Gate, down a wide, tree-lined cobblestone corridor, reminded me of the movie The American President when the fictional president said that, "The White House is the single greatest home court advantage in the modern world." The red walls around me seemed to stretch higher, imposing their shade. I felt my own insignificance most acutely: I was one amongst a large crowd during one minute of one day, one amongst the billions of ages. I wondered if Beijing might've been classified as the greatest home court advantage of the old world.

Evading aggressive hawkers and tour guides, I purchased an entrance ticket and continued northward under the arch of yet another gate into a courtyard dominated by an artificial “Golden Stream” described to be in the shape of an archer's bow. I paused on one of its five white marble bridges to trace the bow shape with my eyes but froze watching distant two soldiers marching towards me. I backed out of their path, realizing that they were not after me. Their course was invisible but their precision tight as they proceeded to the southern corner of the courtyard. Then another two soldiers advanced with the same precision on the same pre-designated course. Reluctantly I unfroze while again inwardly quaking yet another show of the military; I would observe similar displays throughout the day.

At that very moment, and really for some time to come, I kept pinching myself - yes, figuratively. I could hardly believe that I was inside the Forbidden City. Completed in 1420, the palace complex that I was standing in housed 24 emperors over 491 years. I cannot find two statistics that agree – a BIG surprise considering my Great Wall experience – so I’m going to pass on The Palace Museum’s brochure’s assurances that the complex exceeds 10,763,910 square feet and that the buildings occupy a mere 17% of the space. The complex, on the afore-mentioned north-south axis, can be further split into two sections: the expansive southern Outer Court used for governing, ceremonies, and governing ceremonies and the cozier Inner Court where the emperor and empress, consorts and concubines, lived along with buildings for administrative activities. What I can assure you from personal experience is that despite its layout, the Forbidden City is too big not to get lost in.

I had started in the Outer Court where the building directly ahead and the ones that followed held familiarity bred by coffee table books. I crossed the Gate of Supreme Harmony, mostly obscured by scaffolding, and gasped from the edge of the famous court where majestic ceremonies were held. Unfortunately more scaffolding hid the Hall of Supreme Harmony (they were spiffing it up for the Olympics, I imagine) nonetheless, I could still see carved white marble tiers and a heavy gold-colored tiled roof. I paced the perimeter, exploring visual angles, and briefly detoured into the Pavilion of Spreading Righteousness to check out the “Weapons and Armors of the Qing Dynasty” and the “Qing Dynasty Ritual Music.” Both exhibitions turned out more kitschy than enjoyable so I returned to my north-south axis, past the Hall of Central Harmony, and the Hall of Preserving Harmony. Each bronze description was emblazoned with, “Made Possible by The American Express Company.” Shocking!


Still heading northward, I found that the Gate of Heavenly Purity is connected to the Palace of Heavenly Purity by a marble causeway. The Emperor’s living quarters were in the Palace of Heavenly Purity – a name that I regarded with skepticism.

“Where do these building names come from?” I asked myself. “What do we in the West name our buildings after? Architectural features?” (The Hall of Mirrors?) “Function?” (The Grand Apartment of the King?). Intellectually I admired the Chinese salutes to virtue but I am too cynical for high-minded building names.

Although I did find the Hall of Union aptly named. Apparently, as mentioned, the emperor would reside in the Palace of Heavenly Purity while the empress, representing the earthly Yin in contrast to the emperor’s heavenly Yang, would live in the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. The Hall of Unity stood between the two palaces and was the designated location where the emperor and empress would “mix their Yin and Yang to produce harmony.” The Hall of Unity seemed overly spacious for comfort, which lead me to feel rather sorry for the emperors and empresses – I imagine that the pressure that they must’ve experienced within that room would have been extraordinary, and less than pleasurable.

Beyond the Palace of Earthly Tranquility was the Imperial Garden, which probably contains its share of earthly tranquility but it was too wintery and too crowded for me to derive any feelings of tranquility from my visit. I loved a garden shelter – a better architectural definition now escapes me – with an intricately painted dome, unmarred by recent restoration. And I was especially taken by two cypresses in the garden, not due to their appearance, but because, well, read the picture.


The romantic in me sighed.

It wasn’t long after falling for twisted cypresses that I knelt to peak through another ochre arch at high hill built of the dirt from removed from the Forbidden City’s moat. The gate blocking my view was northernmost and satisfyingly dubbed the “Gate of Divine Prowess.” Later I would climb that dirt hill and realize that the Gate of Divine Prowess is famous in photographs, with seemingly countless gold tiled roofs of the Imperial Palace shifting behind it.

Having reached the northernmost point of the Forbidden City, I turned to search for royal treasure. And the Imperial Treasure Gallery was enjoyable – in great part because I could warm my dripping nose. The exhibition contained predictable jewel-encrusted jars, Buddhas and daggers, humungous jade urns. I was most taken by a golden globe, engraved with names and studded with pearls. I took a million bad pictures but didn’t linger. I had clocks to see.

Ok, so, family, friends. Did you know that I love clocks? Admittedly, this is an ironic facet to my personality considering that I never miss an opportunity to be late. Nevertheless, I admire the science and the precision of clockwork, and I cannot wait to be rich so that I can buy beautiful clocks. No doubt I’ll ignore expensive clocks as ably as I ignore the cheap ones! Anyway, LP described the Imperial Clock Exhibition as “unmissable” and indeed, they were extraordinary.

The building that housed the clocks was dark, only the occasional ray of sunshine sliced dust through cracks in the window shades. The display cases were dusty too. The exhibit began with an explanation: in 1602, Galileo Galilei discovered the key property which inspired the later invention of the pendulum clock by Christiaan Huygens in 1656. Consequently, sometime during the early Qing Dynasty (1644-> ), European-made mechanical clocks began to be imported into China. By the eighteenth century, many clocks produced in both Europe and China were brought to the Qing palace, purchased as gifts. Clocks were exquisite to the point that they were considered precious palace furnishings. Hmm… anyway, then I began to move from an amazing clock to an enormous clock, from an original clock to an incredible clock, from marvelous clock to a meticulously wrought pocket watch, and back to another amazing clock… Each clock seemed more incredible than the last incredible clock: there were clocks with moving figurines, inland jeweled faces, gold tiers, Greek goddesses, clocks clasped in a lady’s hand or shaped like steam ships. The awesomist clocks included early robotics: one clock was pulled atop a gold carriage by a mechanized elephant while another gilt copper clock set a robot dressed in European clothes into writing Chinese characters with a brush. Wonderful, truly, extraordinary.


I began to wind down after the clocks. Outside the sun shone but it was cold – I mean layers + long underwear and wind-chill-in-the-teens kind-of cold. I wandered the Forbidden City for another hour or so of gold tiled roofs, bronze “peach vats,” dragons painted in gold, and unending red walls before I realized that I need to sit before I collapsed. So I turned south, again traversing that north-south axis.

As I departed, parched and chilled, I reflected upon an ache that I had discovered during my visit: I ached for the ability to imagine life in the Forbidden City. My visit felt like walking in a magnificent shell. Signs that stated things like, “Inscription written by Emperor Qianlong” meant nothing to me. I wanted to picture an empress in her quarters, surrounded by exquisite clocks, I longed to attend an imaginary feast hosted by an emperor. (Yes, I was hungry at that point!). And I wondered: how would I have fared if my visit had been to a palace in a Western country?


In fact, please, imagine for a moment, if you will, that you are on your first visit to the Chateau de Versailles, in the French Republic. Versailles, also once the seat of kings, still breath-taking. During your visit you would likely find yourself strolling through state bedrooms, examining the kitchens, gawking at your distortions in 350 mirrors, often pausing to read plaques detailed with history. As you tour the palace, you would know – just know – a myriad of details about Versailles. You wouldn't need a guide to tell you that king and queens ruled France from the very rooms you were standing in; you would already be aware, vaguely, of the monarchs that ruled France: Louises, Philips, Henries, perhaps the Xth or XVIth of their kind. You would know that their queens were descended from the royalist of the European royal: Adelaide of Aquitaine, Anne of Brittany, Catherine de' Medici, Mary Tudor, Maria Antonia of Austria. Perhaps you were lucky enough to study France and its history in detail: alliances and violent divisions, flamboyant affairs, high philosophy, fashion and food that exceeds substance to the point of art. And even if your education about France lacked cohesion, you have no doubt seen, at some point in the past, paintings of French royals: what they ate, the shapes of the glasses that they drank from, what they sat on, how they dressed, who they worshipped, where they slept. Therefore, during your tour of Versailles, your factual mind could enliven your imagination with a myriad of detail, absorbed throughout your entire life, which would allow you to tour the present-day museum known as the Chateau de Versailles and see the past.

(Oh, my! I'm imagining Versailles so vividly that I'd kill for a decent glass of Cabernet Sauvignon!).

Anyway, from France, we Americans inherited a certain number of customs (including fine wine drinking!), societal structures, ethical values, not to mention certain aesthetics and technologies. I imagine that we continue to have much more in common with France than we realize. Indeed, we have a lot in common with France; we have a lot, lot less in common with China.

This realization crashed upon me as I balanced on not perfectly even cobble stones in front of the Forbidden City’s famous Hall of Supreme Harmony – and drew a blank. I couldn't summon the name of a single emperor or empress, I didn't know the Ming Dynasty from the Qing Dynasty. I had no clue who had inhabited the compelling palace that I was then standing in, let alone what they ate, what they sat on, or who they worshipped. Yet if I had been on a visit to the Palace of Versailles, I would’ve ably been able to guess.

It became clear to me that over the span of years, our society plants bits and layers of knowledge within us in a variety of ways. We utilize our knowledge (our Western-cultural knowledge) without being aware how much we know. That day in the Forbidden City taught me how much I know, in a new way, and reminded me, again, how much I do not know.

Recalling pieces of Versailles but avidly soaking in final impressions of the Imperial Palace of China, I walked out of the Forbidden City, once the seat of emperors, still breath-taking, and towards a glass of jasmine flower tea and a very heavy night’s sleep.

--Laura

I couldn’t quit taking pictures in Beijing; here are some of my favorites…

Upon my arrival, I was told that the building was decorated for Spring Festival. “Spring Festival?” I inquired, puzzled. “Are two holidays in China in February?” (No.)

A tiny blurb in LP called the Poly Museum “sublime.” I agreed – even before spotting the array of gorgeous Buddhas on display there.

Stir-fried noodles topped with Peking duck. Sadly, very sadly, I did not enjoy any food beyond mediocre during my week in Beijing. No doubt this was part my fault as I didn’t bring friends to dine with and the Chinese do prefer to serve their best food to groups. Although, counter-intuitively, Chinese cream puffs were scrumptious.

Wafujing Catholic Church, also known as St. Joseph’s, a mere two blocks from the Forbidden City. Originally built in 1665, it was destroyed by earthquake, rebuilt, burned by accident, rebuilt, burned by revolution, rebuilt and miraculously, considering its history, managed to survive the Cultural Revolution. Their Sunday mass schedule announced a 6:15 am mass in Latin and I was so intrigued that I went. The mass was in Chinese.

Kids and their parents rented these special ice bikes to ride between the colored flags on the iced-over lake at Behai Park. Riding bikes on ice, who knew that was possible?

Buddhas receiving lap dances – I’m sure that there was a holy reason for this.

An acrobat – balancing a tower of glasses on her foot. She actually balanced six towers at one point but I was too busy gaping to take a picture at that point! The other acts during the acrobatic show that I attended were equally enjoyable or amazing.

Beijing’s Famous (?) Temple of Heaven at Sunset. Beautiful.

Dear Friends and Family,

As my cab pulled away from Beijing’s Capital Airport, a clock excitedly exclaimed, “190 days remaining!” And when I passed it a week later, no more excitedly, the clock proclaimed, “183 days remaining!”

From the moment that the International Olympic Committee announced that Beijing would host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, the people of China have been preparing to impress the world. On the very day of the announcement, people flooded alleyways and spilled onto the streets smiling, waving flags, and lighting scads of fireworks. No doubt before the fireworks yet to subsided, the Chinese government immediately put itself to work, hatching an expensive plan to spiff-up their capital and set their Olympics in motion. Perhaps over the intervening years, you too have heard about the cost of Beijing’s Olympics: the tearing down of traditional residential districts, billions of dollars, controversial “restorations” of historic buildings, and the creation of city greenbelts. I cannot knowledgeably write on this subject and so I shall not; however, most accounts have assessed Beijing’s Games preparation as excellent.

What I can personally report is that excitement for this event, now 155 days, 3 hours, 15 minutes, and 22.8 seconds away, is PALPABLE. Already Olympic advertisements and licensed product stores are ubiquitous. And 3 out of the 3 Chinese people that were willing to converse with me diligently ensured that I was impressed that the Games were soon to arrive. I duly assured them that I was impressed.

The Games will be 15 times zones from Pacific Standard Time - effectively 9 time zones away from the west coast of the US. If you watch the Games this summer, some of the buildings that I particularly noticed are:

The National Stadium - also known as the Bird's Nest

The Aquatics Center - which I noticed has several nick-names including the Watercube or the Bubble Wrap Building

And the Laoshan Velodrome (which looks cool from a distance but even cooler in the construction pictures)

If you feel the need to surf through more venue pictures, check out: http://en.beijing2008.cn/cptvenues/venues/lsc/index.shtml.

For my part, sometime ago it occurred to me that I am closer to the Olympic Games than I’ve ever been, financially and geographically, and with this realization, I became very exited. Can you imagine? Attending the Olympic Games in a non-US city? Awesome! Despite the rumors that flights and hotels were already booked, I was optimistic that if I waved my card de credit around and was not picky about where I slept, I, too, could squeeze into over-priced seats to cheer archers and football players and swimmers and table tennis players. I went so far as to excite a few friends in Korea about the notion of attending the games, began my research, and realized that family obligations will pull me to the States during the Beijing Olympics. I was forced to swallow my disappointment then as well as during my later exploration of Beijing when I savored my glimpses of the “Bird’s Nest,” marveled at the Aquatics Center, and bought my father an Olympics baseball cap.

The theme of the 2008 Olympics will be “One World One Dream.” These words are everywhere in Beijing - apparently even in Hollywood-sized letters just below a picturesque section of The Great Wall. The Beijing Olympics open on August 8, 2008 (although for you in the States this means August 7th). Stay tuned to your local station.

Love,
Laura

Dear Family and Friends,

I knew better and yet, I still did it. After four days with too many stops in order to twist maps into readable angles and reading hundreds of placards in mostly sub-zero temperatures, I was ready for the warmth and ease of a guided tour. So one evening, I plopped hard onto a chair in front of my hostel’s tourist sales desk and asked for a tour to The Great Wall. The travel guy suggested tour number 5 and quoted a higher-end price. My feet were sore and my nose was numb with cold, so I signed up – no questions asked.

I knew better. But did it anyway.

Just after sunrise a few mornings later, I was gathered up by a well-spoken guide and ushered into a white van warmed by a driver. I broke into treats obtained from the posh supermarket that I had discovered the night before (bread and cheese and a pear and bottled Starbucks) as we wended our way to another hostel in order to pick up another tourist like myself, well, except that my tour companion was male and Japanese. We drove north, first along city streets and then picked up a highway. Almost immediately, my Japanese companion drifted off to sleep – which could’ve been my fault as I had immediately launched into interviewing my guide while simultaneously watching the city flash by. My guide answered my questions, even the personal ones, good-naturedly. Amongst the questions asked were: where had my guide studied English? Is English a hard language to study? Does he have brothers and sisters? What did he think of Korea? What did he think of Koreans? And while I was at it, what did he think of Americans? Did he own a car? How would he and his family celebrate New Year’s? What were other holidays celebrated in China? Where were we going first?

“First we are going to a jade factory – jade is very precious to China. You will enjoy this. And then we will visit the Ming Tombs.” My guide replied.

I knew what his reply really meant – and silently groaned. There was no helping this now; I would not enjoy the jade factory. “Oh. Ok. Question: how many factory stops will we be making today?”

“Four.” My guide hesitated before answering and his tone was reluctant.

“Oh. Huh.” Was the most congenial response that I could summon because my brain had kicked into chastisement mode. “Laura, you know better! You should’ve asked if this is the sort-of tour that visits ‘factories.’ Or you should’ve attempted to go with a different tour to a less touristed location. Now you paid too much for a tour that will drag you from place to place selling junk at outrageous prices to hoards of tourists. Crap, crap, crap.”

This self-chastisement was based on experience. One of the most popular, often government-sanctioned ways of squeezing money from tourists in Asia is to sell tours to famous places, tours that also include multiple stops “factories” in order for tourists to get an authentic look at native people manufacturing native products: palm sugar in Thailand, silk in Vietnam, and jade in China. This in and of itself doesn’t sound too bad but the problem with this practice is that the only thing authentic about this sort-of factory is the intent to sell as many products as possible for sky-high prices. In Thailand, for example, we were taken to one store of “native crafts” where my friend and I counted 7 “Made in China” stickers on items priced three-times what we had seen in the local market (and you can bargain down prices at markets) before we walked out of the store in disgust.

In Beijing, I had already discovered a certain level of tourist-selling savvy in places such as Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden Palace. And I had already seen a multitude of tourist gift shops. I was reminded that we Stateside tourists laugh when we visit the Statue of Liberty and then buy a t-shirt, only to find that our souvenir of America was made in China. And that during my various travels I have run across a multitude of “native” tourist items with “Made in China” labels. If I purchased an item marked “Made in China” in Beijing, for once I would be buying “A Made in China” souvenir from China. However, cheery as that thought was, I was a tourist, on a tour, in a country with some tourist savvy that manufactures the majority of the world’s souvenirs. There could be no possible way that the “factories” that we were about to visit were authentic.

So. With one word - “Four” - I knew that I had made a dumb tourist mistake. Nonetheless I was determined to enjoy what I had. With some interest, I examined the enormous jade carving of eight running horses in the lobby of the first “factory” and I was genuinely delighted to discover I had an eye for “real jade” during the ten minute factory informational tour – although the “factory” was a smidge larger than my studio apartment. When we were let loose in the actually-factory-sized gift shop, our day tour guide sought me to say, “I’ll meet you guys in the lobby in 20 minutes.”

With a smile, I brightly inquired, “Could we make it 10?”

“No.”

My guide smiled sympathetically while yanking away my hope and left me to wander through glass cases of jade bangles, fat jade Buddhas, jade bowls, jade eagles (patriotic American style), jade beads, jade beaded necklaces, pearls, slim jade Buddhas, jade tea pots, and oh! I could go on for pages. But your only mistake was to endeavor to read this blog so I shall spare you that annoyance.

Already we were on the outskirts of the city, where the apartment buildings were squatter and spread further apart and finally began turning into sparse black-tiled roofs scattered among withered brown fields. As our van wended through narrow country lanes towards high hills, our day guide, after a well-deserved break from answering my unending questions, began to talk about the tomb site we were about to visit.

The Ming Dynasty, as I’m sure you’ll recall from your Chinese history classes (yeah, I know. What Chinese history classes?), stretched from 1368 to 1644. No doubt a lot can be said about this dynasty but I will confine myself to commenting that the Ming Emperors, especially one Yongle Emperor, seemed an outstandingly ambitious lot and were responsible for the restoration of China’s Grand Canal, they added a vast deal to the Great Wall, and built Beijing’s often-called Forbidden City.

Because the Mings were driven to great building projects and because they felt it only fair that they journey to the next world with near-equal pomp to the Egyptian Pharaohs (I couldn’t help but suspect), selecting a site for the tombs was an arduous process in which the final decision was based on nebulous factors relating to Feng Shui along with tangible factors related to natural scenery. Our guide explained that just after an emperor began his rule, the process of designing and building his tomb would begin. And when the emperor departed, he was sealed with his precious earthly belongings, as well as the still-living tomb laborers, and sometimes even the still-living empress and concubines.

Each Ming tomb was roughly the same design with a “front yard” for the living and a “back yard” for the dead. (Our guide really used the word “yard!”) To pay our visit, we stepped through a classic Chinese gate, arched, painted ochre red with a glazed tile roof and entered the square front yard. The yard was dominated by a large temple flanked two long “divine kitchens.” Inside the temple were instruments ever-set for musicians, a curtained bed that the emperor’s body would only momentarily rest before being sealed into the tomb, and a large alter with candlesticks and the provisions for Confucian ceremonies. Apparently throughout his life, an emperor would visit his ancestor’s tomb in order to pay respect to the departed. As the Ming Dynasty accumulated years and dead emperors, later emperors would send court members to pay respects to longer-dead emperors. However for common people, the tombs were secret, completely buried, did not exist.

The front yard seemed pretty lively for a tomb while the back yard seemed possessed of the gravity of an imperial gravesite. To enter the back yard, we walked the perimeter of the temple and through a gate of ghosts (so called because whoever walked through that gate was never seen again) and then up a long flight of stairs into another gate held a tall stone pillar engraved with the emperor’s name that directly shadowed a mounded hill under which was the actual tomb. From the archway protecting the stone pillar, we peered at the large grass-covered mounded tomb, sealed by an ochre Chinese screen. Our guide told us that this tomb had never been opened. As we departed, we again passed through the gate of ghosts because if we did not, we would leave our soul with the tomb. I wasn’t willing to take any chances!



The tomb tour was interesting but my interest was caught imagining the fate of the tomb builders. The tomb builders’ lives were, literally, devoted to building the tombs. When selected for the honor of building the emperor’s tomb, a worker would be removed from his life, yes, from his family, and confined to a village near his tomb. For days, months, years, he would freeze or sweat, he would ache for his family, and his end would be closed in, dank, and hungry, breathing while the emperor’s body decays. Would the worker feel honored or tortured?


Our tomb park visit was hurried while our next two visits felt interminable. We stopped at two more shops, I mean “factories,” for more “special shopping” and for lunch. Lunch was numerous small plates of barely appetizing Chinese food, the deliciousness of which could easily be exceeded by an American supermarket Chinese counter and afterwards, we were left for yet another 30 minutes of shopping. I wandered the cavernous shopping area with its myriad of tourist items: cloisonné vases of all sizes, t-shirts, fat Buddhas, thin Buddhas, pearls and … and … (you can imagine) mostly price shopping with the notion that it couldn’t hurt to figure out what other people ended up buying and how much NOT to pay.

At one point, because it was a slow day in the money-making factory, one sales lady brought out a Korean traditional dress, holding it against herself to show her friends how she’d look in it. Silently observing this scene, which was much more interesting than the nearby arrayed pens painted with the Imperial palace, my reaction was, “Oh my gosh. Are they trying to pretend that that dress is Chinese? The nerve!” Bored and now curious, I began searching the clothing section for Korean style-dresses but I only found Chinese. Koreans feel that Japan and China have the bad habit of co-opting precious Korean items for their own – apparently I’ve begun to harbor this concern as well. Perhaps I’ve already been in Korea for too long. Koreans say that it is scientifically proven that kimchi can prevent illness, I wondered if studies had been conducted about whether kimchi causes paranoia.

Finally, we drove higher into the hills and soon the hills became low mountains and surprisingly soon we were at a section of The Great Wall of China. The day was hazy; nonetheless the mountains felt familiar, all those pictures in textbooks and PBS documentaries and coffee table books, I imagined. Our guide trotted out the usual statistics, rendered unboring by the fact that we were approaching the actual wonder. He informed us that the section of the Wall that we were visiting, known as the Badaling, had been rebuilt on top of an older portion of the wall around 1400, during the Ming Dynasty and had not been touched since. Hmm… Anyway, I thought back to what I’ve read about the Wall – probably what you’ve read: that it is a wonder of the ancient world, built on the ridges of the mountains to defend the country against marauders, but more often used as a road to transport goods. Some estimates peg the centuries-long wall building death toll in the range of 2 to 3 million. The urban legend that the Great Wall can be seen from the moon persists… although it has been definitively debunked on many occasions. All this crossed my mind just before my next realization: touring the Great Wall meant that I was going to climb to the top of a mountain, albeit not a very tall mountain, via many, many stone stairs. I wrinkled my nose at this thought; I wasn’t in the mood for an intense hike. But soon our van was parked and our guide pointed us up the path, politely ordering us to return an hour and a half.

An hour and a half.

My Japanese companion and I took turns posing for pictures at the base of the stairs and then we climbed. The stones of the wall were smooth, and the stairs irregular. Some were shallow, a matter of inches, and others were level with my knees, which made took more effort to climb. Two-story guard towers with arched windows that peered over the hills were set at irregular intervals along the way up. Climbing stairs naturally made me puff and the towers were a good excuse to stop to stick my head out the window and absorb the view. The hills below seemed arranged in layered terraces, lined with stubby tinderbox trees. As we worked our way higher, the intervals to catch our breaths became closer and closer together. I kept reminding myself to relax, to enjoy the time, to savor the moment, but I kept looking at the time, measuring how far I wanted to go versus the advancing minutes.

The final guard tower mounted at the summit was two stories high. My Japanese companion and I scrambled up steep stones that were cracked and bowed in the middle and found ourselves on small roof enclosed by ramparts. Leaning against the stones, I lightly shivered as I absorbed the view. Despite our hard work, the day remained stubbornly hazy and the view of the Wall was less than perfect as it snaked through the shriveled brush. Without taking my eyes from the view, I reached into my bag and practically sucked my water bottle down my dry throat. I was in the midst of viewing my second wonder of the ancient world – and I didn’t have the time to properly explore, the view was obscured, and the stones under my feet were too clean to be 600 years old. My primary feeling was disappointment, not wonder.


Yet I was standing in a place where, for centuries, men in armor had cocked arrows to guard their family and friends and their emperor. A place where merchants and monks and laborers with stooped backs paced the spine of their country, exchanging goods for a living. I was standing in a place so historic, so amazing, so famous that it is classified as a world wonder. Billions of people dream of visiting but only a fraction of those would ever get closer to the Wall than examining stones in a coffee table book.

It was then that the wonder struck. I arched my neck, threw my hands to the sky and let a long, “Whoo hoo!!!” echo across the ramparts. The tour was a mistake. But that didn’t matter so much. I, one insignificant Laura Drumm, was in China, puzzingly, distant, mysterious China, with my feet planted on The Great Wall of China.

“Whoo hoo!!!!!!”
--Laura

PS: After returning to the base of the Wall, defiantly twenty minutes late, I asked our guide to again tell me about the Wall. I was most interested in whether the Wall had been restored. Our guide insisted that the portion of the Wall that we had climbed had not been touched since the Ming Dynasty. That was my other realization of the day: that later I would need to fact-check our guide’s explanations. Sure enough, much of what he told us turned out false. For example, I cannot say which Ming Emperor’s tomb we visited, but if we visited Dingling, the 13th Ming Emperor’s tomb, there is an entrance to the underground tomb that we missed. That tomb had been unsealed and thoroughly excavated. And as for the Badaling portion of the Great Wall, it underwent heavy restoration in the mid-1950s. Sometimes you do not get what you pay for.

Post Script II: You can see the Ming Tombs for yourself at: http://www.world-heritage-tour.org/asia/china/ming-qing/eastern-tombs/map.html. Warning! This online tour may cause motion-sickness!