Beijing

By way of context, the Wall was originally a series of earthen ramparts built by various city-states. When China was unified 200 years BC, they were reinforced with impressive battlements and extended to a distance of several thousand miles. Its main purpose was defense, allowing rapid communication and troop movement through difficult terrain. In the end, the wall was insufficient to prevent the invasion of the Mongols in the 13th century or the Manchu in the 17th century. Much of the wall has crumbled to ruins, but several sections have been restored. It is a World Heritage site.

We visited two sections of the Great wall. The first we affectionately dubbed the "wild" wall or the "free range" wall because it was last restored about 700 years ago. The entrance to this section looked a bit like the entrance in the movie Jurassic Park. After a short ride beyond the gate, we began climbing on foot and soon reached the Wall. We were able to walk up and down the wall more or less unsupervised and with no crowds or really any other people in site. Places where you can get to the wall in this state include Mutianyu, Huanghua Cheng and Simatai.

We visited two sections of the Great wall. The first we affectionately dubbed the "wild" wall or the "free range" wall because it was last restored about 700 years ago. The entrance to this section looked a bit like the entrance in the movie Jurassic Park. After a short ride beyond the gate, we began climbing on foot and soon reached the Wall. We were able to walk up and down the wall more or less unsupervised and with no crowds or really any other people in site. Places where you can get to the wall in this state include Mutianyu, Huanghua Cheng and Simatai.

We visited two sections of the Great wall. The first we affectionately dubbed the "wild" wall or the "free range" wall because it was last restored about 700 years ago. The entrance to this section looked a bit like the entrance in the movie Jurassic Park. After a short ride beyond the gate, we began climbing on foot and soon reached the Wall. We were able to walk up and down the wall more or less unsupervised and with no crowds or really any other people in site. Places where you can get to the wall in this state include Mutianyu, Huanghua Cheng and Simatai.

We next visited the most popular section of the Wall at Badaling. This has been recently restored and gave me a good idea of what the Wall must have been like when newly constructed. You can climb the Wall up and back, take a cable car to the top and walk down, or ride both ways. Whichever you choose you'll enjoy this section of the Wall with thousands of tourists and have a chance to buy souvenirs from hundreds of local shops in a kind of Great Wall Street Fair and Ming Dynasty Memorial Bizarre. Entertaining, briefly, and a chance to practice our emerging but primitive Mandarin.

While in Beijing we visited the Forbidden City. This palace is at the heart of Beijing. It was built beginning in 1420 and was home to the dynastic imperial court and current emperor for the next 500 years. It was opened to the public in 1949.

We walked into the Forbidden city at the Meridian Gate; crossed one of the marble bridges over the Golden Water; passed through the Gate of Supreme Harmony; had a quick look at the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Middle Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony; and if that weren't enough, left the Forbidden City through the Gate of Heavenly Purity. Exotic names for a beautiful and exotic place.

I was surprised by a number of things here. Firstly, everything is in very good repair. The process of maintenance and restoration goes on continuously but unobtrusively. It felt to me like we had walked into a newly built palace, rather than into the ruins of a 500 year old palace. Secondly, the place is huge. The distance from one end of the Forbidden City to the other might be 500 - 1,000 meters. This was home to a single emperor (and his staff, of course) but the wealth invested here must have been unfathomable to the Chinese who built it or may have looked enviously at the palace from outside.

Additionally, it was interesting to see the incorporation of religious and especially cultural symbolism in the design of the palace. So many things incorporated the theme of "good luck" or good fortune. It was lucky to have an odd number of figures on the corners of your roof to protect against fire, for example. It was good luck to have the Golden Water flowing from West to East, for example. You find lucky odd numbers everywhere ... 3, 5, 7 and especially 9. It is not an accident that there are 9,999 rooms in the palace. It is not an accident that each door was constructed with 81 (9x9) brass reinforcing studs.

But the one number most tourists will consider lucky is 4, as in 4 Star (western style) restrooms. I laughed myself silly when I saw the 4 Star restroom sign from the Beijing Tourism Administration! This undoubtedly has something to do with Beijing hosting the Olympics in 2008 ... never too soon to get ready for that. In Chengdu, I desperately wished for a 4 Star facility ... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Many people remember with incredible fidelity what they were doing, thinking, eating or even smelling when events of great significance happened. I have vivid memories surrounding events like the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy Assassination, the first Apollo Moon Landing, the Challenger Explosion and so on.

And I remember vividly the student riots in Tian'an Men Square in 1989 and TV images of a student facing down Chinese tanks. That image came to be associated in my thinking with the notion of never giving up, never yielding when you are right. So for me, no visit to Beijing would be complete without visiting Tian'an Men Square. After visiting the Square, I am struck by how different our world is today.

It was a beautiful, clear (pollution free), sunny day. It was also a holiday (National Day ... similar to the US Independence day I suppose) and the Square was crowded with Chinese families enjoying their leisure. There were food stalls, souvenir peddlers, tourists taking pictures and a carnival atmosphere prevailed. And there were also reminders of the past; the giant picture of Mao at one end of the Square; and soldiers standing guard. The Square was filled with huge flower gardens celebrating the upcoming Olympics to be held in Beijing in 2008; and slogans like "One World - One Dream" ostensibly espousing Olympic ideals but with undertones regarding the "Taiwan Issue." The square was also filled with (mostly Chinese) tourists snapping photos. And there were kids in all shapes and sizes.

It was a beautiful, clear (pollution free), sunny day. It was also a holiday (National Day ... similar to the US Independence day I suppose) and the Square was crowded with Chinese families enjoying their leisure. There were food stalls, souvenir peddlers, tourists taking pictures and a carnival atmosphere prevailed. And there were also reminders of the past; the giant picture of Mao at one end of the Square; and soldiers standing guard. The Square was filled with huge flower gardens celebrating the upcoming Olympics to be held in Beijing in 2008; and slogans like "One World - One Dream" ostensibly espousing Olympic ideals but with undertones regarding the "Taiwan Issue." The square was also filled with (mostly Chinese) tourists snapping photos. And there were kids in all shapes and sizes.

It was a beautiful, clear (pollution free), sunny day. It was also a holiday (National Day ... similar to the US Independence day I suppose) and the Square was crowded with Chinese families enjoying their leisure. There were food stalls, souvenir peddlers, tourists taking pictures and a carnival atmosphere prevailed. And there were also reminders of the past; the giant picture of Mao at one end of the Square; and soldiers standing guard. The Square was filled with huge flower gardens celebrating the upcoming Olympics to be held in Beijing in 2008; and slogans like "One World - One Dream" ostensibly espousing Olympic ideals but with undertones regarding the "Taiwan Issue." The square was also filled with (mostly Chinese) tourists snapping photos. And there were kids in all shapes and sizes.

At some point during our stay in Beijing we visited a silk carpet factory. If you take the silk thread from the factory we visited in Shanghai, say, and tie it properly, you get hand-made carpets of exceptional beauty, versatility and durability. The young women who are the carpet makers are "programmed" by cards illustrating the design of the carpet and which threads to tie where. You could do this with machines, of course, but they don't use machines here.

Each knot is tied by hand, and each thread cut with a cleaver-like knife by hand. The result is gorgeous You can think of the resolution of a digital photograph in terms of pixels per inch. The more pixels per inch, the greater the fidelity of the photo. In the same way, you can think about the quality of a carpet being related to the number of knots per inch. A master of this art can create a carpet with 1,000 knots per inch ... like the one.

Speaking of World Heritage sites, the Summer Palace in Beijing is another one. To be candid, by this time I was on "palace overload." I am pretty sure I under appreciated this one. I am sure it was fantastic. I am sure there are treasures here to be seen no where else in the world. And I am sure I appreciated it mostly as a pleasant place to spend a quiet afternoon.

Speaking of World Heritage sites, the Summer Palace in Beijing is another one. To be candid, by this time I was on "palace overload." I am pretty sure I under appreciated this one. I am sure it was fantastic. I am sure there are treasures here to be seen no where else in the world. And I am sure I appreciated it mostly as a pleasant place to spend a quiet afternoon.