China 3: The Great Wall

It is totally unfair to leave you hanging, stuck in the new hotel whose towels were so fuzzy that the gentlemen who showered but didn’t shave came to dinner with lint all over their faces. The problem, of course, is transcribing my handwritten journal, which contains things like what to do with my writing, weird dreams and other flotsam that surface when you just hand write journals in morning, or middle of the night pages.  I’m not great at self-editing, but it is time to get over that hurdle…

The Great Wall of China is a protective barrier from the warring tribes to the
 North. Beijing is in a valley, so the Wall traverses the mountains.

… And take you to the Great Wall.  Before we got there, there was a stop at a Jade Market… not a market at all but a full display with demonstrations and lectures on the importance of Jade in China, complete with a 15% discount in the massive showroom.  Anything from the tiniest pendant to the most massive sculpture could be purchased there.  This was not a dusty backstreet market, but a glossy, high-end jewelry complex, with the prices to match.  Even if I could have fit my normal western hands through one of those pretty bangles, I balked at the prices.  Evidence that I don’t buy my own jewelry I guess.

They did have one thing that I couldn’t get enough of. Cold bottled water, and bathrooms.  Between the heat, the jet lag, the walking and the stress of unfamiliarity, I was badly dehydrated.  A few minutes in the air-conditioned showroom, about a liter of water and freshening up, and I was revived.  We ate one of many lazy Susan generic Chinese (meaning I don’t know what the dishes were, not that they were simple or interchangeable!) lunches, and then back to the bus for the hour trip to The Great Wall.

Our group had melded by then, so the chatter on the bus was amiable and Kevin entertained us with tales of the Wall.  He explained to us that Mao had declared that anyone who climbed it was a hero, and there were artisans just waiting to inscribe our names on bamboo for us to take home and proudly display. (for, yes, a price! Does this sound like capitalism to you?) He went on to explain that he’d had a 92-year-old woman from Texas who’d achieved the honor, and then quietly added that even on step up the wall counted.  No need to scale the whole thing.

The Great Wall spans some 4,000 plus miles, with parts of it dating back to the 5^th century BC.  While the guidebooks and some of our comrades who’d seen the Wall before insist there were cable cars to the top, we didn’t see them. There are several access points to the Wall, and each has its share of coffee shops, tourist facilities and yes, bamboo engravers.

tourist village

I don’t know which access point we visited. I only know that the only way up was stairs.

Those who know me know I’ve babied bad knees for about ten years now, and though I CAN do everything, some things hurt. So seeing twenty stories of stairs was a little daunting.  

just a few...neverending... stairs...

 I encouraged my husband to go on up (silly for him not to!) and at my snail’s pace, climbed about five of the towers.  It was nothing short of spectacular. The wind that came with the heat, blowing I guess from the desert, cleared the pollution from the sky and the views were wide and magnificent.  Going up was the challenge I expected. A young man, about 19 I guess, in color coordinated Nike clothing, and a Malaysian woman in full Muslim dress kept me company as I rested between towers. They were afraid I was there alone.  At that point, I guess I was, but it was sort of like being alone at Disneyworld.  Everyone seemed happy.

Next time I'll find the cable car...

 Going down?  There has been no effort to preserve these ancient steps from erosion, and those early builders didn’t give much thought to ergonomics… or equal stairs.

 One stair would be the height of a single brick. The next, six or seven.  I pushed myself, because of that 92 year old, and the bi…er… elegant lady who climbed the wall in six inch heels… and I was fine, until that eight brick drop with the divot in the lower stair turned my ankle.  I was still fine, but I was finished. I focused on taking pictures, enjoying the love locks… 

locking love...there are stories of lovers who are actually part of the wall.

yes, here too, and waiting for my husband.  He made it nearly to the top, and took the pictures to prove it.

Later, he found cold soda in the mini bar to ice my ankle, which wasn’t all that bad.  No ice to be found in the hotel.

lots of locks

It actually was stormy looking...

The meeting started the next morning, which meant the “Accompanying persons tours” began. I only went to a couple of them, because we had other obligations and by then, I was tired of being a professional tourist.  I’ll recap those in the next entry, and then we can move on.

Magnificent

China 2

Where Emperors take solace

-->

At 9 am we gather in the lobby. There are 24 of us and we are led by a man who seems to be about 21, but whose black hair is peppered with gray.  From the things he told us, and he tried to be open with all our queries, my guess he was mid thirties, married, but no children yet.  Though he does own his house, just outside the fourth Ring Road, and considers himself very lucky.  His English is good… the only nod to it not being his first language is that he occasionally leaves out his prepositions… “Wait me” instead of “Wait for me.”

The buses are city buses, old and high off the ground. The stairs challenge my knees and I find myself pulling up with my arms, and using the door frames to slow gravity to get out. The air is desert air and I am always thirsty; my lips are always chapped. I gave up wearing mascara after the first day...it was washing into my eyes with sweat, but otherwise not coming off at all.

We forget that we are old and less fit than we should be. We expect to race through these tourist sites and find secrets from tour guides because, well, that is what we do. Instead, we search for bits of shade and places to sit for a while. 

“Kevin” Yang is our tour guide. All the Chinese people we have met, who have any direct encounters with us, have been given an “English” name.  We ask, and try to use their Chinese name, and even joke and ask them to give us Chinese names.  They seem to be always looking over their shoulders, to see who hears.  I never convinced any of them to give me a Chinese name, but one did take my English name and apply Chinese accents to it.  I got the feeling it was to make me let it go.

Kevin with Orange Flag

Kevin is a young man whose university degree is in English and it is easy to see that he wants more from life than to lead tourists around. The reality is that this is a good job and he and his wife are saving money to have a baby. He tries to explain government policies to us, things like the one child policy and the requirement that children care for aging parents, but I can see that he is saying what he is supposed to say. He would be a good father to many children, and it seems clear that one is all he will have.  It isn’t illegal to have more than one child, but parents must pay fines as well as fees for education and medical care and citizenship, to make that child a “person.” In China today, for him, that is about 42,000 US dollars.

Tiananmen Square

He takes us first to Tiananmen Square, where Mao is entombed in a crystal casket and museum like building. People still line up, nearly 40 years after his death, in an hour plus long queue. We pass. Kevin talks about the other government buildings on the square and points out the Russian influence. He tells us that by the time of Mao’s death, the Russians were no longer the friends of the Chinese and wouldn’t tell them the secrets to preserving Mao’s body the way the Russians have preserved Lenin and Stalin. Suddenly headlines from my youth are waking up and I need to remind myself of things like the Red scare, the Domino effect and the Vietnam War.  I was a student of political science in the seventies, and merging the facts and conclusions I reached as a student with reality gives me a bit of whiplash.  I try to conform the monsters of Communism to this orderly, seemingly open environment, the elegant and luxurious hotel, and once again I get the sense that we are only seeing what we are “supposed” to see. 

Gate of Heavenly Peace

The Chinese eventually got the preservations information from the Vietnamese, (who apparently got it from the Russians.) I remember the fall of Saigon. Yet there we stand in post-cultural revolution china.

We parade across Tiananmen Square, ducklings following Kevin’s orange flag.  He points out the monuments and buildings and makes brief reference to "the photo" of the student and the tank in one corner of the largest public square in the world.  He adds that despite the photo, there were really tanks and students all over the square, a massive uprising, and a massive response.  My reading has shown that there are no hard numbers even now of the people killed in the massacre in 1989. I wonder if Kevin was here then. He seems ready to share his China with us ...he doesn't seem oppressed...except that there he is, leading a bunch of western tourists over what should have been the most sacred places in his city.

Forbidden City, Outer City.  Politics here

At the end of Tiananmen Square is the Gate of Heavenly Peace, where a portrait of Mao Zedong (Tse-Tung when I first learned it in high school) is hung over the entrance to the Forbidden City.   Entry into the Forbidden City is no longer limited to Emperors and their entourage, but can now be gained for 60 RMBs, or Chinese Yuan: equal to about 10 USD.  While beautiful, and carefully restored for color and site, the City shows the wear of thousands of tourists tramping through and touching, as well as the extremes of weather.  Paint is constantly restored to keep colors true, but I didn’t have the sense that jade inlays and gold leaf were authentic. 

On the way to the Dragons. Dragon = Emperor

Conquerors took gold rubbings on their swords here

Ours was a quick trip through, climbing what felt like hundreds of  stairs for views (just wait til we get to the Great Wall!) of the halls of both the outer city and the inner city.  It was very hot-- in the 90s all day.  No water breaks from Kevin, and when we finally reached the inner city, he sent us to our first bathroom of the day… but they were the standard,  less than fragrant, Asian toilets.  I am not particularly a girly girl, but I have my limits.  Being raised in the USA leaves me with prejudices, and my body was willing to wait.  Thank goodness. Not only did it smell bad and require squatting, there was a long line.

Outer City

Detail

some of the Concubines Quarters

Climbing to Inner City

The things about the inner Forbidden City that stayed with me were silly things probably: the Emperor never allowed any “intact” men inside the inner city, where he, his empress and his up to twenty thousand concubines lived--that way he knew that all children born were, in fact, his.   

Being the son of God, it was his duty to have sex with as many women as possible.

Inner City had different meaning then. The color yellow was only used by the emperor.

Beautiful rock garden.  Sweaty tourist palm destruction

But he was also fearful. No one was allowed to know which of the 9,999 rooms of the inner city where he slept.  Assassination was a problem for dynastic Emperors.

If a door could forbid entry, this would do it.

Despite the heat, and my admitted weariness with Chinese historical trivia at this point, The Forbidden City is beautiful and I’m glad we went there.  Unlike India, where faith is worn in all aspects of life, we saw no one worshipping. The Forbidden City, once 
 the holiest of holy places, is now a place for tour guides with orange flags, and throngs of people, some attracted merely by the name.  Don’t we all want to see that which we are forbidden to see?

China, May 2014, part 1

Twenty-five years ago today, an uprising referred to simply as Tiananmen Square resulted in the deaths of unknown numbers of protestors.  Despite economic encouragement that looks very much like capitalism to me, China is still not a place where dreams flourish.  It took me 9 days to figure out what it was that bothered me so much about China, where the streets are clean and even the terrible traffic has an order about it unknown in most of my world.  But what seems to be missing is unfettered joy. And children.

Day 1

The flowers were gorgeous. They were planted the night we arrived.

Yes, it is 4:25 am and we are up...talk about having days and nights mixed up! It is a 13 hour time difference from Houston and without full internet access, that can be annoying. I can't access Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, which I expected, but I also can't get the New York Times and Gmail intermittently.

No calories in Chinese food, right?

A French Chef adds pastries to the buffet

 

 

 

Security in formation, early morning at the hotel front plaza

It is a beautiful hotel. Our room is a lovely suite with the decor similar to the Copacabana in Rio or even the Savoy in London. Dali sculptures and acres and acres of gardens surround the place.

Dali Sculpture at the hotel entrance

Plaque

But. Cab drivers don't speak English and the hotel is 3 hours from the airport...way out in the suburbs. There isn't even a gift shop...the one buffet restaurant, a more formal traditional Chinese restaurant and a small bar with limited offerings being it. No spa, a small gym with about 10 pieces of equipment (listed in the hotel directory as "entertainment") and guards all around.

There are two channels on TV that are in English, and they are, as you might imagine, somewhat slanted in their coverage. Ever sensitive to the IP issues, my husband says they all feel like knock off shows. In fact, there are a lot of second looks being given as we notice things like that...on every table in the restaurant there is a little container of "tooth ticks"...  As a tour guide is to remind us later in the week, the Chinese are very good at copying things.

 

Tooth Ticks

Today, at 9 am, we board a bus to the great wall, the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square...this is the quick overview for the people who have to do business the rest of the week. "Accompanying persons" get to see a bit more...we'll see how that goes.

I finished one novel on the plane. I loaded about six on kindle before I left because I was concerned that I might not have access to the system in China, plus it costs more for international downloads.  The FBI encouraged the business people not to bring their computers as it is very common for the hard drives to be stolen or all the information that can be gleaned from any file in the computer, or to which the computer has access to, to suddenly wind up in the hands of the Chinese competitors.  So that’s no laptop, no access to social media and no drinking the water.  We'll see how many are unread when I get home. I brought a notebook to write with and have about 5 pages from when I first got up. I can't believe there aren't more Chinese writers ...but my sense is most people don't even get to see their own Historic Sights. I asked one woman (kept myself from saying girl though I've seen no one who I would guess is 20...) what her favorite place to see was. She told me she likes to play tennis, but there is no time.

Then there are the gas masks in the closet,

only two gas masks ...

three pages of detailed instructions in case of fire (which include filling the bathtub and using the ice bucket to sprinkle water on the flames...). I assure you we will not stay and follow those instructions in case of fire.