Surviving the Great Wall

     It's not every day one can say, "I'm on the Great Wall of China!" but on June 23rd 2012, I was able to.

     When we first arrived at one of the entrances to the Great Wall, gift shops and small food stations encompassed us.  To the side was an entrance which went two ways: to the right and to the left.  I was standing before the Great Wall of China and I could hardly believe it.  Phoebe gave us instructions for the next few hours, our rendezvous point, and then we were free to climb the Great Wall of China.  But before we were free, Phoebe advised us: "You can take the right side, which is the hard side, or you can take the left side, which is the harder side.  No matter which side you take, it's going to be hard."

       I grinned at the thought of it: it would be hard and physically exhausting.  I was beyond excited.  We were supposed to stay in small groups, and I found myself with a delegation leader and another boy from our delegation.  The three of us decided to take the left side, the "harder" side. 

 

      I quickly realized why this side was "harder."  The slope of the ground was ridiculously steep.  I lost my balance several times, stumbling over the loose bricks below my feet.  When the ground wasn't terribly steep, we faced stairs that were thin stairs that covered an even steeper area.  I had to pause many times to gather my breath and regain my strength.  It was disheartening, but I was determined to make it to the tower that loomed ahead of us.  I wasn't the only one who found the climb to be overwhelming.  A young boy was crawling up the stairs as his parents followed, laughing and taking photos of their son.  It was one of the most innocent and heart-warming scenes I had ever seen. 

      Too soon, I realized that the climb was too much for my body.  I was carrying a ten-pound bookbag and the ordeal was taking its toll on me.  I paused again, leaning my bag against the outer wall and closed my eyes, struggling to breathe.

 

 



 

 

     “Take slow breaths. You’re suffering under the thin air. Breathe slowly,” the boy in our small group said to me as I attempted to control my ragged breathing.

      Of course, I thought to myself. We're in Beijing, in northern China, and I'm on top mountains. Of course the air is thin.

       So there I was, on the Great Wall of China, chanting to myself In…hold…out. In…hold….out. In…hold…out. to regain composure.  And then I thought about the history of this "great wall." 

      In 221BC, Emperor Qin Shi Huang unified China, and became the first emperor to rule over all of China.  In the same year, he ordered that the small walls in northern China be unified into one Great Wall to protect China from northern invaders.  For this to be a reality, prisoners of war, criminals, and poor workers were forced to make this great wall.  The workers often worked until they died.  It's impossible to know how many shed their life building this wall.  For this, the Great Wall is nicknamed, "The Longest Cemetery on Earth."

      Yet here I was, struggling just to walk up that same wall.   With a final deep breath, I pushed myself up and said that I was ready to continue to the tower.  I was nothing, if not determined.

     Between the systematic thoughts of In…hold…out, I imagined prisoners of war and poor workers constructing the bricks to build this seemingly endless wall.  I tried not to visualize the skeletons buried beneath me, but one thought prevailed within my mind: If millions of Chinese could die building this wall, then I could push past my physical exhaustion and climb to the tower.

      As we continued to walk up, I ignored the burning sensation in my legs and my sore back, and remembered a word I learned in Chinese class: 呼吸 (Hūxī, pronounced "who? she?").  It means to breathe.  My teacher had taught us that the word even sounded like a person breathing: huxi, huxi, huxi.  So I began to count my breaths this way--chanting huxi to myself and listening to the soft sound of my breaths.

     If you were standing on a piece of history from 2,000 years ago, what would your thoughts consist of? For me, I did not expect to be chanting to myself, but there I was, atop the Great Wall of China struggling to breathe whilst my legs quivered underneath me.  I’ve never been an active person and an ascent of this magnitude was not easy.

 

   

 

     At long last we arrived at the tower and entered. The weather had been relatively cool; it felt like it was 70* Fahrenheit.  But inside the tower, it was a stone-cooled and chilly atmosphere.  The tower was lined with windows looking out to the great wall.  One near the exit of the tower caught my attention--a couple were looking out over it.  It was very romantic and sweet.  After they left it, the three of us walked to the ledge and took several photos there.  If you looked straight down, it was a steep fall into green grass.  Among the bricks were carved names and dates--in Chinese.  It made me smile.  Turns out that marking your name on monuments is an international taking.

    

 

 

 

     Too soon, we knew we needed to descend in order to meet back with our delegation at the appointed time, and I looked out over what I had just managed to ascend.  I looked out at the view, and oh, was the struggle worth it! The view stole what breath I had remaining. Smog extended as far as the eye could see, cloaking a truly great wall. I fought back tears and allowed myself to be taken with the image that lay before me. I was on the GREAT WALL OF CHINA. This wasn't a sweet dream that I would be awakened from; this was reality. This was a dream come true.

 

 

 

      

     Fortunately, I had gained composure before we began to descend.  I quickly discovered that the descent was much more difficult.  I grasped the rusting rail and focused on taking one step at a time.  My legs began to buckle underneath me and I began to worry; would we make it back to the rendezvous on time? I pushed the thought away and concentrated on breathing again and going as fast as I possibly could down the steep stairs.  I kept my eyes trained on my feet and prayed that I wouldn't trip.

      The next time I looked up, I realized that the boy and the delegation leader had evanesced from my sight.  I immediately panicked; had I been that slow?! Had they been able to walk so much faster that they were so far away? 

     I swallowed my hysteria and looked back down at my feet as I pressed on.  Panicking wouldn't benefit me--I needed to get back to the rendezvous.  I gripped the rusting rail with all my might, but fear was lodged within me.  I didn't know where the others were, and I have terrible balance.  These steps were begging for my demise.  I took the steps with both feet.  I felt childish and young, but I knew if I persisted, I would make it. 

     The next time I looked up, I still didn't see either the boy nor the leader.  I wasn't focused on breathing, and my mind wasn't on the history of the Great Wall.  I wanted nothing more than to sit down and rest, but I pushed on.  I was completely focused on the steps when out of no where a hand reached up to me.  Shocked, I looked up to see the leader giving her hand to me.  She was going to help me down.

      Blood rushed to my cheeks as I was both relieved and embarrassed, but mostly I was grateful for the help. 

      I then felt the weight of my ten-pound backpack lift off my back.  I gasped in relief and shock that the boy was also helping me. Waves of emotion and gratitude washed over me.  I had been raised to believe that the world is a bad place full of bad people, yet here were two people I barely knew, helping me descend the Great Wall of China!  It was the most humbling and wonderful experience I have ever experienced in my life.

      Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that someone--two someones!--would be kind enough to help me descend the Great Wall.  I truly witnessed the heart of humanity.  I had never been so touched in my life.

     

 

 

 

     Time was a strange creature. It seemed as if it wasn't passing yet was passing with incredible speed at the same time. Somehow, we all managed to overcome the steepest part (the stairs), and I nodded to the leader and she released my hand.  I also turned my head and said 谢谢 (xie xie, pronounced she-ya she-ya; which means thank-you) and my bag slumped against my body.  A moment later, and the boy came to walk beside me. 
     It could have been a scene from a movie, it felt so.....right.

 

 

 

 

    

        A few hours later, as our delegation was on the bus, I turned to the boy who had helped me and said “thank-you, thank-you, thank-you for helping me! I cannot explain what that meant to me.”

      He blinked a few times and gave me a strange look before saying, “Stephanie…. That wasn’t me. That was some random Asian guy.”

The Truth From a Stranger



    Day Two and the highlight of today would be going to the Great Wall of China.  But before we were to go there, our first stop was at a cloisonne factory.  While the Great Wall was definitely what I was looking forward to, I knew that the factory would be a great learning experience.  I had never been to a factory before, and I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. 

     When we arrived, we first came into a cool, refreshing building with sparkling, tiled floor.  There was a large open space before it branched off into two directions (left and right).  But within the expanse was a table with five vases on it.  Behind the table was a man who would explain to us the process of how cloisonne is made. 

 

     Cloisonne is a type of pottery.  It is an expensive type of pottery, but exquisitely beautiful.  At the factory, we learned about it: It takes forty-five days to make your typical cloisonne. There are three main steps in the process:
1. Add wiring.
2. Fill wiring.
3. Put it into a kiln.

 

     The first step is to take a piece of piece of copper pottery and glue metal wiring over it to form a design.  These wires are formed by factory workers and can be anything from lines to shapes(flowers, panda bears, et cetera).   After the wiring was glued to the pottery, it would be ready for the next step:

     With the wires secure, workers would take colorful sand and fill in the holes that were made.  The colors are typically bright and beautiful.  After the pottery is coated with sand, it will go into a kiln and be baked. 

     The second and third steps would then be repeated until the metal wires were covered completely with sand.  (It would take many layers for the sand to cloak the metal wires).  This is the process which takes cloisonne so long to be made--it can take months, depending on the size of the work of art, to be completed.



 

 

      The rooms we visited were dimly lit and contained anywhere from two to four workers working laboriously.  The air in this part of the factory was thick; there was no air-conditioning; only electrical fans.  I had heard the term sweat-shops before, and I wondered if this was what that meant.

 

 

 

     In a corner of the wire room were finished products waiting for the next step.  Some of them were huge and were strange objects--large eggs, and other things that aren't your typical pottery. 

     We then went to the sand room.  It was there that I learned something important...

     While in my stay in China, I wanted to take as many photos as possible to bring back with me.  Maybe it was to prove to myself that going to China had actually happened--that it wasn't just a wonderful dream.  I took over five hundred photos within my first two days of being in China.  With this motive, I took many photos within the factory.  Within the colored sand room, I took a photo of a worker and after the photo took, the worker looked up at me with hurt eyes.  Her expression portrayed a sad annoyance and thoughts that spoke of foreigners who could never understand her hardships.  I lowered my camera, but before I could speak an apology, our delegation pushed me forward.  Out of respect, I am not posting the photo with her in it.  After that experience, I refuse to take photos of workers. 

     She had seen me as a tourist who didn't know better, who couldn't know what it meant to work hard and never be able to make progress.  And maybe that was true.  And the truth can hurt. 

 

 

     After the sand room, we walked outside to the kiln.  The surrounding buildings were cloaked in vines and vegetation.  The buildings were well-maintained and I thought that this was odd.  Back in the States, if a building was covered in vegetation, it was usually an old building.  Yet, I had once seen a documentation supporting solar energy that talked about buildings being a basis for vegetation--the roof would be covered in grass and the sides would be coated in vines.  Maybe these buildings were eco-friendly?

 

 

     Once the pottery was ready to go into the kiln, they would be transported to a shed-like building where they would be fired up to 800* Fahrenheit.  We were able to see the kiln raise up, and felt the vast heat blaze against our faces in the already hot and humid temperature.  When we left the kiln room, I remember feeling a rush of cold in the eighty-degree outside.

     The last part of the tour consisted of our delegation being able to put sand into a wired piece of pottery.  The sand would be put between wires using an eye-dropper.  There was a variety of colors and the experience of making it come to life was calm and thought-numbing.