It was fantastic to experience this place with so many Chinese people, some who had never seen it before, others who make an annual family outing just to connect with this part of their ancient heritage.
(Photo above: John and James with our tour guide, Jennifer.)
That Great Wall has become the key metaphor for defending against a new, 21st C., invader of a different ilk than the Mongols: The "outside world" that can enter China through the Internet.
Though you do not experience the Great Fire Wall when you're a tourist staying at Western-oriented hotels (where the government opens up holes in the Fire Wall so Westerners can access the rest of the world's content seamlessly), Chinese across the country--whether they are university professors in HK, Party members researching Western policies, or Beijing or kids playing network games on Wi-Fi--they encounter the Great Fire Wall any time they try to access content that is not sanctioned by the PRC:
They simply get a "cannot find that page" message from their browser.
(Photo above: Looking north toward Inner Mongolia, through one of the watch tower doors.)
When we in the West say the "world is flat" in order to explain the "leveling effects" of the Internet on ideas and commerce, well, it is flat, relatively; but developing parts parts of the world, maybe like in China, are cautious and so they try to keep out (and in) ideas and views that a government in transition might find difficult to align with their own current policies.
The choice to censor is a difficult one for any government and people. The Great Fire Wall will likely come down slowly, especially as more of China's people want to see "beyond the ranges" of their own beautiful Middle Kingdom, and the more explorers like you want to see in.
(Video above: An old woman makes her way toward the section of the Wall we climbed (the section was built during the Ming Dynasty in the 1300s). She looked like she'd been there before.)
Which section of the Wall did you go to?
ReplyDeleteI found that the Great Wall, unlike many famous tourist attractions, does not disappoint. Its greatness is no joke.
My day on the Wall was very emblamatic of my week in Beijing, in that you really have no idea what's going on and then you realized you've survived the ordeal of managing the sumplest things.
They dropped us off in the morning (At Jinshanling/Simitai) with these instructions: "There are two paths and bridge. We will pick you up on the other end."
Did that mean we took one of two paths, or both? And how far were we to walk -- 2 miles? Ten? No idea. They just let us go figure it out for ourselves.
It turned about to be maybe 8-9 miles, in 90 degree heat, along several sections with crumbling or nonexistent sidewalls. No warning signs or safety of any kind. And it was maybe 5-6 hours of trekking. (Also, I managed to get lost and separated from everyone else. Which was the best and most terrifying part, since I was stranded in China but had half an hour totally to myself on the Great Wall.)
By the end, it seemed like the whole thing was designed to beat you down, but in the midst of the punishment was this magnificent wall and countryside. The achievement of making it through seems now part and parcel of how bizarrely it is presented. Everything in China for me was: Who knows? And then: wow.