The Great Wall: Part 1
I got up in the morning with one goal: climb Changcheng (in Chinese) and buy one of those t-shirts explaining your accomplishments. However, all I knew was that I needed to get on a long distance bus. So after asking around, I took the subway to the long distance bus stop, Dongzhimen. When I walked out of the subway, there was this bus just sitting there, with this lady bus driver telling me to get in. Kind of weird, but it looked like a long distance bus and I asked if it went to the Great Wall and she said yes. I didn't really know which Great Wall. There isn't any one "Great Wall". It's all broken up into pieces. It was intended to keep invaders out but proved largley unsuccessful and was never finished. The Great Wall is just one of the paranoid civil engineering projects of China. In the 1960s the government also built an Underground City, which was a massive bunker system designed to protect the nation from the Soviets during the Cold War. However, these tunnels were built too close to the surface to provide protection from even small conventional bombs. With that noted, on the bus I met a very nice couple named David and Lana (pictured). Lana was Chinese and David was American. They were both from UC Berkley. He did computer programming and she did microbiology. However, David said she did more programming than he did. (If that's not an Asian stereotype, I don't know what is) She spoke fluent English and we talked for quite a while. She said we could take a taxi together since we were both going to the Great Wall. She felt this part was better than Badaling, the most popular section of the Wall. She, like most other Chinese, seemed very impressed that I came to China alone. From talking to different Chinese, I have the understanding that Chinese families do not grant freedom as easily as their U.S. counterparts. We talked a lot about Chinese customs and government corruption. Pretty much every politician drives a brand new black Audi. A few days ago I saw a statistics report. In Beijing: 1.3 million vehicles, 8 million bicycles. She said the government corruption is very bad, and getting worse. Also she explained the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. I asked her why and she said because the market hasn’t completely opened up to true capitalism. I asked about the vendors on the side of the street, which it seems sometimes are just selling food out of the front door of their homes. She said that not all of them have licenses, although some do. When the tax collector comes, they just make themselves hard to find. She asked why I liked China, which is probably the most common question I get from Chinese people. I told her the usual about working here, but also that I liked Chinese people. I said they seemed more low key and less in your face. She agreed, saying that her husband David had dated many Asians before her. An hour and a half later, they dropped us off at the last stop where a cab was waiting for us. Lana said that the cab driver works for the same company as the bus, so he knew when we would arrive. Instead of him driving, he had his wife drive. I guess he had something else to do. By the way, no one uses seatbelts in China. I got into a cab late one night, and decided to put on my seatbelt. He stopped me and told me no! It was hilarious. Back with the lady, we took the cab about 15 minutes to the site. However, halfway up, we were running on fumes, and she pulled over to get gas. The gas station had no electricity! She decided to take her chances (and ours) which was kind of disconcerting. I guess she figured if we made it up the mountain, then we could just roll down. We paid her 30 yuan total ($3.50). She said she would wait until we got back down from the Wall and she would take us back. That was really sad that work was that hard to come by. She was very nice though and gave us a lot of tips. We went up to the top on a ski lift and once there we started off left. I guess we walked for about an hour and a half, all up hill. We eventually covered about half of the wall, but I could have done it much faster had I been alone. They kept wanting to take breaks. David was especially out of shape. He was huffing and puffing just going up those stairs. (Granted it was blazing hot) The wall was pretty spectacular though. I could see how hard it would have been to pass through. This one had been greatly restored, but we could see parts in the distance that had vegetation growing all over them (off limits to tourists). I was very happy with the fact that there were very few other people at this site. It seemed more authentic, almost like you could feel the history. We eventually headed back, which didn’t take long. The way down was on a toboggan. It was so much fun, just like in Gatlinburg, TN. You push forward on the lever to go faster and pull to brake. You know I had those elbows locked the entire time! They kept telling me to slow down. I was flying down the mountain. After I got back, I decided not to go running—my body was just too tired. My shirt was plastered to my body from sweating for 8 hours, and I smelled so horrible, even I couldn’t stand myself. Instead I went to find pizza and just relaxed. I went to the little place on my street. I told them I wanted it to-go. They put my 3 pieces in a small Chinese food to-go box. They were all crumpled together like a balled up piece of paper. It was bizarre. That would never fly in the U.S. It tasted just the same though, and I finished it off with a quarter of a watermelon I bought on the street.