How the Great Wall Worked

May 21st, 2009

Now if you have traveled to China for a vacation holiday or on a business trip, people will inevitably ask you whether you have visited The Great Wall of China? Why is this tourist attraction in China so attractive? It is because if you have not gone sightseeing at the Great Wall of China, then your China vacation is missing out a great deal. Here is why.

There are many watch towers, which were actually barracks for soldiers and warehouses for arms and were spaced close enough that soldiers from one barracks could quickly come to the aid of a besieged group at another watchtower.

I don’t know how long their tours of duty lasted, but it must have played hob with family life. I sometimes wonder how China got to be so overpopulated with all the famines, wars, and military tours of duty.

The Great Wall has crenellations as are found in European castle walls. Soldiers could survey the countryside through them, then shoot at invaders through the embrasures below.

A communications system grew up with signal towers spreading across the countryside. Fuel was stored—animal dung being a favorite because it smokes like crazy—to be lit when an enemy was approaching. Seeing the smoke and fire, the watchman at the next signal tower then lit his dung heap and so on, passing the word to the city and villages in the enemy’s path. This was quick and effective in the days before radio, telephones, and internet. Ingenious.

Reflecting the multi-culturalism of early China, the section of wall at Juyong Pass (30 miles from downtown Beijing) has a marble platform with bas-relief sculptures of the four Heavenly Kings, with Buddhist incantations in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Mongolian, Uygur, Han, and Xixia. Niches in the wall contain 2,000 Buddhist sculptures. Genghis Khan fought a major battle in this area, and I’d like to see it. Next trip, maybe.

Much of the roadway on top of the wall is now overgrown with bushes and even trees making passage difficult. The Bedaling section is nicely restored and free of vegetation, however, awaiting visitors. A couple of men in our group hiked to the end of the restoration and said it ended abruptly in a drop-off. I’ll take their word for it.

Scott, ever the champion of the people (See China: Tiananmen Square) told us the wall was built using clay and rice as a binder. If you’ve ever clogged your kitchen sink drain by washing out your rice pot, you know how gummy rice can be. Scott said the wall was built at great cost to human life at a time when rice was scarce and many peasants were starving.

We asked about the rumor we’d heard that bodies of workmen were entombed in the wall. He said, “Of course. The workmen were overworked and underfed and thousands died. What were they going to do with the bodies? It’s logical they would become part of the structure.” It gave us an eerie feeling as we gazed at the magnificent wall. I was glad we were there in the daytime.

In the days before modern weapons, the wall did a good job of defending China. I’d heard that the enemy just did an end run around it, but that’s not entirely true . According to the website of Travel China Guide, China fell to the Mongols due to weak government and poverty of the peasants.

Then again, in 1644 AD, the Manchus crossed the wall by convincing (threats? bribes?) a Chinese guard to open the gates of Shanhai Pass. Legend has it that it took three whole days for the Manchu army to enter. And that was the end of the Ming Dynasty.

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The Myth of the Great Wall

May 21st, 2009

Neither the Qin wall nor the Ming fortifications were called the “Great Wall of China” by their Chinese contemporaries. That label, and the myths that have come with it, appear to have originated in the West. Europeans who visited China in the 17th and 18th centuries confused the Ming fortifications with the Qin wall or walls mentioned in dynastic histories. They also assumed incorrectly that impressive masonry walls like those surrounding Beijing at the time also extended far to the west. As a result, a description developed in the West of a vast wall that had secured peace for the civilized Chinese for thousands of years by excluding the nomads. This idea captured the imagination of Westerners, and by the late 19th century a visit to the ‘Great Wall of China’ had become a staple of the Western tourist’s itinerary.

In the 20th century the Chinese also began to adopt the idea of the Great Wall, despite the evidence presented by their own historical records. Revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen, who was instrumental in establishing the Republic of China in 1912, wrote about the wall in glowing terms consistent with the Western myth. Although some Chinese scholars pointed out Sun’s errors, they never succeeded in halting the myth’s progress. Patriotic fervor during World War II (1939-1945) popularized the myth of the Great Wall, and some renovation was done to the Ming fortifications in the early 1950s. The tide changed, however, under Communist leader Mao Zedong, who came to power in 1949. In 1966 Mao launched the political campaign known as the Cultural Revolution, during which he appealed to the Chinese people to destroy anything associated with traditional culture. Unappreciated for its historic value, the magnificent wall surrounding Beijing was torn down for quarrying during this period. Other wall ruins were also destroyed.

With the end of the Cultural Revolution and the death of Mao in 1976, the political climate changed in China, evidenced in part by a rise in nationalism. In the years that followed, the myth of the Great Wall was officially propagated throughout the country. In the 1980s the Ming walls began to undergo extensive renovation at their most visited locations. In the 1990s, however, historians in both China and the West began to reestablish the actual history of Chinese wall building and to explore the development of the folklore surrounding the Ming walls.

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Great Wall

May 21st, 2009

Great Wall (China), popular name for a semi-legendary wall built to protect China’s northern border in the 3rd century bc, and for impressive stone and earthen fortifications built along a different northern border in the 15th and 16th centuries ad, long after the ancient structure had mostly disappeared. Ruins of the later wall are found today along former border areas from Bo Hai (a gulf of the Yellow Sea) in the east to Gansu Province in the west. The Great Wall is visited often near Beijing, at a site called Ju-yong-guan, and at its eastern and western extremes.

Ordinarily I might have paused to catch my breath, but hiking up to the Great Wall of China is never an ordinary affair. Its silhouetted battlements running along the skyline spur me on. Sweating, straining, I’m injected with new enthusiasm when I spot bricks from the wall lying at the side of the rocky path, weighing perhaps 30 pounds each. I press on, doubtless in the footsteps of the army of builders who carried and levered the wall up—brick by brick, block by block—from 1,200 feet below. Then, instead of getting lighter as expected, the horizon darkens: A 20-foot-high barrier of light gray stone confronts me, its massive blocks laid in straight courses, perfectly interlocking. More than 2,000 pounds each, I estimate, and nine courses high. Insurmountable. An archway gives me the only access into this stronghold, and I climb steps onto the top of the wall, a stone highway stretching into the distance. From here I get a view down to the valley, my route, the builders’ route. I wonder how the builders transported all the material, for I’m atop a 2,600-foot-highridge, a formidable thing. Then nature paints over that logistical enigma with a pale pink sunlight, which illuminates a scene virtually unchanged for 430 years. My map-reading has been good: I am on a section of the “wild wall,” where nothing modern deforms the vista, not a power line or a road; there is only this ancient road of sorts, the Great Wall of China.

Quarried and baked from the mountains and earth that it crosses, rising along the line where traditional Chinese ways of life clashed against the free, roving ways of northern nomads, the Great Wall here complements nature, even enhances it. Before and behind me the glowing ramparts dominate the landscape for miles around. I know by the symbol on my map that the wall comes from where the sun rises and goes to where it sets.

I am standing all alone, high up on the Great Wall, with the whole day before me to walk along my very own section of the world’s most spectacular open-air museum. I need no other vantage point to know the wall’s true greatness: It is far more than history, far more than a landmark—it is part of the very geography of China, of Asia, of the world, and even beyond.
The Great Wall is probably China’s best-known monument and one of its most popular tourist destinations. In 1987 it was designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The Great Wall is not a single, continuous structure. Rather, it consists of a network of walls and towers that leaves the frontier open in places. Estimates of the total length of the monument vary, depending on which sections are included and how they are measured. The Great Wall is about 2,400 km (about 1,500 mi) long, according to conservative estimates. Other estimates cite a length of 6,400 km (4,000 mi), or even longer. Some long-standing myths about the wall have been dispelled in recent decades. The existing wall is not several thousand years old, nor is it, as has been widely asserted, visible with the naked eye from outer space. (Astronauts have confirmed this. However, some of the wall is discernible in special radar images taken by satellites.)

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Great Wall – the Endearment of a Massachusetts Man

December 11th, 2008

David Spindler an American, 41, is an unlikely, almost accidental scholar of one of China’s most beloved landmarks, a Harvard Law School graduate who left his job as a consultant and lived off savings to pursue his grand obsession thousands of miles from his Massachusetts roots. Someday soon, he hopes to publish a book on all he has learned. He stands along a crenelated crown of the Great Wall and gestures toward a river valley that snakes away northward into the gloom. “Over there,” he says, his voice lilting in a sense of discovery. “That’s the direction from which the Mongols attacked.”

For two hours on Oct. 23, 1554, a bloody battle raged. The raiders used ropes to reach the Chinese defenders, climbing the wall “like ants,” Spindler explains. He talks of a Chinese soldier who hacked off the hand of an attacker only to be killed moments later, his head pierced by an enemy arrow.

Spindler has done his homework, much of it in the National Library of China, where he has pored over government reports and military archives detailing the clash along this isolated mountain ridge 75 miles northwest of Beijing, deciphering the ancient Chinese characters that hold clues to a past 454 years old.

Without academic affiliation or funding, Spindler has spent 14 years traveling across China. And he has spent more than 830 days clambering over the Greatwall’s far-flung ramparts around Beijing, enough to wear through several pairs of hiking boots.

Dressed in a wide-brimmed Tilley hat, red-checked hunting jacket, and arm-length work gloves, he has endured the humid 100-degree days of summer and shortened snow-blown days of December.

Spindler’s relationship with the Great Wall was not love at first sight. He initially visited there as a tourist in 1987 while on a summer study program in China.

Years later, after moving to Beijing to study premodern Chinese history, he still saw the wall less as its own destination than as a respite from the stress of a teeming foreign capital with 17 million residents.

In 1994, a friend suggested that they take an overnight hiking trip there. Always athletic – he was a collegiate rower and cross-country skier – Spindler was challenged by the physical exertion of tracing the structure’s roller-coaster rises and falls.

In the fall of 1997, he returned to the United States to attend Harvard Law School. But Spindler kept a map of his beloved barricade over his dorm room desk.

In 2000, he returned to Beijing and worked as a management consultant as he pursued his research. In early 2002, Spindler surprised even his closest friends: He left his consulting job and soon began to study the wall full time.

“He manages to communicate his love for this subject and the excitement he feels when he gets up on the stones and gazes out over the hills and the twists and turns of the wall.”

Spindler’s research has also separated myth from fact.

He has learned, for example, that the Great Wall is not one continuous structure but a series of fortifications, built with various materials, including packed earth, bricks and mortar, field stones and quarried rock. In some places, it isn’t a wall at all, but a string of unconnected signal towers. No one has determined exactly how long it runs, but estimates vary from thousands to tens of thousands of miles.

He plans to finish a book on the Great Wall by the end of 2010. But no one, least of all Spindler, thinks that will mark the closing chapter of his adventure.

He has hiked for days without seeing another soul, explored abandoned villages, gotten lost, and watched fellow hikers break arms and legs in falls – all while tracing the route and origins of the meandering wall.

“I always like sitting around here and looking around,” he says during a recent hike. “I see new things all the time. It’s also a great vista.” He paused, then spoke again. “This is a wonderful workplace.”

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A Good Snowfall to Beijing

December 11th, 2008

Today is Dec.11 2008. Beijing’s first snowfall this winter will be helpful to reduce its air pollution. As we are know that Beijing is surrounded by three mountain ranges and the coming rain, winds and snow could have a positive impact on the capital’s air quality.

On Tuesday, Beijing experienced one of its most polluted days, with the air pollution index (API) hitting 247 citywide and 399 in the southern outskirts. Meteorological authorities said that the index dropped from a high of 247 on Tuesday to 162 Wednesday. But it is sitll high. An API of 51 to 100 indicates fairly good air quality, the China Environmental Monitoring Center said. An index of 101 to 150 means slight pollution, while an API in excess of 200 means severe air pollution.

People walk along a snow-covered section of the Great Wall in Beijing Wednesday. A cold front is forecast for the capital in the coming week and will further reduce the API to about 100, barring a big change in emissions, Li Xin, chief engineer of the Beijing municipal environment protection bureau, said.

The coming snowfalls and winds could also help Great Wall.

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The Great Wall: China against the world 1000BC – AD2000

November 25th, 2008

Contrary to popular imagination and Chinese tourist propaganda, the Great Wall of China did not exist continuously for 2,000 years, was never a single line of fortifications, and even failed to keep out invaders. English-speakers have been able to know this since Arthur Waldron’s The Great Wall of China: from history to myth, but as specialists ruefully acknowledge, it will take a blockbuster of Wild Swans proportions before such “new” information becomes embedded as popular wisdom. The Great Wall may be that blockbuster.

The Great Wall we see today is a post-Mao restoration of a hugely expensive defence system built chiefly in the 16th century under the Ming dynasty. Julia Lovell places this in the context of 3,000 years of varied Chinese frontier defences against the northern nomads of the inner Asian steppes. In a somewhat disjointed narrative (interspersed with capsule explanations of concepts such as the examination system), we see how Chinese policy alternated between defence and aggression, with walled fortifications, usually in discontinuous sections and often more than one layer deep, frequently playing a part in both. Walls built to reinforce the mountain passes leading into the North China plain tended to be defensive, as in the Ming. Those built far out in the steppe may have been bases for colonial occupation, as in the fourth century BC, before there even was a Chinese empire.

Lovell attempts to do more than trace the changing functions of frontier walls. She wants to use the variety of attitudes towards wall-building as a way of exploring the shifting relationship of Chinese governments to the outside world.

This is a story of change and variety exciting enough not to need the sensationalist treatment (or the facetious tone) which the author sometimes adopts. It is becoming recognised that it is no longer enough to treat China as a monolith: unchanging, exotic, shockingly different. In the last generation, the isolationism of the Mao years has given way to an accelerating opening of markets and popular culture – though not of politics – to outside influences and foreign imports.

In keeping with this dramatic shift, recent popular works have often rejected the idea of China as a “hermit kingdom” and instead emphasised the tendencies towards openness in past dynasties. Joanna Waley-Cohen’s Sextants of Beijing traces the adoption of Jesuit and other ideas in the 18th century, while Valerie Hansen’s Open Empire draws attention to an even wider range of earlier borrowings, not least Buddhism. (Less reputable are the claims of Gavin Menzies about Chinese cartography in 1421).

Lovell is less optimistic. Turning away from technology and culture to politics at the highest level, she finds openness only by treating Chinese imperial expansionism as a twisted form of internationalism. Her chief concern is with the efforts of successive dynasties to close out the threat posed by nomadic northerners. Here, Lovell’s fascinating description of the variety of approaches to wall-building becomes mired in a set of persistent stereotypes that specialists have been working to debunk for a decade or more.

To pursue her wider goal of examining the roots of the modern Chinese mindset, Lovell feels it necessary to maintain a sharp historical distinction between Chinese and non-Chinese. Since wall-building is her route into the twists and turns of Chinese thinking over three millennia, she argues that walls must be a uniquely Chinese solution to dealing with the neighbours.

How, then, to explain why many non-Chinese regimes who ruled parts or all of North China and the southern steppe – notably the Jin dynasty, founded by the semi-nomadic Jurchen of Manchuria – also built walls? Why, by first becoming “sinicised” into honorary Chinese, of course. And how do you know that someone has become sinicised? Because they use Chinese methods, such as wall-building.

The circularity of this outdated analysis obviates what could have been a much more interesting discussion of the foreign-relations complexities of China’s “Middle Period” – roughly the 10th to the 14th centuries. Why, for instance, did the (non-Chinese) Jin build walls against their northern neighbours in the 12th century when their southern neighbours, the long-lasting (Chinese) Song dynasty, made little use of “long walls” despite being on the defensive against determined attack from the steppe?

Explaining Jin wall-building under the rubric of “sinicisation” undercuts Lovell’s own persuasive thesis that walls were used differently – or not at all – by defensive and expansionist rulers. It is a pity that in debunking one central myth about China for what is likely to be a large popular audience, the book introduces other canards that will need to be demolished in their turn.

So is it really a question of China against the world? Certainly, Lovell’s focus is on walls as physical manifestations of antagonism between rapacious barbarians and agricultural Chinese, who are mostly on the defensive. But this leaves little space to consider non-military interactions, such as the trade relations which nomads frequently sought from China’s dynasties, which may have kept the peace when granted.

Nor is there room to address the significance of Lovell’s observation that Chinese warlords could sometimes become “more aggressive, opportunistic and risk-taking even than the nomads themselves.” Issues like these demand explanations that move beyond an essentialist view of cultural differences into areas such as economics and realpolitik – not just at a governmental level but also in a wide range of borderland localities.

One thing that Lovell’s account shows without doubt is that Chinese imperial courts were rarely in full control of their northern frontiers, just as today’s Chinese authorities cannot exercise total command of the internet (nor, indeed, of migration across the Siberian and Xinjiang borders). Then, as now, government intentions were frequently disrupted, diverted or subverted by local realities, which in some cases became the drivers of events at state level.

As China comes into wider and deeper contact with the rest of the world, it is not only government thinking on international relations that we must understand, but also the range of attitudes held by Chinese individuals in their interactions with foreigners. As Lovell says, the devil is in the detail, but therein also lies the better understanding that we so urgently need.

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Adventures on the Great Wall

November 25th, 2008

This is a tale of two Williams, their lives separated by more than a century but whose destinies are intertwined through their abiding fascination with one of the pinnacles of human achievement, the Great Wall of China.

William Lindesay, “Young William”, is British, and one of the world’s leading authorities on the Wall, while William Geil, “Old William”, was an American and the first man to explore the Great Wall from one end to the other.

Young William has just launched an exhibition in Beijing’s elegant Imperial College & Temple of Confucius Museum, which features the newly discovered diaries, photographs and other artefacts belonging to Old William, a missionary and explorer.

Lindesay was inspired by images of the Great Wall as an 11-year-old boy in Wallasey, Wirral, and he ran the length of Hadrian’s Wall a few years later, a sign of things to come. While studying at Manchester he decided to take things further. He first explored the Wall in 1987, was arrested nine times and deported once. It was a different China to the one that is today allowing, and indeed encouraging, his exhibition to go ahead.

He came across a copy of Geil’s book on the Great Wall in 1990, and believes that the American was the first individual to have explored the entire Wall, at the turn of the last century. Lindesay is the founder and director of a non-governmental organisation called International Friends of the Great Wall, and the exhibition focuses on his “re-photography” work, a process where he retakes photographs of the precise location where an original photograph was shot. It’s a stunning exercise in documenting change.

Lindesay had already written Alone on the Great Wall, an account of his own 1,500-mile excursion in 1987, when he set out four years ago to locate and rephotograph the same sites that Geil had photographed. “It’s a great way to try to influence the future of the Great Wall, to show how it has changed in the last 100 years,” said Lindesay as we walked through the exhibition, which also includes Jesuit maps of the Wall from the 16th century and other early depictions by British soldiers. His work to maintain the Wall has made him a celebrity in China, and he is stopped several times and asked to sign the programme or pose for photographs.

“Rephotographing locations is a kind of advocacy project to make Chinese people, and officials, aware of how the Wall has changed because of nature, because of man’s influence or because of neglect,” he says.

Establishing the length of the Great Wall is a matter of fierce debate, but Lindesay said it is unknown, as it has never been measured. “More than a Great Wall, it’s a collection of different elements – walls, forts, gates and engraved tablets,” he says. If all the pieces which make up the structure that is commonly referred to as the Great Wall were added up, the result would be more than 50,000km (31,000 miles) long. The parts bend and weave, incorporating parts of nature, dipping into water, meandering off into other sections, and disappearing only to reappear further off in a remoter part of the country.

It spans nearly 2,000 years of construction, from 300 BC to AD 1644. For many years, the Great Wall was believed to be the only man-made structure visible from space, but China’s first astronaut conceded that he couldn’t spot it.

“But all parts of the Great Wall have the same function in common. They were built as part of a strategy to defend Chinese land from nomadic invasion,” Lindesay said.

The Wall has taken a battering, with only 2,500km left standing today. Ironically, it was never used to withstand an attack – weakness and corruption within the imperial government, rather than the ramparts themselves, led to invaders being able to cross it to reach Beijing. Legend has it that Genghis Khan bribed his way past the guards.

Sections have been knocked down to make way for motorways and housing developments while, over the years, farmers and villagers living in its shadow have plundered its stones for pigsties and henhouses.

Lindesay wanted to learn more about Geil, born in 1865, who had also written about the Yangtze river. He died from influenza in Italy in 1925, but faded from view. However, Lindesay managed to track down one of the American’s adoptive grandsons, John Laycock, who had hoarded material about his intrepid ancestor, and later was contacted by Tim Adamsky, an amateur historian in Geil’s native Doylestown in Philadelphia, who had recently obtained a trove of Geil material from a local collector’s estate, including manuscripts, his compass, his glasses and pocket watch and the Bible which he took everywhere with him.

He ended up with a full picture of the explorer. Both Williams stood out on their travels – Geil was 6ft 4in and attracted a lot of attention on his way through China, especially as foreigners were largely unknown then. Lindesay measures 6ft 2in and in his size-14 boots also attracts stares during his travels.

Lindesay has included stark images of the Wall in the far west of China near Dunhuang, Gansu province, where the Anglo-Hungarian explorer Sir Aurel Stein discovered the Jade Gate, one of the more substantial surviving sections of Wall. Among the photographs taken by this legendary explorer were the granaries that fed garrisons manning remote outposts, and piles of reeds kept ready to be lit if enemy invaders were sighted.

The Great Wall’s propaganda value has always been strong, and the legacy is prominent in the show. One picture by Sha Fei, a photojournalist who took many iconic photographs of Communists fighting the Japanese in the 1930s, has some superlative images of troops lined up at Chajianling Ridge with the watchtowers above, facing the invaders. The Japanese later took photographs of their own troops placing flags atop the same watchtowers.

Other images show a French motor enthusiast being carried along the dry banks of a river in the early part of the last century as the tourists began to arrive. The trip to Badaling, traditionally the most accessible part of the Wall from Beijing, used to take a week but it became a day trip when the railway was pushed through.

Today, Badaling is a mass tourist operation, overrun with tour buses and excited visitors. To rephotograph the Wall at Badaling, Lindesay had a difficult job finding a way around the obstacles in place for the needs of modern tourism. Some 10 million people visit the Wall every year, and the government has moved to protect it.

Lindesay believes it has a positive future. “This exhibition shows how China is changing. People know there are fancy new cities in China, but this shows that official thinking is changing. This exhibition wouldn’t have been possible 20 years ago because it shows negative images as well as positive,” he said.

Some of the photographs show the extent of the challenge facing those trying to preserve the Wall. One, older, picture shows a carved entrance to a watchtower near Tangzigou, a granite keystone depicting a monster’s face meant to deter evil spirits. The newer picture shows the same entrance, but the keystone has been stolen. This picture dates from 2005. The older picture is from 2004.

One of the highlights of the show is a large, battered tin box, with the words “North China” inscribed in a flourish on the side in white paint. This contained Geil’s diaries, bills for mules and muleteers and other artefacts of the explorer’s craft from 100 years ago.

In June this year, a group of 20 people, including family members and friends, joined Lindesay in Doylestown cemetery to commemorate the centenary of William Edgar Geil’s journey from one end of the Great Wall to the other. Young William placed a plaque dedicated to Old William.

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New friends become guides to China

November 25th, 2008

When I set out to experience China for six days earlier this year, I hoped to get a flavor of local culture, explore off the beaten path and absorb ancient dynasty landmarks. What I didn’t expect was to become befriended so quickly and graciously.

During the 14-hour flight from Chicago to Beijing, my husband and I were introduced to a couple through the stewardess we met en route. Rubin and Strawberry were natives of Beijing, but also live as U.S. citizens in their homes in Chicago and Los Angeles. After visiting with us a short time, they took it upon themselves to escort us to historical destinations to ensure we had the best possible experience during our two short days in Beijing.

Day One: The Great Wall. Historians say construction and rebuilding occurred between 700 B.C. and the 1600s, during the Qin and Ming dynasties. Made of compacted earth, straw, sand and brick, estimates of the combined length of all of its structures range up to 12,400 miles.

Millions labored on the wall; at one time, a fifth of the working population was involved. Many perished, and remains have been discovered.

Our hike was steep, and at times the width of the wall accommodated 10 native and foreign tourists abreast. We peered through lookout towers and admired the mountainous views, while marveling at the mammoth undertaking of those who toiled and died for the defense of their land.

Second Adventure: The Ming Tombs. Thirteen of the 16 Ming emperors ordered the construction of hidden burials, more than 80 feet below ground level. The tombs’ location in the narrow valley north of Changping reflects principles of feng shui, the balance and harmony of man and nature, combining the elements of wind, earth and water.

Day Two: As the sun rose, we walked to Tiananmen Square to observe a flag-raising ceremony conducted by the Chinese military. We ended our time in Beijing by touring the Forbidden City, a nearly 250-acre complex of 800-plus buildings that housed the Ming and Qing emperors, their concubines and governmental officials.

The buildings are adorned with symbolic details, colors of royalty, beautiful gardens and large courtyards. The Forbidden City remains encircled by a 30-foot wall and a moat almost 20 feet deep.

Our new friends also treated us to a traditional Chinese body and foot massage. The cost of this experience is a fraction of what it would be in the United States.

With our hosts, we devoured the famously prepared Peking duck. The main course is filleted in the presence of the dinner party. The crispy bites of meat were moist and served with a slender cake, hoisin sauce and spring onions.

Days Three Through Six: We flew to Shanghai, where the blue skies and sunny days of Beijing were replaced by gray, looming smog, drizzle and hundreds of high-rise buildings. Shanghai, a metropolitan home to more than 20 million, is evidence of a booming economy.

By chance, I met another new friend, a French woman, and within minutes we committed to exploring together. In friendship, rainy days became bright. Together we discovered the famous Yu Garden in the Old City, Chen Xiang Ge Temple, the Bund and the Old French Concession.

Bravely wondering off the beaten path, I gained a taste of the local culture by stumbling into open markets where live snakes and prawns were sold, and where pigs and poultry were butchered. We witnessed everyday life of hanging clothes, playing games, repairing bikes and participating in morning kung fu exhibitions.

One day, I took a bus to the city of Suzhou, considered the Venice of the East. I explored Tiger Hill, the tomb of the first emperor of the province; a 450-year-old garden, considered one of the four most famous in China; a 1,400-year-old active Buddhist temple; and the biggest silk factory in China, which produces 60 percent of China’s silk.

On our last evening, my husband and I attended a acrobatics show and were amazed by the strength, balance and coordination of the athletes as they performed their routines and daredevil stunts.

Overall, I was impressed with the hospitality and work ethic of the Chinese. Customer service was respectful, timely and always delivered with a smile. The Confucian belief in the golden rule was emulated in their actions.

I relish my historical explorations and local discoveries, but I’m even more elated to have made three new friends across the globe. As Confucius said, “Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”

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Great Wall of China

November 25th, 2008

I have been anticipating this day for along time. Actually getting to walk the Great Wall of China has always been a dream. I started the morning off with a big breakfast and I loaded up on some granola knowing that this would be a large task. I think it took close to 1hour to reach the section of the wall I was going to hike. I was hiking the Badaling section in north west Beijing. I knew today would be a day that I would never forget.

As we approached the wall, all I could think about was the millions of people who have spent their lives building this great wall. The wall in itself extends for over 4,000 miles across China and was built to keep hoarding nomadic tribes, huns, and other invaders from encroaching on the people of China.

The magnitude of the wall winding its way up and down the mountain side is overwhelming. Without pause, I started my climb and the first portion was rather daunting. Every 500 yards or so there would be a tower that you could stop and look out over your accomplishments. The difficult thing in hiking the wall is that the steps are not uniform. There are steps that are a few inches high all the way up to 2 ft high so you really have to pay attention to where you place your feet. I would have to say just after the first 1,000 yards I was rethinking how far I was going to hike. I had to remind myself that here I was getting the chance of lifetime. Its all mind over matter. As I was thinking this I could feel a surge of energy and I would get up and begin walking again. During my walk you could hear a steady beat off in the distance and I had thought it was probably cars and trucks travelling over a bridge but when I looked down into the village below, there were huge red drums being beat my men. It was motivating and the rest of the walk I used the beat of the drums to push me along.

During my time on the wall I felt a since of pride because if you have ever seen pictures you will know that it is very intimidating. I had anticipated the hikes up the mountains as being the hardest but to my surprise the hikes down were even more difficult. My hamstrings burned on the way up but my knees buckled on the way down. I knew that sometime the next day I would feel the pain of both but I knew the pain was well worth the effort.

As I approached the end of my trek, there were local villagers selling items of great interest. You could by local fox furs, drums, charms, silk, and wind chimes. These people were very impressive. There skills did not go unnoticed. I did manage to buy some wind chimes with a happy Buddha that I will place at my cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

To sum it all up, I would have to place this near the top of all the adventures I have taken so far in my life time. This experience I will carry with me to the day I die and hopefully it will be past on to my daughter and her children. I must say that it was an adventure that I thought I would never reach but now I can pack it in the box of memories that I have of this great world of ours. The Great Wall of China lives up to its name.

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China at last!

November 25th, 2008

I am leading a delegation of parliamentarians to China at the gracious invitation of the Chinese Communist Party in its 30th year of reforms celebrations. It’s my first visit out of the country as an MNA and I am proud that it is to China. I have with me a PPP and ANP MNA and a Northern Areas minister. Here is part 1 of the three-part city wise account of the trip…

Beijing is modern, fast-moving, with lots of modern infrastructure. Our first visit was to the Great Wall of China. It was freezing. The walk up and down a portion of the wall made me think of Chairman Mao’s saying that till you have not climbed the Wall you are not a real man! As I walked through the wall I thought of the tremendous history of China. Their first recorded dynasty was the 2200-1700 BC Xia Dynasty. And their latest was Qing from 1644 to 1911. After which came the republic of China till 1949 and finally the modern day China as we all know it the People’s Republic of China. I saw the Great Wall of China as a physical demonstration of this chain of history through their different periods.

Later the same evening we were taken to an acrobatic show which went beyond acrobatics. It was a demonstration of their nationhood which they were so proudly showcasing to their foreign guests. Precision, timing, practice, discipline, teamwork. This is exactly what China’s success was all about. What a feast for the eyes.

The next day was official meetings with senior officials. It was my first delegation that I was not just part of but one that I was leading so I was conscious to meet all diplomatic norms and put across the strategic messages efficiently. Our first meeting was with the vice minister of the Communist Party’s International department. It was a banquet breakfast meeting which was to be the most important message delivery made by the Chinese as per Ambassador Masood Khan, who attended the meeting with us.

The CPC’s message was loud and clear. Firstly, that the bilateral relationship was all-weather and a strategic “partnership.” That the responsibility of taking bilateral through to greater heights was being passed on to the next cadre of young leaders consciously. They explained in detail how the “China model” was successful but had to be localised to suit each country’s needs. They were certain that Pakistan could weather the current challenges; they assured us that they would stand by us at all costs despite the disruptions being caused to regional stability by dark forces. They considered cross-party discussions critical for unity of purpose on China and their department’s main objective to engage with all ideological parties. Their basis for engagement was based on independence, equality, mutual respect and non-interference. This was their secret ingredient that fitted all sizes of societies.

My message was a pro-Pakistan state and devoid of all political party colours. In between the breakfast delicacies and the translations I spoke for Pak-China strengthening of ties. We were honoured to be here. We appreciated their special hospitality. We brought with us good wishes of the people of Pakistan and each political leadership of Pakistan for the people of China and their leadership. We felt at home in our second home. China’s success was fascinating and was a great study subject for us. Our main objective was to exercise legislative oversight over executive on economic, social, defence bilateral relationship and fast track cooperation. We would continue to support each other on multilateral forums on issues like Tibet and Kashmir. In midst of WTO and financial world crisis this cooperation was even more critical. I assured them that our government was doing its utmost to secure their nationals. I laid special emphasis on power projects and special economic zones to strengthen our bilaterals. I appreciated their quake assistance efforts. I complemented them on their Olympics and space mission feats. I talked of need for university to university youth partnerships.

Next was a working meeting with the DG of the International department of the CPC. I presented the WAPDA projects and asked for investments in this area. The other delegates added their wish lists, including smaller dams and Thar coal and Bhasha-Diamir assistance. Later in the afternoon we had the great privilege of being received in the Great Hall of the People by the Vice Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of their National Congress. Again it was one of the historic places one had read about. It was one more great meeting with thoughts of institutionalising a Pak China parliamentary caucus which would track through legislative committee system the progress on trade, social indicators. This was the only way of making things China-centric back in parliament. I committed to put a strategic legislative tracking plan together and on my return present it to the Speaker for her approval. It is a new idea to the extent that the legislative branch has never executed tracking of country specific bilaterals. I think it is not only possible but also time-critical. The host was an older senior chairman of the foreign relations committee who seemed pleased with my narrative on the mechanics of the parliamentary caucus. He even asked me for my advice on how to improve China. I was humbled. His message was that Pakistan was not just a brotherly country but a partner country. All his words were very important signals, as I learnt later from our ambassador.

Day 3 started with a visit to the Forbidden City. We walked through the imperial Palace in piercing cold and I thought of Chairman Mao declaring this nation as a People’s Republic close to 60 years back on the second floor of the front building. The architecture of the Forbidden City was incredibly well preserved and it was a treat to soak the history all in. Lunch was at a very special historic restaurant where leaders like Nixon had eaten Peking duck. We had the privilege of being served the 1.15 millionth duck and its every possible cut and organ only to be followed by a grand main course; it was a culinary experience I will never forget. But this was not to be just a duck meal. I proposed and got excellent response on a local government proposal to contribute to people-to-people grassroots partnership. The Nazim-Mayor sister town 5 point partnership plan that I unveiled included the following technical and capacity building elements: equipment for clean drinking water, hospital, school, garbage turned energy project, and horticulture trade increase. This coupled with voluntary youth delegations teaching language, history and culture would ensure superb people to people contact.

We visited the Olympics stadium Bird’s Nest and Water Cube that day. Again here was modern China in full swing. With their financing of this spectacular sports bonanza through private-public partnership namely corporate and overseas Chinese assistance it was infrastructure that would live beyond the 2008 Olympics. Business ventures for future generations with their multipurpose usage plans. The guided tour was a true demonstration of the Chinese’ long-term spirit and the competitive element of making the best through sheer hardwork and ingenuity. I could well imagine how records of excellence had been made and broken at this great high-tech venue some months back.

The day ended with a superb banquet dinner in our honour by our most able ambassador. His briefing later on made me even more conscious of my new role as speaking on behalf of the state of Pakistan whilst on foreign soil. I learnt through him of the efforts and achievements of the last presidential visit. And I decided for the sake of the bilateral to delete party politics on this issue.

More in the next diary blog from Shanghai.

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