Just Back From ...
Beijing, China
Driving myself up the wall in Beijing –
By Bill Lee
One of our group takes great pains to tell everyone that being able to see the Great Wall from space is a myth – I don’t wish to accept that. In fact my main concern on this day, having achieved a lifetime ambition to be standing here by the Great Wall at Badaling, is to make it to the highest accessible point. My Helen Wong’s tour representative Matthew has been here several times before and warns that what looks like the high point of the ‘difficult’ section is not and that, having reached that point, there is worse to come.
Several of our group opt for the ‘easier’ alternative and there are those who, quite understandably, are happy to just be standing there – not yours truly! No matter how much film footage or how many photographs you’ve seen of this incredible structure nothing prepares you for the sheer ‘impossibleness’ of it. It really does go forever over the most challenging terrain. Parts of the walk are really tough but the energy derived from being there, actually walking on history, is enough to keep our dedicated few going. It’s amusing that there are touts trying to sell souvenirs even in the most difficult parts of the climb when you’re having trouble breathing let alone bargaining! At the highest point we’ve lost the touts and several of our fellow walkers and we can stand, braced against the icy wind and just absorb ...
I’d arrived in Beijing from Shanghai on a comfortable and efficiently operated Air China flight. The cities have a totally different feel – sure they’re both big, Chinese and full of amazing modern architecture that has appeared within the last 20 years, but their souls have nothing in common. When you are told in Beijing that something is nearby, be ready for a long walk or an interminable drive. City blocks are huge – but what’s in amongst them is amazing with a history that makes most of the world sound new.
Because of its size and history it’s one place where an organized tour has distinct advantages, particularly if your time is limited. I’ve already been gob smacked by the Summer Palace, 280 hectares of the most beautiful Imperial architecture elegantly nestled around the Kunming Lake – there’s a Starbucks here! Without a guide this wouldn’t have come alive (not the Starbucks, the Palace!) and I wouldn’t have become a fan of the Empress Dowager Ci Xi whose name even the Chinese find hard to pronounce and who must have been the most wicked old bag but had impeccable taste. En route to Badaling I’d been able to walk a part of the sacred way along which all emperors of the last 3 dynasties had been carried to their final resting place together with enough loot to pay their way into the next life. No one, but no one, was allowed to set foot anywhere near this area unless they’d been selected to carry the dear departed – otherwise they were for the chop. Yuan, Ming and Qing – there you are, I can remember the dynasties. Shows how good our guide Tsu is.
Still in store is the Forbidden City, for me maybe an even bigger dream than the Great Wall and one that proves so breathtaking that it can’t be suitably described in a few words – you just have to go there and experience it’s vast splendour (there’s a Starbucks here too!). For trivia buffs I will learn that the eunuchs testicles were indeed kept on a palace roof so that they could be reunited to give them acceptance into the next life, something I’ve pondered since my friend Johnny Lin told me a lifetime ago after we’d seen 'The Last Emperor'. I’m going to ride around the hutongs (laneways) of old Beijing and learn to cook dumplings in a friendly home. I’m going to lose myself (literally – well I told you these places are big and you need a guide!) in the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park. What a top bloke he must have been! And I’m going to hit the main shopping streets and buy a beautifully tailored jacket for 40 Australian dollars and a pair of leather shoes in a sale for 10!
... but for now here I am, buffeted by the wind, on top of the world – did you know they buried the dead workers in the wall? I guess it was the only option. Hey and I’ve just realized that I’ve lost my amazing thermal Japanese scarf somewhere on the Wall. There’s an old saying that losing something somewhere means you’ll return. I want to believe that.
