July 6, 2013
Geeps! It’s been
tough getting time to chronicle my trip.
We are very busy from morning until late in the evening. That’s a good thing. Who wants to travel halfway around the world
to spend all her time in the hotel room?
Our Fulbright delegation is attending a variety of topically
focused presentations and universities and middle/high schools that I will
describe in future posts.
Intermittently, though, we are touring historic sites and cultural
events. On Saturday the 6th,
we spent the morning exploring the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu. The enemy watch towers are closely spaced
here. While there were plenty of other
tourists, it is a spot that fewer tourists visit, so access to photo vistas was
pretty good. We took a cable car to our
launching point, and then spent a couple of hours hiking around. The experience was one that didn’t seem
real. Standing on the Great Wall and
looking around at the surrounding jagged-peaked mountains, I tried to imagine
the Mongols making their way across them to attack. Hiking the challenging
elevation changes helped me understand what a monumental physical feat the
invasions would have been. Never mind the "simple" construction of the wall. What we see today is mostly the Ming
contribution. Throughout many dynasties,
construction and rebuilding continued. This
is why I am here. The stories I tell in
school have a deeper dimension now. Will
I be able to convey that? On a less academic level, I want to know how that
little old lady with the sodas for sale got up there. If she walked and drug that cart, I’m
completely humiliated.
The afternoon found our group in rickshaws touring a Hutong district; an example of older Beijing. Its streets
are narrow and its architecture is traditional.
While on the surface it may seem as though this is a “low rent”
district. It’s quite the opposite. The shops and residences sit below the drum
and bell towers, and the district is historic.
One square meter of most homes is worth 40,000 RMB. That’s about 6,667 U.S. dollars.
Mr. Wang Jian Ping and his wife, Cai Gengxin, served all seventeen
of us dinner in their home. They were
gracious hosts. Mr. Wang (The family
name comes first in China.) cooked an excellent meal and afterwards, came in to
share some stories. His family has a
long tradition of cooking the finest food.
In fact, he tells about his grandfather who was one of thirty-six cooks
for the last dynastic emperor. The emperor’s cooks specialize in one dish
only. Mr. Wang’s grandfather made
meatballs.
Sweaty, stinky, and tired, we topped off the evening by
attending a performance of incredible Chinese acrobats.
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