After the amazing meetings I had with the Romanian ambassador and the folks from the Center for American Chinese Partnership on Monday, I decided to do more sightseeing. I went out at night visiting the main pedestrian street in Beijing. After that, I had a fabulous dinner at an Egyptian restaurant (thus remembering both how amazing Egyptian food is and how much I miss Egypt) and finally I went to a local night club. About this club, I’ll blog separately because it was an interesting experience on its own.
On Tuesday, I went on an organized tour with Tour Beijing at the Mutianyu Great Wall and the Underground Palace. I want to mention from the start that I have never got so much value off a tour. For only 30 dollars these guys did so much for us, it was surreal.
Chinese worker turning the jade stone is a craft
They picked me up at 7.30. We were firstly taken to a jade factory. We saw how jade stone is actually turned into statues, jewelries, and other crafts. Of course, I almost fainted when I saw the prices these guys were charging and let me tell you they were way out of my league. For a nice small statue, the gallery was charging 120 dollars which obviously made me think the only thing a reasonable person like me who is still a student and doesn’t make enough money to afford paying for classy jade stone crafts: no, no baby, I don’t think so!
Moving on, the next stop was the Dingling, or the Underground Palace, some 50 kilometers away from Beijing. This is the burial site for 13 out of the 17 emperors of the great Ming Dynasty. As I reached this place, superstitions and history mingled together in an esoteric and unexpected way. Chinese people visiting this site would apparently not use the main entrances since that was reserved for the emperor and if any of the “regular” people walked on the main stairways, they would be doomed for eternity. In addition, one is not allowed to walk through the main door facing the gravesites because that is supposed to be the gateway to heaven. If someone does go through, it may never come back and his/her spirited would be trapped for ever in the afterworld.
Check out the size of this imperial throne
The story is nice, but the tombs themselves are a big disappointment in that they lack any esthetic value whatsoever. What did make me smile for a while was the size of the imperial thrones. They are so big and wide. You can literally fit five or six people on one throne. Seeing three of them in one room was quite a view and was most likely the most interesting thing of that tour.
In one of the adjacent rooms to the tombs, now a small museum, I saw something that froze my smile for a second since I learned about it in school. And hated it. I saw the types of shoes girls had to wear if they wanted to marry rich young men in China. That’s right, the 7 centimeters shoes, the ones that would make a young girls’ toes break in order to fit into those inhumane shoes. Dis-gus-ting. Seriously.
Once we were done with Dingling, we were taken to lunch, somewhere in the vicinity of the Great Wall. The food was absolutely delicious. I was genuinely surprised since, again, the whole thing cost only 30 dollars.
And then, la crème de la crème: the Chinese wall. Let me be brief: if you have the chance to go to the great wall, do not be cheap bastards like me. I decided to use the stairs to walk to the top of the wall instead of the cable car. Pay those stupid ten dollars for the ride.
That being said, climbing on what the most amazing things ever built by humans was a delightful experience. Walking on the Great Wall is definitely a unique opportunity to turn a critical eye to oneself and to meditate on what we are collectively capable of if we unite our forces for a greater good. Sure, in this context, it was the Chinese who did all that, but I simply could not help feeling we are all a part of this project.
That’s pretty much all for now since I really, really have to go to bed.
Stay tuned for more stories from China.
And you’re welcome to take a look at the photo gallery here:
