The Great Wall of China

I grew up in Iowa, which is known for having a very good education system. When I was a teen, I moved to Florida, which isn't known for great education, but I still got a pretty good one. Yet, in all my pre-university studies, I learned precious little about Asia. I could go so far as to say next to nothing. Note: In university, I majored in mathematics and chemistry, so there wasn't any Asian history covered there either. There are some mathematical concepts named for somewhere in the east like the Chinese Remainder Theorem. But that doesn't really count. Or if it did, it counts in modular arithmetic. Note within my note: I also recognize that almost no one who reads this will appreciate that joke, but I appreciate it. 

No doubt, at some juncture is middle school, I had to memorize capital cities. In high school, I learned about Japan, but only in the context of World War II. The Himalayas came up (geology joke), but only because they were so tall. In discussing the current affairs of the time, naturally, the Middle East was mentioned but only painted with the broadest strokes of the pen or the paintbrush. 

From my experience, our education system is guilty of orientalism, the idea that everything east of (you pick the point) is "the east" and it is glommed together as one monolith. Given the number of cultures, languages, and people in "the east", this is a terrible oversimplification and leads to stereotypes and a lack of understanding. 

But what's my point? Even given the bare minimum I learned concerning Asia, I learned about the Great Wall of China. I don't know what grade I was in, what course it was mentioned in, or even if it was part of any regular curriculum. But I had certainly heard of the Great Wall of China. And I suspect most people have. 

Yet, knowing what it is, reading about it, and seeing pictures of it, none of that is comparable to walking on it. Calling this the Great Wall is an understatement. This wall is monumental. 

We visited the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It is one of the younger sections, having been built by the Ming Dynasty in the 14th century. "Younger" here is relative, given that this means it is already nearing 700 years old. During the Ming Dynasty, both the inner wall and outer wall were built with crenelations and arrow slots. That differs from some other and older sections of the Great Wall in which these appear only on the outer wall, and the inner wall is more rounded and slightly lower. 

Standing on the wall, hiking along it, looking at how it meanders through the mountain, it makes you feel tiny. The wall is a marvel. At almost no point is the walk just straight. You curve left and right. You go up and down, sometimes on slopes, sometimes on stairs. Some of the stairs are so slight, you barely need to lift your foot. Others are so steep you bring your knee up to your chest just to get to the next one. The wall follows the crest of the mountain, like a gargantuan serpent of stone. 

There are twenty watch towers in the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. The furthest east, and generally lower in elevation is Tower 1. The furthest west, and much higher in elevation, is Tower 20. We rode up in a chair lift (a ski lift) and arrived next to Tower 5. There are paths to walk up the mountain to reach the wall of one prefers. But that's a long and steep walk up before you even get to walk on the wall. 

From Tower 5, we headed west, toward Tower 20. The views of the mountains all around us were amazing. And there are multiple ranges. Looking out to the north, there was a near mountain range, one behind that, and one behind that. Imagine an army from Mongolia cresting mountain after mountain, finally reaching this one and saying, "Really? We're this far into it and now we have to scale a wall?!" I, for one, would not want to put in that amount of effort to invade. 

The watch towers each have two floors. The top floor is for the guards to watch for enemies, fire arrows, and throw stones. The bottom floor is sleeping chambers for the guards not on duty.

After we passed Tower 9, Alrica decided she had had enough. She turned back toward Tower 5. I kept going. This was probably the only time in my life I was going to hike along the Great Wall of China. I took advantage of it. 

We were lucky in the parts of the wall we were hiking. We weren't alone by any stretch of the imagination. But compared to some other parts, it was sparsely populated with other walkers. Mutianyu is a bit further out of the city than some other sections of the Great Wall in the Beijing District. From the town of Mutianyu, there are three ways up. You can walk up the mountain, you can ride up the chair lift to Tower 5 like we did, or there is a cable car that takes you to Tower 14. I walked past Tower 14 to near Tower 16.Wow, there were so many more people on the west side than in the middle section. 

What can be frustrating is that sometimes people stop at bottleneck points to get pictures. For example, going into and out of some of the towers involves much narrower stairs. At the top of those stairs, you have a great view (assuming you are looking away from the watch tower and not into it.) So many people stop there to get pictures. They need 700 pictures of their loved ones in various poses on the stairs. This causes two lines to form. First, there are all the people inside the watch tower waiting to get out. And then there are all the people on the steep and narrow and at times precarious staircase waiting to get in. The doorways are arches just wide enough for one person to pass through. This is already a natural pinch point, and those who stop for a couple minutes to get just the right shot of their companion leaning on the wall cause big traffic jams. 

The sections to the west are higher up, so theoretically have better views. I found that they weren't that different. All of it is impressive. The mountains are stark and tall and looming. The engineering of the wall is admirable and inspiring. And all of it conspires to remind you that you are just one tiny little person in one short span of time. You are, like my childhood lessons concerning Asia, next to nothing. 

But you get to use a piece of that time to enjoy a hike in an incredible place. So, that's something.