Sunday, August 23, 2009

8/06/2009

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8/06/2009

Mom and I went to see the Great Wall of China! In fact, we not only saw it, but hiked five miles of it!
This was... I'd say about as easy as it sounds, but I'm not sure how easy you think it sounds. It was in the blazing sun, and oh my god, are there a ton of steps on that thing or WHAT. We went through 26 watchtowers. We hiked from Jin Shan Ling to Si Ma Tai, which is considered a less-touristy part of the Great Wall (that still has tour groups from hostels going there). We could definitely see why; parts of it were in disrepair, falling apart, and so on. I didn't mind, though, because that certainly made it more authentic. The views from either side were AMAZING, too. I imagine that once I post this on my blog, here is where I will put the pictures that my mother and I took.


moms visit and china 293 moms visit and china 289 STAR

moms visit and china 280

Once we got farther along from the Jin Shan Ling side and towards the Si Ma Tai side, there were lots of work crews there, replacing crumbling stones and stairs and whatnot. So I guess in a few years, this are of the Great Wall will be fixed up as well, so that it too can be overloaded with massive amounts of tourists. While there were a lot of tourists here, it wasn't like packed or anything. We could hike the thing without feeling claustrophobic or anything, sometimes we couldn't really see many people around.
Though I mostly liked the disrepair, one part was pretty terrifying! Look what I had to navigate:

Great Wall 2

You maybe can't quite tell, but you can't just jump *down* from there-- you have to sort of jump to the side. If you go to the wrong side, you could very easily slip, fall, and die. At least, that's what my mom had to say. But what's life without a little adventure? I jumped face forward, with a Chinese lady grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the side I needed to go. I banged my knee, but it was just a surface bruise, it didn't hurt as I walked. My mom couldn't look down as she went, so she went backwards, legs (and backside) first. The Chinese lady, old and tiny though she was, somehow managed to heave my mom to the side, too. There was a lot of strength in that little body! I wish I'd gotten a picture, but alas.
This lady had a pretty clever setup, truth to tell. See, there are people (mostly women) selling things all along the Great Wall. Some souvenirs, fans and t-shirts and knick-nacks, and also some very useful things (like cold water [we always checked to make sure it was sealed], Coca-cola, etc).

Anyway, mostly these salesladies just have to compete with each other as you pass. This one, however, very cleverly set up her station right after that jump. So she helped you out and you're really grateful to her because, while you PROBABLY would have lived without her help, your chances of being very harmed would have been greatly increased. So when she-- a bit less pushily than the other salesladies-- offers you things to buy-- well, you want to. She helped you out, dude. Buying a t-shirt-- especially when the price doesn't seem inflated compared to the other ladies-- kind of seems like the least you can do.
So yes, this was a very clever lady (and also, as I said, a deceptively strong one, physically speaking). Which is how I ended up with my "I Climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt!

(Most of the pictures of me were taken on my mom's camera. I'll add one of the t-shirt, soon, I promise!)

It's actually very comfy-- certainly feels like cotton-- and is miraculously good at not absorbing smells. And reminds me of my adrenaline-rushing jump every time I see it. All in all, definitely a good purchase.


So, back to the fact that it's a five mile hike. In the burning sun. China, especially that area, is HOT in the summer. Plus, we started our hike around 11 am, and were told that we had to be at the end point by 2:30 pm for the van to take us home-- a many-hour drive to Beijing, incidentally. For the latter half of the trip, my mom and I took them at their word, and were convinced we weren't going to make it. How were we ever going to make it back to Beijing? We pushed ourselves faster up those stairs. So, so many stairs.
But then you get to the bridge, across the lake, and you know that's close to the end. One more watchtower. We've done it... right?
Except that you're only at the 28th watchtower. There are two more. So you stagger into the second to last one, sit down for a moment, stagger out again, and then...
The stairs.
Oh, those stairs. Those long, those steep, those unexpected and arduous stairs.
How can I possibly express the despair, the hopelessness, the disbelief upon seeing that to finish, we had to go up THOSE STAIRS?
I really wish that I took a picture from the bottom of those stairs, looking up. That might capture some of the essence. Alas, the best I have is a picture from afar, from across the lake, before we knew that it was, in fact, not the tower at the bottom we had to reach, but the one half-way up:

Great Wall Steps


By this time it was, like, 2:15. My mom didn't think she could do it, so I said I'd climb the stairs and try to race to the van to tell them to wait, not to take off without her.
I crawled up those stairs. I couldn't climb them like a human being, I had to go on all fours, like an animal. But I got up them.
And at the end was a zip line! That was fun. Wish I could've gotten a picture, but since my mom wasn't with me, the mechanics didn't work out. Anyway, I put on the harness, they strapped me to a wire, and I slid across the lake and down to the bottom.
This was supposed to be the fastest way to get down. Easy for me to do, since I have no problem with heights*. Not, however, something that my mother would do. It would have been the fastest way to get to the van, except that just as I got to the bottom, the boat to take us across the lake was pulling away. There was only one boat, so I had to wait the full 15 minutes for it to come back.
My mother, who, having rested 10 minutes in the 29th tower slowly climbed the stairs and then, very sensibly, walked down the mountain to the van... actually arrived before me.
Whoops.

And of course, as we should have realized all along but we are too apt to take people at their word, we were far from the last people to arrive. The van waited until everyone was there, at 3 pm, before it left. Apparently last time the trip happened, they waited until 3:30. There was never any danger.
Anyway, tiring as it was, it was definitely a good day. Though I may forever refer to The Great Wall of China as, instead, The World's Biggest Stairmaster.



*There's a family story about a time my family and I visited, I believe, Martha's Vineyard when I was, oh, maybe 4 or 5 years old. We climbed to the top of the lighthouse, and my mom, who has a phobia of heights, was sitting on the floor, clutching the bars, rocking back and forth in terror. I, on the other hand, was eagerly bouncing all around the observation deck** exclaiming, "I want to order a pizza!! Can we order a pizza?!?"***

**which terrified her further, of course.
***luckily, I don't remember the disappointment of realizing that they didn't deliver to the top of lighthouses. I'm sure it was a traumatic realization, however.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

8/5/09

Blog
8/05/2009

My plans to blog my trip to China are thwarted by the fact that not only has China blocked Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, they've also blocked Blogspot. I got a computer geek with an SSH to an American computer (despite the fact that he's a Kiwi, go fig) to let me post notes to this effect on Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes I really wish I had some practical skills, so that I could do this SSH thing (or other cool geek get-around-filters things) during the rest of the trip. Well, practical skills besides analytical thinking, but you know what, sometimes that's not actually that practical when you're dealing with people.
Well, they haven't blocked google documents, so I'm still going to jot my thoughts down as we go. I'll hopefully post them (and some awesome pictures!) when I get back somewhere that doesn't try to strangle the Internet.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Korean Buddhist Reconstructionism

As my mother and I were wandering through Insa-dong today (a little shopping district in Seoul), we were delighted to see a demonstration of an ancient and revered tradition in Korea:

Traditional Construction

Street and building construction is a deeply spiritual and illustrious cultural custom here in Korea, so we were fascinated to see it in action right there on the street!

Traditional Cultural Construction 2

Of course, Insadong is a very touristy part of Seoul-- there's a Tourist Information booth right at the entrance to the street. It has little souvenir shops-- oh, not ones with crappy little plastic replicas or anything (at least, not all of them), not THOSE kinds of souvenirs. It's a genuinely nice place to shop, with lots of little crafts stores and art galleries all over the place, and if you're visiting Seoul it's definitely worth a visit. Nevertheless, it's a tourist spot. So Mom and I have the suspicion that in this particular case, the traditional culture street construction is there more as a novelty for tourists to observe than as a genuine expression of the custom. As you can see, some people even gathered around to cheer them on:

Traditional Cultural Construction 3

So to be honest we kind of wondering if these were actual laborers, or performers, possibly college students majoring in tourism. But either way we enjoyed the demonstration!

Traditional Cultural Construction has actually had far-reaching effects on the religion, values, and economy of South Korea. The practice here is known as "Reconstructionism" and it has become an important aspect of several sects of Korean Buddhism. Here's how it works:

Through the cities and towns of Korea, several buildings are known as Reconstruction Buildings. Some of these are inconsequential buildings, small homes or stores or whatever, while some are very important, such as city halls, opera halls, pretty much halls of all persuasions. Throughout the year, laborers and carpenters erect these establishments, setting the foundations, construction the frames, and so on, with engineers and craftsmen making sure that they are all built to the highest standards. Ideally it should take exactly one year, though for the smaller projects this is not strictly followed.

GuinsaOn the River



Then, right before the building is completed-- say there's one more board that needs to be put in place, or one more nail that needs to be hammered in, or one more stripe to be painted on a tiger demanding persimmons of passing maidens-- the building is destroyed!

There's a great celebration surrounding it. I've heard it's an awesome party, but sadly I haven't had the opportunity to experience it myself. I'd have gotten to if I'd stayed in Korea for the whole year, but alas, that's life.

The building demolition can happen in a variety of ways, depending on the type of building, the particular sect of Buddhist Reconstructionism to which the smashers adhere, and the aims of the ceremonial smashing. (Often prayers and requests from the ancestors are involved, particularly in the old days-- it's much like the sacrificial bull, really. Prayers for a plentiful cabbage harvest are common.) Sometimes dynamite is involved. In the grandest and most elaborate destructions, fireworks double as demolition bombs. They both destroy the building, and create very attractive patterns in the sky above! Apparently it's quite a sight to see, with spectators having no idea which way to look!

But of course it's very hard to set up. The juxtaposition of:
1. dynamite
2. fireworks
3. the flying slabs of wood, stone, and painted tiles, the flying components of ondols, known for regularly lighting palaces on fire even without the assistance of bombs, and, in the case of European-influenced construction, flying flying buttresses
and
4. large amounts of spectators who have often already consumed large amounts of soju

combine to make this otherwise awesome spectacle a public safety nightmare. (Although, shockingly, there has been only one known injury resulting from this method, back in 1873 when a 38-year-old cabbage farmer was hit in the head with a flying phoenix sculpture (ironically on fire) and was knocked out. When he awoke, he was convinced that he was a 23-year-old, prodigiously accomplished musician named Stan. Though he actually had no more musical knowledge or talent than one would expect from a 38-year-old cabbage farmer, he made a very comfortable living as a musician, owing to the fact that Koreans from all over the country wanted to see whether or not he had, during this holy ceremony, miraculously learned to play the gayageum. Apparently word of mouth was not a sufficient deterrent, as he had an audience for the rest of his life.)

Since the dynamite variety is dangerous there are other demolition ceremonies. Almost as much fun (so I've heard) are the versions where everyone just grabs a sledgehammer and goes crazy!

The next day, after all the parties on the rubble (as noted above, lots of soju is involved), everyone clears away the debris, and the process begins anew.

Many palaces have a designated hall specifically for this purpose, so that traditional construction is in progress within palace walls all year round. In some palaces, such as Gyeongbuk Palace, the practice is so revered that it is the Main Hall which serves this purpose. At the National Palace Museum of Korea, we saw scrolls preserved that were lists of all the Construction Managers who worked on the Reconstruction of the Main Hall of Gyeongbuk. It was a very honorable position (obviously, or else it wouldn't be immortalized in such a famous museum!).

in Korea 016


The idea behind Buddhist Korean Reconstructionism is, I suppose, that the journey is more important than the destination, and that the work itself should be joyful, rather than for material gain. Tibetan monks practice sandpainting (you may have heard of this practice among Native Americans as well), where they create beautiful, intricate designs with sand, and then wipe them out of existence when they are done. As this practice has migrated its way across China, and then down through North Korea, this has evolved from sandpainting to building and street construction-- but the basic philosophy remains the same.

Buddhist Korean Reconstructionism has also been great for the economy, because people always have jobs! Construction and construction-related jobs are extremely easy to get because it's never ending! Carpenters, building contractors, architects-- it's considered a sign of wealth and class if the buildings have a new design each time you build them--painters, roofers, people who construct tiles, people who refurbish the destroyed buildings so that the materials can be recycled... the list goes on and on, and this is a huge fuel for the economy.

North Korea's destitution is largely considered to be due to the fact that they disavowed Reconstructionism when they became communist.