China, Beijing - The Great Wall

Our second day in Beijing started bright and early with a tour arranged through our hostel. Of course we wanted to see the Great Wall, but didn’t know which part to go to. I’ve spoken to a few folks who’ve ventured to China and was told not to go to Badaling because it’s uber touristy and has heaps of people. So with that in mind, we chose the go to the Mutianyu section of the Wall.

The tour we took was 180Y, which is about $25, and lasted for 10 hours. Pretty good value if you ask me. Again, we were picked up at the hostel and drove around the city gathering other passengers. Our first stop was a jade factory.

The history of jade is as long as the Chinese civilization, but holy cow, they really love this stone! Not just because of its beauty, jade is intertwined with the Chinese culture in an interesting way. Confucius said there are 11 virtues in jade, stating:

The wise have likened jade to virtue. For them, its polish and brilliancy represent the whole of purity; its perfect compactness and extreme hardness represents the sureness of intelligence: its angles, which do no cut, although they seem sharp, represents justice; the pure and prolonged sound, which gives forth when one strikes it, represents music. Its color represents loyalty; its interior flaws, always showing themselves through the transparency, call to mind sincerity; its iridescent brightness represents heaven; its admirable substance, born of mountain and of water, represents the earth. Used alone without ornamentation it represents chastity. The price of the entire world attaches to it represents the truth.

The Chinese have a saying, ‘Gold has value; jade is invaluable.’

On the tour of this jade factory we saw the process of designing, cutting and polishing the stone. There was a demonstration on how to recognize jade from imitations; if you put it against light and see a cloudy, translucent quality, it’s jade. Because jade is stronger than glass, it can cut it, and finally, it has a distinctive pores feel.

I knew jade came in more colors than the standard green, but I had no idea it came in EVERY SINGLE color! Even though the factory was definitely a tourist trap, it was cool to see all the different sculptures.

These paintings were made of jade dust.

I bought this jade piece as a present, though not from the factory, and dig that it’s a dragon. I think it made it ‘extra’ Chinese.

Whenever I travel, I like to get some sort of artwork or knickknack, and when I saw this piece, I thought about buying it for 3 days straight. I got it in Yangshuo, which I haven’t writing about yet, but since it’s made of a multicolored jade, I thought it would be fitting to put a picture of it here.

As you can see it’s a water buffalo with a little Chinese baby on it’s back. It’s a pretty massive piece of artwork, and seriously weighs at least 5 pounds! While I was in Yangshuo, I stumbled across a master and her student, and watched them sculpt a Buddha piece for a few days, each day returning to eye this statue in particular. I don’t know if you can see all the detail, but each calique in on the buffalo is visible. Very cool stuff.

After the jade factory we scrambled back into the van and made our way to the Ming Tombs. Other than being a nice walk, this was a silly side trip that was more or less a waste of time. We walked through the most boring crypt in the world, only to find out all the bodies and artefacts had been removed long ago.

And finally, we were on our way to the Great Wall of China!

I have a lesson on the Great Wall, and learned a good deal about it this way. For obvious reasons, it’s one of the greatest wonders of the world, and like a gigantic dragon, it winds up and down across deserts, grasslands, mountains and plateaus, stretching approximately 5,500 miles, which is longer than the entire length of the United States. It was mostly built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) as a defensive fortification between 3 warring states. It began as independent walls for different states when it was first built, and became the “Great” wall in the Qin Dynasty when the emperor decided to join the sections together to fend off the Huns from the north. Ever since then, it’s been a monument of the Chinese nation throughout history.

The necessary manpower to build this monster is beyond comprehension. The builders were soldiers, prisoners and locals, and when they died in the process of construction, their bodies where just buried inside the Wall. It’s estimated that over a million bodies are in the Wall, which is how the nickname, the Wall of Death, developed. My lesson plan also says that many of the guards were born, grew up and died on the Wall, living their entire life and raising a family there.

Portions of the wall near Beijing have been preserved and renovated for tourism, but there are many locations where the Wall is in disrepair.

For those of you who are fans of ‘Lord of the Rings’ you’ll remember in ‘The Return of the King’ when Pippin (or Merri, who can tell them apart?) climbs the tower to light the Beacon of Minas Tirith in order to alert Gondor of their inevitable war. It’s an impressive scene that spans many thousands of miles and traverses every imaginable landscape. Well, that was entirely inspired by the Great Wall. If one section of the Wall was breached, a fire was lit to alert the others of the threat, hence the countless watchtowers positioned along the Wall.

Enough history! So the area of the wall we went to had a chair lift, and although I felt altogether completely American for scaling the mountain this way, it was easily justified by the rubbish weather. It was rainy and overcast, which made everything slippery and formidable. Once we got to the top of the chair lift, we had the option of two routes. One way was a gradual incline, but a lot longer, and the other was uber steep and shorter. I decided to go the steep route, and as it turned out, only one other person from our group came with me. So I began my climb with my new-found friend, Javier.

Javier was in China to give a lecture on thoracic and pulmonary anaesthesiology, apparently he was a big-wig in the medical profession. But professional aspirations aside, I enjoyed his company and our hike along this great wonder.

And when they say the steps are steep, they mean it! Some of the steps were as tall as my hips, but luckily there was a handrail for the more treacherous sections. I wish I had gotten a picture of me climbing to put the stairs into perspective, but it was raining so hard, I didn’t dare take out my camera unless I had some sort of protection from the water.

We spent about 3 hours on the Wall, and when we had satisfied our Great Wall needs, we started our descent. At the base of the lift were heaps of vendors selling all kinds of made-in-china crap, but some of it caught my eye, like this ridiculous hat that could only be truly appreciated by my most awesome cousin Adam, who is currently serving an LDS mission in Greece!

You discover quickly that if you purchase items at face value, you’re a damn fool. The name of the game is haggling, and it takes a bit of practice, but I got the hang of it at the end. It can be overwhelming shopping in these kinds of areas though. The vendors are not above pulling your arm or yelling, ‘hey lady’ to get your attention. Because I had a long ways to go before I got back to Korea, I bought trinkets sparingly until I reached Shanghai, but that didn’t stop me from getting a magnet or 3.

The drive back to the city was an hour or so, so I activated my super-human power and slept while we drove. And I was happily surprised that my new hat acted as a perfect pillow! It never slid down the window or bunched up by my shoulders, and it kept my face nice and warm despite being smushed against the cold glass window. I’ve mentioned before that my sleep cycle is notoriously disruptive, and without the aid of a sleeping pill, it is next to impossible for me to sleep on command. Unless I’m travelling. Planes, trains and automobiles do something to my precious circadian rhythm, and I’m often asleep before wheels go up on any airplane. It’s pretty ironic that this ability escapes me in my ordinary life, but I’ll take it when I can get it! Plus, it’s an invaluable tool when doing these monster international trips, especially when the driver is a deranged Chinese man with a pressing death wish!

I did manage to wake long enough to take a gander at the Olympic Stadium, the Bird’s Nest, when we drove past it. Incidentally, I was the only member of our group not frightened by our driving experience. Our group was an impressive mixture of nationalities. Of course we 3 represented the Land of the Free, but there were 4 Mexicans (including Javier) and 2 Germans. Hearing the different accents in English reminded me of London.

We had one last stop before we were dropped off at a nearby KFC, and that was to a silk factory. By this time everyone else was tired and ready to call it a day, but I was well rested and kinda bummed that the ‘tour’ part was so fast and the buying part was so long. I didn’t learn too much about silk or the processing of it, other than it’s uber strong and water resistant. And apparently the Chinese market is saturated with fake silk.

When we got back to our hostel we met up with 2 friends from Seoul and smoked some hookah. Ordinarily I HATE tobacco, like, HATE HATE HATE tobacco! My distain for cigarettes is so great that I find I get irritable just being around them. But hookah is totally different. I never thought I’d say this, but it’s oddly refreshing, which is so counter intuitive. The first time I ever tried a hookah was in Berlin, and I’ve been hooked ever since. So yeah, a great end to the Great Wall!