The Awesome Great Wall

We walked the Great Wall of China Sunday and it was awesome.  We traveled, by taxi, about an hour and a half north of Beijing to Mutianyu, where we saw the wall high atop a mountain.  Everyone agreed it was an unforgettable experience.  Several students took cable cars up the side of the mountain to get to the wall and a few walked up to reach the Great Wall.  Most of the students walked the length of the restored section of the Wall at Mutianyu, where you could see for miles, on a warm May day.  Walking along the stone Wall, gazing at the countryside below and talking to other visitors from around the world, was impressive.
The experience of being on the wall is perhaps reflected by the ancient history of the structure.  Some of the oldest sections of the 1,500 mile long Great Wall were built in 200 or 300 BC.  It was during the short Qin Dynasty that the emperor wanted a defensive wall to protect China from Mongolia and Manchuria.  Much of the Wall we see today was built during the Ming Dynasty in the 14th and 16th centuries…to protect China from raids by Mongol or Turkic tribes.  Not all of the Wall is intact. 
The Great Wall of China is often considered to be among the Seven Wonders of the World.  The internet refutes myths that the Wall can be seen from space.  Even some astronauts on recent space shuttle missions say the Wall is not completely visible from just a few hundred miles above Earth.

Four members of a UIUC journalism class prepare to walk the Wall. L-R: Sam Unger, Ted Land, Liz Reising, John Paul

Dengfeng

I’m back in Beijing after spending a day and change in Dengfeng, in central China’s Henan province.  As I mentioned in my first post, Dengfeng is the epicenter of Shaolin martial arts, and I visited Urbana martial arts instructor Demitri Daniels as he went to China for more training.  Nearby is Shaolin Temple, which has its own school.  This one and several back in the city of Dengfeng are like giant military academies—while Daniels’ school has only about a half-dozen foreigners and a couple hundred Chinese students, the many of the largest schools number well past a thousand.  It was a fascinating trip to see the schools and get a taste of China outside the most-heavily visited tourist sites—even though Shaolin Temple has been developed by the government into a tourist attraction (some purists would call it a full-blown tourist trap), we never saw a Westerner there, and many Dengfeng residents seemed tickled to see non-Asian faces in their town.

Today it’s the Great Wall, and then I sit down to write my story.  You should hear it on Morning Edition in the next few days. 

Kung fu students! Thousands of 'em!:
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Forbidden City

The Forbidden City, called Gu Gong in Chinese, was the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is located political center in Beijing right next to Tiananmen Square.  The construction of the palace complex began in 1407, Ming Dynasty.  It was completed fourteen years later in 1420.

Inside the Forbidden City, there is a small Starbucks. There is a controversy around this coffee shop. Some people would argue that Starbucks should not be inside the Forbidden City because it doesn’t belong in such a cultural and historical place. Others say that it is small and it is not even noticeable.

So here is where you come in, please comment on this blog and tell us what you think about this controversy.

We’ll post the results later.

Chinese Universities: Applying pressure

The other day, my Beijing translator, Hang, and I were trying to track down some sociology professors for my story. While we waited outside offices, we got into a discussion about the competition for students applying to Chinese Universities. Hang told me about the entrance exam which is similar to the SAT/ACT but with an additional English language/fluency portion. If we thought the competition in the US was intense, from what I learned from Hang, it doesn’t even compare to what Chinese students have to deal with. One of the best universities in the country (second best actually) is Peking University, where Hang attends. From Hang’s province, over 300,000 students sat for the university entrance exam and only 26 were accepted to Peking. Many students at Peking go to class most days of the week—Hang has classes on Saturday AND Sunday. After admittance, the pressure doesn’t let up, particularly considering I haven’t met one student who has stopped their education with a bachelor’s degree. Almost all students have said they are going for a masters and/or PhD. Hang also told me that last year, 5 students from her school committed suicide from the pressure.

On another interesting note… Hang told me that China has its own version of affirmative action. On the entrance exams, minority students receive 5-10 extra points added to their scores.

long journey

I looked around the bookstore. I noticed “Das Kapital” by Karl Marx on the shelf written in Chinese.

“He is here,” Zhou said.

I turned around and stood up.  He is a tall, thin pale man. He looked at me and smiled.  After greeting Zhou, my translator, and me, he told us that there was too many people in that bookstore. He told us we should leave.

I gathered my things and started following him.  Neither one of us knew where he would take us. I decided to take my chances. I knew he would a good source for my story. I wondered if he was afraid of talking about sensitive topic to a complete stranger in a public place. I wanted to ask, but I reminded quiet.

The three of us walked out of the famous thinker’s bookstore located in the south gate in Peking University. We walked for a couple of blocks. Wee were quiet for the most part. I tried talk to him through my translator, but he didn’t seem too receptive.  After a couple of minutes he told us to stop.  He looked around and finally told us to follow him.

He walked into a colorful teahouse.  We followed closely.  The teahouse was impressive, full of color and Chinese music.  I was relived to see that he wanted to talk in a public space. I was relived to see that he didn’t go to a remote place.

He walked over the front desk and talked to the waitress. She smiled and told us to follow her.  We walked across the room.  As we walked more and more, there were less people and the beautiful decoration from the teahouse started to disappear.  I felt nervous.  We finally stopped.  We walked into an empty room in the back of the teahouse.  We sat down and as I took my recorder out the waitress brought me a cup of lemon tea.  She then looked ad me and walked away.

….long journey to a long interview.

The cab ride back to the hotel was even scarier. But I will save that for later.