That is a Great Wall

When President Nixon visited China in 1972, he visited the same section of the wall as we did. This is known as the Badaling section of the Great Wall. We were told that his remark, upon seeing it, was, "that is a great wall!".

As inane as that sounds, I have to agree. It's very impressive. We had about an hour and a half busride out of Beijing to get there. The Badaling area takes us up a mountain valley to the Wall. There is an arched portal and gate through the wall at the bottom of the valley, with many buildings on the side we came up, which is the right side in the photograph above. There is an entrance onto the top of the wall there, and you can turn right for the easy climb, or left for the hard climb. Left takes you to the spot the photo was taken from.

Naturally, I chose left. On the top of the wall itself are many vendors, with their wares displayed on cardtables, hand-held, or draped on the crennelations. You can get a plaque that says "I climbed the Great Wall" engraved with your name. You can buy squares of polished stone from the man that is sitting there carving them as you walk by.

When I made it up to the top of the hard hill, in the enclosed watchtower I found some enterprising folks with a digital camera, a photo printer, a laminator and a bunch of preprinted certificates. They would take a photo of you on the wall, print it, have you sign the certificate and laminate the whole thing together. All for a modest fee. (Less than 20 bucks, US). They were doing a land-office business that Sunday.

One portion of the wall I walked went up the mountainside so steeply, I found myself wondering why it didn't simply slide off the mountain. I tookn a quick side trip down some stairs and out to where an portapotty stood so I could get a peek at the foundations, but they offered no clue. I guess that the foundations were cut into the rock of the mountain and the stones for the Wall laid upon them.

The claim is that the Great Wall is visible from outer space, though that seems a bit odd. It's about maybe wide enough for four people at most places, I'd guess that to be about 15 feet. But perhaps it stretches so far, it pops out against the background of the rugged wild country it passes through.

After standing on the wall for a while, I began to wonder about it's effectiveness. It's not all that high, maybe 15 feet, and would fall to scaling ladders pretty fast. And why did you even bother to make a wall on the top of some of these mountains? They were pretty impassable, all on their own. Fortifications on the road, down in the valley made more sense. And perhaps the guard/watch towers on the tops of the peaks.

Maybe it makes more sense as a road connecting the towers. But it seems to me to be overkill. But maybe that was the point. The Wall was first built by the King of Qin (pronounced like the English "chin") after he conquered all of China and became the first Emperor Qin Shi Huang. There were existing defense works, but he tied them all together into a great wall.

I suspect that he did it to a) demonstrate his power and overawe both his subjects and his potential enemies, and b) keep his army busy. I'll have more to say about the King of Qin when I write about the Terracotta Warriors. But the pattern he established is one we can see echoed in the rest of Chinese history, in Western History, and in current events: The ability to conquer a country is not the same as the ability to rule it.

This dichotomy was noted even before the time of Qin Shi Huang, and was a motivator for early Chinse thinkers, such as Confucius and Lao Tse. Evidently, Qin Shi Huang could run an army very well. But Qin Shi Huang thought the intellectuals to be a nuisance (we don't know whether he considered them to be pointy-headed, but the odds are good) and put many of them to death, and burned many books. But he wasn't so good at running the country, or at institutionalizing what he did, and his dynasty was overthrown by a farmer's rebellion a few decades after his death.

As a demonstration of power, the Wall served its purpose. The men and materials moved are very impressive, comparable to the Three Gorges Dam. The section we visited was restored during the Ming Dynasty (who made Beijing their capital). There are further modern additions, such as a gondola for people unable or unwilling to walk to the top. One suspects that there might have been modern restoration work as well. For example, a European structure of that age would show wear on the steps, but I didn't see any. Why is that? Is the rock really that much resistant to wear?

Oh, and one further note. Cell phones can get signal on the Wall. So you can call your buddies in the US (with the right calling plan, that is) from the top of the Great Wall of China. China is probably going to bypass the whole land-line thing and embrace universal cellular service instead. Our tour guides certainly all had them, and used them frequently, regardless of where we were.

After climbing to the top and back down, I decided that I was going to try some interaction with some of the peddlers. I wanted to buy a T-shirt that said "I climbed the Great Wall" in English. There was Chinese on it as well, though I sometimes wondered if the Chinese said "I paid too much for this T-shirt".

You are expected to bargain, but I did it badly. I wanted the vendor to teach me the Chinese words for the colors offered, but she didn't understand me. She was an older woman, gray, well-fed, with wrinkles and bad teeth. Definitely peasant stock. I bargained badly and we agreed on 120 Yuan, which would be maybe $15 US. A reasonable price for a T-shirt in the US.

After buying the shirt, I held it, pointed to me, and said, "English", to the shirt, and said "red". She had demonstrated her knowledge of the English colors already. Then I pointed to her and said "Chung-wen" and pointed again to the shirt, as in question. She got it, smiled and said "hong-sa". I repeated it a few times until my teacher was happy with it. I was happy now, because I had bought with my money not just a T-shirt, but a language lesson, and I'd had a non-commercial interaction with someone.

Then, as I walked away, some other vendor decided I wanted more T-shirts and chased me. "Bu yao(No want)", I said, not looking at her and walking away quickly. Usually, they gave up when I did that, but she was persistent.

"2 for 100," she said.
"Bu yao!" I kept walking.
"3 for 100!"
"Bu yao!"
A pause.
"4 for 100!"

FOUR for 100? What an idiot easy mark I had been. That was maybe 3 dollars a shirt. I didn't know what I would do with them, but I couldn't say no. I bought them, and later sold some of them to students on our trip at what I bought them for. And brought a few home for friends. And I got another lesson in what things cost in China.

It truly is a great wall.