The Wall and Other Things Deemed Great by China

Subtitle: Still learning what $399 gets you.

It seems the people of China have their own time and schedule — or maybe it’s just Rebecca. Yesterday was today’s itinerary. Today is tomorrow’s and tomorrow I presume we’ll cram in a bunch of stuff that we didn’t get done yesterday and today. (Side note – we learned that Rebecca should not have banned us from the bus yesterday so in the end, we blame her for our original tour of all things Beijing: from rags to riches.)

I start with Jade today, because even though we weren’t supposed to, we detoured to a Jade factory somewhat unexpectedly when Becky got a phone call. Jade is a thing here. Really a thing. It’s treated like a member of the family. It’s passed down from generation to generation. They don’t take it off. Ever. Until apparently you pass it down to the next generation. If you take if off and it breaks? You bury it. (I guess that means it’s dead.) If you give your family jade to a friend? It becomes angry jade. Curse on your house, bad juju kind of angry (but a great band name.) So I didn’t buy any jade today. It seemed like way too much pressure. The woman in the show room kept following us around. Clare said it was because I looked rich (she is still delirious from jet lag.) I’m wearing my if-I-did-yoga pants and a t-shirt from Kohls. It’s not even the J.Lo brand, so pretty sure we were tagged as potential lifters.

Jade is a rock, not a mineral. It’s cold to the touch and has a high pitched tone when you clink it (or I suppose when it crashes to the ground and screams like a little girl.) It’s made into many things, most notably, a happy Buddha — rub his belly for good luck. Or my favorite, the dragon. This isn’t just any dragon. This is a dragon that brings you good luck and fortune. It’s mouth is open (which you point facing out the window, because you want your riches to come from the outside.) It ‘consumes’ the fortunes and because of an interesting physical trait (no point of exit) the money just piles up inside. Sounds rather uncomfortable to me. You’re supposed to rub the butt of the dragon, again for good luck. Good luck not getting attacked by a backed up, angry jade dragon. The bigger the mouth, the bigger the ass, the more money. The more luck. As someone who has been accused of having both of these things (mouth and butt not money and luck,) I can’t say those two traits have netted me much of anything in the greenback arena. But perhaps not enough people have rubbed my butt.

After far too long at the Jade factory, we headed to the Great Wall. There are 21 million people living in Beijing. Roughly half of them were at the Wall today. That I expected. But why no one mentioned walking up the Wall is about a 45 degree angle hike? Not sure. It seems like important information. Maybe THAT’S the ancient Chinese secret, huh?

Determined to get to the top (of the section we visited) I immediately had PTSD and flashbacks to the best/worst thing I ever did: the dreaded 4-day trek up Machu Picchu. Thankfully, this time I could at least breathe. Feeling confident in ‘slow and steady wins the race,’ I soon realized there were 80 year old Chinese men and women cruising up and down with relative ease. I didn’t know whether to be motivated or humiliated by that. (That’s not true. It was humiliating.) An hour later, I arrived at the top.

Clare had been for probably the past 45 minutes, waiting patiently so someone could take her traditional headstand picture.

Let me tell you, she was a HIT with the Chinese folk. She very well may end up on a billboard or Chinese YouTube, so many of them were rushing to take her photo and video, and laughing with delight. (It is always pretty cool.)

The views from the top were fairly spectacular (Rebecca tried to convince us that today was cloudy. How can you tell?) We could have gotten a $200 roll of bamboo with our names and visitor number etched on it, stating that we are women for making it to the top. Pretty sure that’s wholly unnecessary. Our flushed cheeks and soaking wet shirts are all the proof we need. We celebrated our triumph at the bottom with a beer and some cheap souvenirs. (We let the creepy ones be.) I purchased a legit ball cap as the hair experiment is over. For anyone keeping track, it lasted six days from the salon. Six days, a rainy weekend in Seattle, an overseas plane ride, and generally humid days and nights. (We haven’t conquered either the room lights or AC unit.)

Fun facts: the wall is 3000 years old. It was started by the first emperor. There were 7 small kingdoms that fought with each other. Zhangfu means husband. But they shorten it to just ‘fu’ (call your spouse that out loud. I imagine it would be pretty funny: Hey you Fu! LOL.) These are random facts because Rebecca doesn’t project and the sound system on the bus is a Mr. Microphone plugged into a plastic Casio speaker. And it echos.

$399 people! $399.

Speaking of Rebecca — our certainty has increased to about 85% of her disdain for us. There was an optional show tonight — The Golden Mask Dynasty. “Number One show in Beijing.” Sure, but in what year? We decided to go and asked her of the possibility of getting tickets. She gave us a look and a shake of her head, and a vague response about “you should have bought in morning” with very little eye contact. That’s fine. We wanted to check with her first. Then we asked, can we buy our own? “Oh no no. They not selling anymore.” Not believing her, undeterred, and actually a little defiant, we sought and bought our own. Language barrier? Perhaps. But doubtful. Clare & Ann 1. Becky 0.

The show seemed to be a once fantastically synchronized feat of dance, acrobatics, and aerial stunts. If you were expecting something similar to the Olympics opening ceremony display, think instead your grade school band still learning to count out steps. It was visually stunning, I’ll give it that, including the use of live white peacocks perched atop female dancers’ heads and a raging on-stage flood.

I was much more entertained by the audience – a new cultural learning. Despite the warnings to not record, the second the curtain went up, so did all the smart phones. Talking during the performance? To each other in street voices or on the phone, accepting a call? If you guessed both, you’d be correct. (Yes I see the irony here. Solo shot first.)

Texting, email, really any activity requiring a mobile phone at full brightness is not only accepted, it’s how most people in attendance passed the time for an hour. It didn’t seem many people actually watched. I was beginning to think they brought in seat fillers to make the foreigners this was this season’s hottest ticket. At show’s end, there was less audience participation in the form of recording because with about 7 minutes left in to go, half the attendees simply stood up and left. Maybe they knew how it ended. Maybe they needed to get to a dinner reservation. I couldn’t really figure it out over all the talking.

It was a long bus day. We’re just happy to be getting transportation back to the correct hotel.

Final thoughts on today in food and other stuff:

Fish sticks and cake for breakfast. I mean, they were there for the taking.
Another lazy Susan feeding frenzy of “Chinese food” (or “food” for lunch.) Again, all very good! It’s only been two days, but this assertion that the food here is gross is lost on us. (Day 2: no runs. Score one for the Rindone women.)
Clare continues to try and learn to use chopsticks with her left hand. I explained she was having difficulty because they were a right handed set. …!
We found some fun grocery items.
All the buildings here seem to be the same color and mostly the same shape. Every now and then you get to see something awesome like this.
Didn’t expect to see an amusement park here.
There ARE Western toilets out in the wild. We managed today with only a couple squats and the rest sits. Tomorrow will be worrisome after today’s quad workout.