Day 6 – Great Wall, Ming Tombs, National Day

Great Wall of China

Today, October 1, is National Day in China. In honor of the day when Mao declared China to be a Republic, they always have a celebration but every ten years they do a special large military parade and as this was the 70th anniversary another large celebration was planned. I think there was something like 300 tanks and 150 airplanes in the parade with a special emphasis on new digital weapons. The parade was at 10am and there was an evening celebration with fireworks at 8 pm, but really there were things like speeches going on all day. We spent the day outside of Beijing but we did watch the evening celebration on TV. It was very comparable to an Olympic Opening Ceremony.

Great Wall Rising Through the Mountains

The entire downtown area (inside the second Ring Road) was blocked off to traffic, subway stops were closed and pedestrian access was severely limited. I am saying this in order to explain why we had to leave the city at 6 am because access got even tighter as the day went on. We were lucky as Yo Yo and her driver picked us up at the hotel while everyone else had to do substantial walks to get outside the ring. In any case, we left Beijing early in the morning and headed to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It is about an hour’s drive to this section of the wall and therefore it is less crowded that other sections closer to Beijing. It has another advantage in that there is a cable car that takes you up. About $15 but well worth it because it is so steep. We could barely make it to the cable car!!!

Jade Money Dragon Statues

Because we were so early, we almost had the wall to ourselves. It is truly a wonder of the world how that thing was ever built. Every stone was carried by hand and held in place by sticky rice and egg shells according to our guide. I suppose it has been restored because it looks like mortar today. She also said that 3 people died building it for every 1 meter of the wall and they are buried underneath it. Again, what? The views were amazing, chestnut trees and mountains surrounding the wall were so beautiful.

We had an obligatory stop at a Jade factory and Yo Yo told us the story of Pixiu (Pee-Shoe) who is called the Money Dragon because he eats money and jewelry. That is why he is always pictured with his mouth open. A statue of the Money Dragon is supposed to being wealth and preservation of wealth to the owner. To have good Feng Shui the statue needs to face a door or window. The story itself is a little off color so I’ll skip it but it was hilariously told by Yo Yo with some slightly misused American slang. As least I don’t think we talk about dragons as having a booty, do we?

Ming Tomb

Next stop was the tomb of one of the Ming Emperors. There are 13 of the Ming Emperors buried in this section about an hour outside of Beijing but only the tomb of Emperor Wanli has been excavated and that was in the 1950s. His name was Zhu Yijun and he ascended the throne at the age of ten and adopted the name Wanli when he became the 14th Emperor of the Ming dynasty. He ruled from 1572 to 1620. This is near the end of the Ming Dynasty and the later Mings are not well liked by the Chinese. The only nice thing the guide said about him was that he was the first emperor not to bury his concubines alive with him.

Soul Gate

The Soul Gate has an interesting story. It represents the portal between the earth and the afterlife so when you leave the tomb you must dust the evil spirits off yourself and shout “I’m Back” in Chinese as you pass through the portal to prevent them from following you back to earth so we all did that. Men must step with their left foot first and women their right. Why? According to the guide it is because women are always right. Really it is for Yin and Yang reasons.

Olympic Water Cube

After another tea demonstration we arrived at our hotel at about 5 pm. No sign of the parade but the city was closed down still. We did pass by the 2008 Olympic site along the way and saw the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. Michael Phelps won eight gold medals in the Water Cube. China is hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics and they are already building another large stadium in the area.

Having dinner was a little tricky tonight. Everything was closed early for the ceremony but we were able to walk around and find a nice place to eat. I had Peking Duck and Jeanne had Pork Dumplings. It was all very, very good.