On May 20th we visited the Great Wall of China and became heroes. According to Chinese legend, we were told, one need not scale the heights only touch one brick of the Great Wall to qualify for this honor but we went further, we actually climbed part of it. That is, along with a few thousand Chinese in every age category and only slightly fewer foreigners. I am convinced that the photos of previous hero quests must have been taken on other stretches of the wall, not this one – Badaling – because the holiday pictures I have seen rather gave me the impression that a walk along the wall was a solitary amble rather than a mass movement of people. The wall, the crowds or the now grey and grimy color of the stone itself notwithstanding, was magnificent. Stretch after stretch of solid, precisely stacked slabs, in a weaving but unwavering line across an impossible landscape of peaked hills and steep slopes. Parts of the wall are now too expensive to repair, apparently, despite the obvious fortune to be made in tourist receipts. How then did they manage to build such an edifice in the first place? Moreover, unlike the feeling that obligatory visits to historic sites sometimes induce, I found it impossible to be bored in this place. The high winds that day seemed to confirm that the elements themselves were moved. We had earlier visited the Ming Dynasty tombs and Sacred Way that were built to celebrate the accomplishments of that era’s Chinese rulers but these monuments, although impressive, paled in comparison to the physical legacy and tribute to a bygone people of the Great Wall of China.
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