Gumi is a good-sized Korean city (don't ask me exactly how big - it had a lot of high rises, so to this country girl that equals big city!). The window in Mark and Kristen's living room though overlooks a highway running in front of tree-covered hills on the outskirts of the city. We had noticed that the cities were built exclusively in the valleys of these hills, making for some interesting contrast between wooded hills and concrete jungles. Mark and Kristen explained that some Buddhist idea or tradition kept people from building on hills. As in China everything was cold, brown, and barren, and I spent more than one outing wishing I had a few more layers of clothing to warm up with.
Because we were there during several week days, John and I had to entertain ourselves a bit while Mark and Kristen were slaving away teaching their classes. One of the days we did get to go in and see the place where they work, which was fun. Mark and Kristen are both teaching English at a Korean run school. Kids of all ages come in their pressed plaid uniforms for their English classes, which is above and beyond their required school curriculum. The school is called "Wonderland", and the décor matches it's name. We entered the school, on the third floor of a high rise, and removed our shoes as all the proper young Koreans do. The walls were covered with posters, there were bookshelves filled with a variety of English kids books, little painted footprints marked off the pathway to the bathroom and the different classrooms, and the walls and floor were painted a variety of colors. You almost did expect to see a Cheshire cat peak out at you from around the corner.
Mark and Kristen wanted to show us around their workplace, but of course their real motive was to show off Tikvah. She was immediately a big hit among Mark and Kristen's Korean coworkers. One particularly animated young lady exclaimed over and over in a high pitched voice about how cute Tikvah was, her pink miniskirt bouncing with her excitement and exuberance. The lady got down on Tikvah's level to get a better look, and soon produced a sucker from another room for her to enjoy. Tikvah took it all in with her usual coolness, though she did smile and grab the sucker without parental prodding.
It was early in the afternoon, and classes had not yet resumed post-lunch time. The classes at that time were populated by younger students, and the place was a cacophony of childish laughter. We wandered around to the different rooms, and the children practiced their varying English skills on us. Some simply said "hello!", some just pointed and laughed, other's were so bold as to ask, "what's you're name?" It was fun to see Mark and Kristen in their niche, and it gave us a healthy respect for their work there. Once we had left the noisy building, John confided "I sure don't think I could handle that!" But Mark and Kristen seem to be genuinely enjoying their work and the kids that they teach. And the kids seem to be enjoying them as well.
We made the rounds while Tikvah stared at kids and sucked on her sucker. When we reached the front desk again, another adoring Korean lady offered her a little snack, and Tikvah promptly tossed away her remaining sucker and took the new gift. We bid Mark and Kristen farewell and headed back toward their apartment, which was less than a 10 minute walk away.
Back in the apartment Tikvah resumed her cat torturing. Mark and Kristen had recently acquired a kitten, which was quite energetic and very unsure of Tikvah when we first arrived. And rightfully so - Tikvah would pet or grab or hit the cat whenever it was close enough. But after the first day or so, the cat seemed to resign itself to it's fate, and often calmly allowed Tikvah to do as she pleased without suffering retaliation. Mark and Kristen marveled at how calm and quiet the cat was when they would get home. Apparently it would usually bounce off the walls when they returned to the apartment. Tikvah and the cat did a good job of wearing each other out!
John and I returned to reading and the computer. We were perhaps a little too enthralled with the wonderland of free, fast internet. In PNG we had good internet, but we paid for our usage depending on how many megabytes of information we downloaded per month. That meant we often browsed the internet with pictures turned off and that we never looked at videos or listened to music. We had had free internet at my friend's house in China too, but there certain websites (like Facebook and Youtube) are blocked by the government, so we didn't have access to everything. Here in Korea, however, internet access was back to 'normal', and suddenly there were a thousand Youtube videos we needed to watch and so many craft sites and Amazon deals that I really needed to check out. We figured the internet would eventually lose its luster in our eyes, but for now we indulged a bit. But since John had sold his computer in Ukarumpa, we only had one with us and therefore had to take turns on the internet binge. Which was probably a good thing, altogether. We did have a few moments of, "c'mon, you don't need to watch that motorcycle video right now - I want to play my Wordchuck game!!!" We managed to get by without hurting each other though.
The other great wonderland, of both China and Korea, was the food. We ate more things which we couldn't begin to identify than we had in our lives put together, I'm sure. Things on noodles, things on rice, meats and roots and leaves cooked in spice. If you were one of those kids who couldn't stand to eat anything that looked weird, then the dishes served in these countries would have been your worst nightmare come to life (well, fortunately everything we ate was dead!). John and I enjoyed it for the most part, and Tikvah did valiantly well all things considered, though she probably lived largely on rice when we went out for a meal.
One evening after Mark and Kristen got off work, we all went to one of their favorite restaurants. It was a cozy place with wooden floors, a traditional seating area where the tables were on the floor as well as an area with taller tables and chairs. Each table was equipped with a smoldering pit of coals at it's center and a star-trek like vacuum tube hanging above it from the ceiling. On top of the coals was a hot, round, griddle on which each customer could cook their own meat, brought raw on a plate from the kitchen. It would have been a very enjoyable place to eat had Tikvah not decided from the get-go that she was extremely hungry and nothing was going to make her happy.
I offered her rice, and her response was "BAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!" I offered her soup, and her response was "BAAAAHHHHHHH!!!" All accompanied by the classic throwing back of the head in utter disdain. And while she was screaming at everything I offered, she was at the same time of course grabbing for everything in sight. And there was plenty for her to grab. The Koreans apparently like variety, and doing lots of dishes. The meals were comprised of a myriad of small plates and bowls each containing something different. At another restaurant John counted 45 different dishes on the table at once!
So Tikvah wailed and grabbed and wailed again, till she managed to snag a bit of kimchee, that infamous Korean staple which is fermented spicy cabbage. We each held our breath as Tikvah nonchalantly stuck the spiciness into her mouth, waiting for the scream of anger and horror to erupt. We waited a few seconds, and then a few more, but there was no reaction. She munched and chewed, with not the slightest bit of annoyance registering on her face. A few more chews and then she unceremoniously put the kimchee down and looked around for something else to eat. I was amazed! Somehow this child who had blown her top at every little thing managed to chew a very spicy piece of food which many non-Koreans dislike, and she didn't even blink! Strange creatures, children are. She did settle down somewhat, once Uncle Mark got the meat cooked and she found the metal chopsticks to play with. She may have got the kimchee thing down, but never really got the hang of the whole chopstick thing. Several times she would stab a bowl of rice with one chopstick and then be surprised when she didn't get any rice to her mouth.
Overall I really enjoyed the food in China and Korea both. It was incredibly unique, and I was constantly amazed at how completely different their food culture is from our meat, bread, and potatoes heritage in the West. Kristen said most Koreans don't even own an oven, and the one in their apartment was more akin to a large toaster oven. And I thought my oven in Ukarumpa was small! Compared to hers it was luxury size! But though I did enjoy the food, I've decided I probably won't be seeking out Asian restaurants here in the US anytime soon. At least, not until September-ish. Hopefully after the baby is born my tastebuds will be back to normal and I can enjoy Asian cuisine a little more.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
American We Are
Monday morning we started to walk out to the main road near my friend's apartment (in China). She had to head off to school, so her husband was going to accompany us to the bus station and make sure we got off to Beijing. "What luck!" we thought, when a taxi stopped right in front of their apartment building. We were all ready to get in, but after a little bit of dialogue the taxi drove off. Apparently, we had "too much luggage". I remembered my sister's experience in Europe, where she nearly missed a train while dragging her large suitcase and some kindly gentleman poked fun at her American habit of packing too much stuff. It seemed the Chinese would have a similar opinion. Two or three more times the same thing happened - a taxi would pull over for us, see our luggage, and drive away. Finally my friend and her husband enlisted the help of a young Chinese lady who was waiting for a bus, and together the three of them managed to cajole a driver into letting us and our apparently massive amount of luggage into his car. A short drive later and we were at the bus station. My friend's husband procured our tickets for us, and soon we were on our way back to Beijing.
The airport in Beijing is an absolutely massive structure. We first got off at terminal 2, which was an international terminal. But when we couldn't see our flight listed on any of the screens, we double checked our itinerary and realized we should have gone to terminal 3. No matter - we had enough time, and it was a simple shuttle ride to get to the correct terminal. We got on the bus, and I was expecting a short ride of a few minutes to get to the terminal. If I hadn't known for sure that this was an airport shuttle to terminal 3 though, I would have thought we were on the wrong bus! The ride was 10 or 15 minutes long and it seemed like we were driving far away from the airport. But sure enough, we finally stopped in front of the enormous terminal, most likely improved with the coming of the Olympics several years ago.
Even though it was 2 1/2 hours before our flight when we checked in, we were informed that our flight had already been delayed by 45 minutes. Sigh! My friend had confirmed John's suspicion that the Chinese airlines are indeed infamous for delayed flights. Well, at least now we had time to catch a bite to eat before our plane took off. After a dizzying series of escalators and shuttles, we finally reached the area where our gate was located. And quite providentially, there was a Pizza Hut there in the airport. I was thrilled! In PNG there are no pizza restaurants of course, and I'd recently been craving a good Pizza Hut fix. We sat down in the booth and opted for the most standard pizza we could find on the menu, skipping over those laden with shrimp and other toppings seemingly incongruent with my idea of pizza. And boy, did that pepperoni pizza taste good! I marveled that even here in China it could taste exactly like I remembered Pizza Hut pizzas tasting back home. Ahh, the wonders of American exports, spreading our unhealthy eating habits to all these poor skinny nations around the world! Anyway, the familiar taste made this pregnant tummy very happy.
Our flight to Seoul took off at least an hour after the scheduled time, but we still had enough time to catch the bus once we landed in Korea. We settled into some rather comfortable seats for the 3 or so hour journey to Gumi, South Korea, where John's sister and her husband live. I didn't pay much attention to the Korean man with a bag of Dunkin Donuts (those American exports again!) sitting across the aisle from us. He seemed plenty busy with his computer and other electronic gadgets. But Tikvah wasted no time in giving him some rather endearing smiles. And sure enough, they proved quite effective. The next thing I knew, the man was handing Tikvah a chocolate donut hole from his bag, which she was more than happy to receive. I just laughed and told her to say thank you, shaking my head at her wheedling abilities. After Tikvah finished her chocolate treat, she again turned to her recent benefactor with an outstretched hand. I didn't think much about it, and turned for a few seconds to talk to John. But sure enough, when I turned my head back toward Tikvah, she held a new glazed treat in her greedy little hand. I was thoroughly impressed! At this rate, I wouldn't have to feed her the whole time we would be in Korea. She'd take care of herself just fine!
We were happy to see John's sister, Kristen, and her husband, Mark when we reached the bus station. After I changed a rather stinky diaper, whose smell we had endured for the last half hour of our bus ride, we all headed out to grab a taxi. Once again our piles of luggage proved an issue, but thankfully one guy had a big trunk and we were able to stuff our things and the 5 of us into one taxi. We reached their apartment building, which doesn't have the luxury of an elevator, but fortunately they only live on the 4th floor. But, they explained, their apartment number was 501, because the number 4 is bad luck in Korea. I had actually remembered that random fact from when we first went to Ukarumpa. During an orientation to the Ukarumpa center our instructors were explaining the emergency numbers - 4222 was fire, 4333 was for security incidents, and 4444 was for a medical emergency. A friend going through the orientation with us had spent several years teaching English in Korea, and he asked if anyone had thought about the fact that '4' was the "number of death" in Korean culture. Ooops - even with a rather large Korean contingent on center, no one had made that connection before apparently. I'm sure I wouldn't appreciate dialing the "number of death" when making a call for medical emergency!
Mark and Kristen fed us a tasty supper and then we all crashed for the night. And once again, John and I crashed onto a mattress that had about as much give as the concrete floor beneath the bed. Rats! A few more days of tired bones for us. But Mark and Kristen have only been in Korea for a few months, whereas my friend in China has been there for a few years. So Kristen actually thought to mention the mattress and apologize for it's lack of comfort. "Our mattress is the same way," she assured us, so we knew they weren't giving us the 'unwanted company mattress' or something. "Sometimes I wake up with a sore back because the bed is so hard!" she said. We survived, but I have to admit that the first bed we slept on once back in America felt quite heavenly.
The airport in Beijing is an absolutely massive structure. We first got off at terminal 2, which was an international terminal. But when we couldn't see our flight listed on any of the screens, we double checked our itinerary and realized we should have gone to terminal 3. No matter - we had enough time, and it was a simple shuttle ride to get to the correct terminal. We got on the bus, and I was expecting a short ride of a few minutes to get to the terminal. If I hadn't known for sure that this was an airport shuttle to terminal 3 though, I would have thought we were on the wrong bus! The ride was 10 or 15 minutes long and it seemed like we were driving far away from the airport. But sure enough, we finally stopped in front of the enormous terminal, most likely improved with the coming of the Olympics several years ago.
Even though it was 2 1/2 hours before our flight when we checked in, we were informed that our flight had already been delayed by 45 minutes. Sigh! My friend had confirmed John's suspicion that the Chinese airlines are indeed infamous for delayed flights. Well, at least now we had time to catch a bite to eat before our plane took off. After a dizzying series of escalators and shuttles, we finally reached the area where our gate was located. And quite providentially, there was a Pizza Hut there in the airport. I was thrilled! In PNG there are no pizza restaurants of course, and I'd recently been craving a good Pizza Hut fix. We sat down in the booth and opted for the most standard pizza we could find on the menu, skipping over those laden with shrimp and other toppings seemingly incongruent with my idea of pizza. And boy, did that pepperoni pizza taste good! I marveled that even here in China it could taste exactly like I remembered Pizza Hut pizzas tasting back home. Ahh, the wonders of American exports, spreading our unhealthy eating habits to all these poor skinny nations around the world! Anyway, the familiar taste made this pregnant tummy very happy.
Our flight to Seoul took off at least an hour after the scheduled time, but we still had enough time to catch the bus once we landed in Korea. We settled into some rather comfortable seats for the 3 or so hour journey to Gumi, South Korea, where John's sister and her husband live. I didn't pay much attention to the Korean man with a bag of Dunkin Donuts (those American exports again!) sitting across the aisle from us. He seemed plenty busy with his computer and other electronic gadgets. But Tikvah wasted no time in giving him some rather endearing smiles. And sure enough, they proved quite effective. The next thing I knew, the man was handing Tikvah a chocolate donut hole from his bag, which she was more than happy to receive. I just laughed and told her to say thank you, shaking my head at her wheedling abilities. After Tikvah finished her chocolate treat, she again turned to her recent benefactor with an outstretched hand. I didn't think much about it, and turned for a few seconds to talk to John. But sure enough, when I turned my head back toward Tikvah, she held a new glazed treat in her greedy little hand. I was thoroughly impressed! At this rate, I wouldn't have to feed her the whole time we would be in Korea. She'd take care of herself just fine!
We were happy to see John's sister, Kristen, and her husband, Mark when we reached the bus station. After I changed a rather stinky diaper, whose smell we had endured for the last half hour of our bus ride, we all headed out to grab a taxi. Once again our piles of luggage proved an issue, but thankfully one guy had a big trunk and we were able to stuff our things and the 5 of us into one taxi. We reached their apartment building, which doesn't have the luxury of an elevator, but fortunately they only live on the 4th floor. But, they explained, their apartment number was 501, because the number 4 is bad luck in Korea. I had actually remembered that random fact from when we first went to Ukarumpa. During an orientation to the Ukarumpa center our instructors were explaining the emergency numbers - 4222 was fire, 4333 was for security incidents, and 4444 was for a medical emergency. A friend going through the orientation with us had spent several years teaching English in Korea, and he asked if anyone had thought about the fact that '4' was the "number of death" in Korean culture. Ooops - even with a rather large Korean contingent on center, no one had made that connection before apparently. I'm sure I wouldn't appreciate dialing the "number of death" when making a call for medical emergency!
Mark and Kristen fed us a tasty supper and then we all crashed for the night. And once again, John and I crashed onto a mattress that had about as much give as the concrete floor beneath the bed. Rats! A few more days of tired bones for us. But Mark and Kristen have only been in Korea for a few months, whereas my friend in China has been there for a few years. So Kristen actually thought to mention the mattress and apologize for it's lack of comfort. "Our mattress is the same way," she assured us, so we knew they weren't giving us the 'unwanted company mattress' or something. "Sometimes I wake up with a sore back because the bed is so hard!" she said. We survived, but I have to admit that the first bed we slept on once back in America felt quite heavenly.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
The Greatest of Walls
My friend in China had gone there to teach at an international school soon after finishing college. She met a guy, of course, and this pretty midwestern American managed to charm her way into the heart of an Australian physics teacher. Not that she has a hard time charming anyone - she's a fun, dynamic, and driven woman who I'm proud to call my friend. Her husband was a very pleasant fellow himself, and John and I really enjoyed wandering around China with them and chatting through the evenings about life.
We had arrived at their place on a Friday, so we did a little wandering around on Saturday through a "traditional" area of the city. We got stared at quite a bit, especially with Tikvah in tow. Over and over my friend would say "they're saying she's cute!" when we passed strangers on the street. I don’t know how many phones Tikvah's picture ended up on, but she might as well have been a celebrity for all the attention she got. Ladies in a shop full of snacks gave her free food to chew on, parents took pictures of her with their kids like she was a princess at Disney World, and taxi drivers would turn around in their seats at stoplights to coo at her. Incredible.
Anyway, we wandered a bit, and I bought some cheap wooden chopsticks as my China souvenir. We climbed a drum tower which had a large bell-looking object at the top with a suspended log with which to make it sound. My friend's husband gingerly pushed the log into the 'bell', which produced a pleasant and resounding gong. Afraid that perhaps some of the incomprehensible Chinese characters had been warning of some terrible consequence of ringing the gong, we quickly retreated down the many stairs. But shortly after exiting the main room, a Chinese man behind us thrust the log into the gong, making a much louder and more pervasive tone, as if to say "let me show you silly foreigners how this is done!". Well, if there was a curse associated with ringing that gong, we could rest in the knowledge that he was going to get it worse!
Outside the drum tower, quite a crowd was gathered around a large exercise mat. On the mat were two older Chinese gentlemen in a physical joust that resembled some form of judo. The whole scene looked rather quaint with the traditional Chinese architecture all around as a backdrop.
On Sunday John and I accompanied our friends to their church. It was an international group that met in a hotel auditorium. And when I say international, I'm not exaggerating. There were Asians, Americans, Europeans, and quite a contingent from various African countries. There were no Chinese though, according to government regulations. In fact there was a note on the power point that informed everyone who entered that they must have a foreign passport in order to worship with that group. It was a very poignant reminder of the spiritual condition and governmental control of the country.
In the middle of the service, some rather loud banging noises started resounding through the hotel, loud enough that I was a little afraid of what might be happening. But no one else in the room seemed bothered, and the preacher kept right on talking as if nothing was going on. I turned to my friend with a questioning look, and she said to me, "fireworks." Ahhhh, yes. We had seen some fireworks while at their apartment, and she had explained that people here set them off for anything and everything. Massive, ear piercing fireworks that would be illegal to buy in the US let alone to set off in the middle of an overly crowded city. In fact, she said, if we looked we could see burns on the spare bedroom window where a misguided firework had made it's mark, while she and her husband were watching! Now that would be a bit of a fright!
Monday was our last full day in China, so my friend took a 'personal day' from her work at the school and took us to see, of course, the Great Wall. We rode for about 3 hours out into the country, away from that pervasive 'fog' of pollution, to one of the less visited sections of that famous structure. So far all we had seen of China had been flat, but after an hour or two of driving some mountains finally appeared on the horizon. They weren't fantastically tall and impressive, but they were lovely. We stopped at a rest stop about 2 hours in, and I got my first experience with a genuine Chinese 'squatty potty'. It was rather interesting - simply a ceramic 'sink' in the brick floor with a flush hole in one end and treads on either side so your shoes could grip. As my friend had warned it was a BYOTP service (Bring Your Own Toilet Paper), but all in all it wasn't a terribly unnerving experience. Rather, I wondered if such a public toilet wasn't much more sanitary than ours in the US, whose seats are graced by so many bare bottoms in a day. Hmmm. Anyway, the Great Wall…
As the landscape changed and we entered the mountains, we noticed that the faces around us changed as well. The Chinese of the countryside had a distinctly unique look about them compared to the Chinese we'd seen in the cities, even to our untrained foreign eyes. Finally we could see the Wall on a mountain above us, but it seemed we would have a bit of trouble getting there. The entrance to the road up was completely blocked by a crowd of people who were calmly conducting their market business as our driver honked obnoxiously and accelerated slowly through the scene. A few more minutes of driving and we were at the base of the Great Wall entrance. Stepping out of the car, we wondered how we would make it in the cold mountain air that invaded our layers of clothing. But we breathed deep of the clear mountain air and started up the seemingly endless stairs that led to the Wall.
I was well out of breath by the time we finally reached the actual wall, but was excited to see this amazing place that I'd only seen in pictures. Most of what we saw that day was a restoration of the original wall, but it was fascinating nonetheless. As far as grandeur it was not particularly impressive. It was maybe 15 to 20 feet wide and only 20 or 30 feet tall at the highest places. It was a rather simple stone structure - just a wall with a stone rail on either side, or on only one side in some places. Dotted at intervals along the wall were small towers, which consisted of an enclosed area with a second story. The wall ascended and descended with the landscape, sometimes simply sloped, sometimes with short stairs, and sometimes with very steep stairs that made me dizzy.
The sky above us was blue and sunny, and in no time the exercise of walking up and down the stairs made us as warm as we needed. John, who was carrying Tikvah, even stripped off a couple of layers to keep from overheating. The landscape around us was a mix of brown and barren hills, empty terraced gardens, and scrubby mountain brush and trees. We tried to imagine Mongolian renegades sneaking across the countryside while Chinese night watchmen attempted to keep from freezing to death as they manned their patrol. I definitely didn't envy the plight of either party!
One or two sections of the wall were composed of rough yellowish stones, a stark contrast to the smooth gray stone that made up the majority of the wall we had walked. These small sections were part of the original wall, and it was incredible to think that we were touching a bit of ancient Chinese history.
At one point John let Tikvah out of her carrier, and she gleefully frolicked her way down the wall. Finally we reached the exit of the wall, and I gingerly descended the trail down to the road with legs that felt incredibly similar to jello. On the ride back to my friend's apartment, John and Tikvah and I all three slept shamelessly in the backseat of the car. It hadn't been an incredibly taxing hike, but it was enough to wear us out for a while. And I realized how out of shape my leg muscles were, as going up and down stairs hurt quite a bit for the next three days. But the experience was more than worth the discomfort. My only regret was that Tikvah probably won't remember seeing the wall, nor will her little sibling who I carried in my tummy. But such is the plight of many missionary kids, I fear. Still, I would imagine that the things they experience, even before they are old enough to recall them later, are shaping and informing the people they will become. And if that is the case, I'm thinking we may have to combat an inflated sense of importance in Tikvah's future… :)
We had arrived at their place on a Friday, so we did a little wandering around on Saturday through a "traditional" area of the city. We got stared at quite a bit, especially with Tikvah in tow. Over and over my friend would say "they're saying she's cute!" when we passed strangers on the street. I don’t know how many phones Tikvah's picture ended up on, but she might as well have been a celebrity for all the attention she got. Ladies in a shop full of snacks gave her free food to chew on, parents took pictures of her with their kids like she was a princess at Disney World, and taxi drivers would turn around in their seats at stoplights to coo at her. Incredible.
Anyway, we wandered a bit, and I bought some cheap wooden chopsticks as my China souvenir. We climbed a drum tower which had a large bell-looking object at the top with a suspended log with which to make it sound. My friend's husband gingerly pushed the log into the 'bell', which produced a pleasant and resounding gong. Afraid that perhaps some of the incomprehensible Chinese characters had been warning of some terrible consequence of ringing the gong, we quickly retreated down the many stairs. But shortly after exiting the main room, a Chinese man behind us thrust the log into the gong, making a much louder and more pervasive tone, as if to say "let me show you silly foreigners how this is done!". Well, if there was a curse associated with ringing that gong, we could rest in the knowledge that he was going to get it worse!
Outside the drum tower, quite a crowd was gathered around a large exercise mat. On the mat were two older Chinese gentlemen in a physical joust that resembled some form of judo. The whole scene looked rather quaint with the traditional Chinese architecture all around as a backdrop.
On Sunday John and I accompanied our friends to their church. It was an international group that met in a hotel auditorium. And when I say international, I'm not exaggerating. There were Asians, Americans, Europeans, and quite a contingent from various African countries. There were no Chinese though, according to government regulations. In fact there was a note on the power point that informed everyone who entered that they must have a foreign passport in order to worship with that group. It was a very poignant reminder of the spiritual condition and governmental control of the country.
In the middle of the service, some rather loud banging noises started resounding through the hotel, loud enough that I was a little afraid of what might be happening. But no one else in the room seemed bothered, and the preacher kept right on talking as if nothing was going on. I turned to my friend with a questioning look, and she said to me, "fireworks." Ahhhh, yes. We had seen some fireworks while at their apartment, and she had explained that people here set them off for anything and everything. Massive, ear piercing fireworks that would be illegal to buy in the US let alone to set off in the middle of an overly crowded city. In fact, she said, if we looked we could see burns on the spare bedroom window where a misguided firework had made it's mark, while she and her husband were watching! Now that would be a bit of a fright!
Monday was our last full day in China, so my friend took a 'personal day' from her work at the school and took us to see, of course, the Great Wall. We rode for about 3 hours out into the country, away from that pervasive 'fog' of pollution, to one of the less visited sections of that famous structure. So far all we had seen of China had been flat, but after an hour or two of driving some mountains finally appeared on the horizon. They weren't fantastically tall and impressive, but they were lovely. We stopped at a rest stop about 2 hours in, and I got my first experience with a genuine Chinese 'squatty potty'. It was rather interesting - simply a ceramic 'sink' in the brick floor with a flush hole in one end and treads on either side so your shoes could grip. As my friend had warned it was a BYOTP service (Bring Your Own Toilet Paper), but all in all it wasn't a terribly unnerving experience. Rather, I wondered if such a public toilet wasn't much more sanitary than ours in the US, whose seats are graced by so many bare bottoms in a day. Hmmm. Anyway, the Great Wall…
As the landscape changed and we entered the mountains, we noticed that the faces around us changed as well. The Chinese of the countryside had a distinctly unique look about them compared to the Chinese we'd seen in the cities, even to our untrained foreign eyes. Finally we could see the Wall on a mountain above us, but it seemed we would have a bit of trouble getting there. The entrance to the road up was completely blocked by a crowd of people who were calmly conducting their market business as our driver honked obnoxiously and accelerated slowly through the scene. A few more minutes of driving and we were at the base of the Great Wall entrance. Stepping out of the car, we wondered how we would make it in the cold mountain air that invaded our layers of clothing. But we breathed deep of the clear mountain air and started up the seemingly endless stairs that led to the Wall.
I was well out of breath by the time we finally reached the actual wall, but was excited to see this amazing place that I'd only seen in pictures. Most of what we saw that day was a restoration of the original wall, but it was fascinating nonetheless. As far as grandeur it was not particularly impressive. It was maybe 15 to 20 feet wide and only 20 or 30 feet tall at the highest places. It was a rather simple stone structure - just a wall with a stone rail on either side, or on only one side in some places. Dotted at intervals along the wall were small towers, which consisted of an enclosed area with a second story. The wall ascended and descended with the landscape, sometimes simply sloped, sometimes with short stairs, and sometimes with very steep stairs that made me dizzy.
The sky above us was blue and sunny, and in no time the exercise of walking up and down the stairs made us as warm as we needed. John, who was carrying Tikvah, even stripped off a couple of layers to keep from overheating. The landscape around us was a mix of brown and barren hills, empty terraced gardens, and scrubby mountain brush and trees. We tried to imagine Mongolian renegades sneaking across the countryside while Chinese night watchmen attempted to keep from freezing to death as they manned their patrol. I definitely didn't envy the plight of either party!
One or two sections of the wall were composed of rough yellowish stones, a stark contrast to the smooth gray stone that made up the majority of the wall we had walked. These small sections were part of the original wall, and it was incredible to think that we were touching a bit of ancient Chinese history.
At one point John let Tikvah out of her carrier, and she gleefully frolicked her way down the wall. Finally we reached the exit of the wall, and I gingerly descended the trail down to the road with legs that felt incredibly similar to jello. On the ride back to my friend's apartment, John and Tikvah and I all three slept shamelessly in the backseat of the car. It hadn't been an incredibly taxing hike, but it was enough to wear us out for a while. And I realized how out of shape my leg muscles were, as going up and down stairs hurt quite a bit for the next three days. But the experience was more than worth the discomfort. My only regret was that Tikvah probably won't remember seeing the wall, nor will her little sibling who I carried in my tummy. But such is the plight of many missionary kids, I fear. Still, I would imagine that the things they experience, even before they are old enough to recall them later, are shaping and informing the people they will become. And if that is the case, I'm thinking we may have to combat an inflated sense of importance in Tikvah's future… :)
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