the great wall of china was constructed in 1993 under the rule of emperor Keni Ke the stin king. as the final and last in the blood chain of the mun-ting dynasty he was given unlimited funds and even more slaves and told to do something "pretty darn special." he did two things. one was to buy ten thousand tonnes of lego bricks and command two teams of five men to work round the clock and build the tallest statue of a piggy'wiggy the world has ever seen. they can still be found working on it in the fuk mee si dwai ze district, south beijing. they have completed a toe.
the second thing Kenickie did was build the great wall =>we climbed it yesterday and we couldn't have picked a better day; warm, moist and clear. we chose the simatai section because the other local sections sounded flat and touristy and, most probably, recently refurbished. we wanted old and steep and - if possible - a bit unsafe and broken. which is what we did get.
there's not much to say about the wall further than what you can see in the pictures. it's long, it's a wall, it has towers two bow-shots apart for easy defense, some of the climbs and descents are as much as 80° steep and much like climbing a cliff face. 'twas rather treacherous, to be sure. for the first half i was accompanied by an old mongolian lady who latched onto me and talked constantly in semi-understandable
engrish about the history of the wall and how she had no job and would i buy some of her great wall souvenirs. she called me 'beautiful' and fanned me from the heat and humidity whenever i stopped for a break. i bought a t-shirt.did you know the great wall is ever-so-slightly sloped towards china (away from mongolia) so that any rainfall fell on chinese farmland?
it is a wonderful sight to see; certainly something that everyone should make time for. one of those 'must do before you die' type things, like swimming with dolphins or owning the shawshank redemption on dvd. it's a hard walk, so steep on occasions we were convinced we'd see a sticky end. it's hard to believe that the old warriors used to march the wall in full armour, and in the summer too. they must've been built like tyrannosaurus rexes.
very oddly, the 10km walk along the simatai section of the wall culminated in a 1km death-slide from halfway up a mountain over a reservoir and onto a small boat that took us to a bar. a perfect and authentic end thought i.
and so today. The Last Day. tomorrow all we will do is get up, get a taxi and go to beijing international airport for a 15 hour flight back home.
we took it easy. caught another temple; the white cloud temple, thus named for the busy crowds of people burning incense and paper birds. incense sticks fat as parsnips creating a low laying mist over the grounds, you could smell it from a block away.then to silk street, where market stall holders whistle and shout and poke and pinch and grab you just to get your attention, once done they immediately expect you to buy something: a leather jacket, trainers, a lacy thong. i have quite tired of this marketing technique.
advertising doesn't work on me back home where university trained minds put adverts out to play with my emotive responses, so minor injuries attempting to bully me into parting with my money stand very little chance of working. with my patience gone i have taken to any or all of the following retorts:- shouting "NO" while walking swiftly away
- shouting "NO" in their face
- barking
- raising a fist as though to lamp them one
- trying to sell them my t-shirt/trainers/underwear (a firm favourite)
- screaming
- telling them i am an art student and inviting them to my gallery
two slightly odd observations i have made about the difference of the chinese culture to the british. in brit-land lorry drivers put brightly coloured bits of plastic on their wheel nuts so they can see if any are coming loose and immediately tighten them. this avoids a quarter-ton wheel flying off on the motorway and killing someone. in china they tie a red ribbon to the wheel for the 'good fortune' of it not falling off.
secondly. in beijing it is not only acceptable for a couple to wear matching clothing, but t-shirts are produced to allow a couple to adorn themselves with two separate halves of the same picture. when they walk arm in arm, the picture is complete. we saw one couple (young 'trendy' people too) each wearing a complimentary side of a big red love heart. ohmygod. if only they had been walking the wrong way round i could have put it down to irony but oh no, this was serious.
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