Category: Photos

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Jinshanling – The Great Wall of China

Jinshanling is a section of the Great Wall located in the mountains in Ruanping county, which it about 120km northeast of Beijing. This meant leaving the hostel around 6am in order to avoid the traffic while exiting the city in order to get to the wall in reasonable time. This section of the wall is connected with the Simatai section, and it is usually possible to walk from Jinshanling to Simatai; however, at the moment Simatai is closed for reconstruction. That said, we were able to walk a fair distance towards Simatai, and as we did the wall deteriorates towards its natural state and becomes less reconstructed. The Jinshanling portion of the wall was built around 1570 during the Ming Dynasty, is 10.5 km long, and has 5 passes, 67 towers and 2 beacon towers. The group definitely got its day workout by trekking along the wall.

great wall 2

great wall 1

me on great wall

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Highlights from Beijing

The Forbidden City was the Chinese palace between the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Although it served as the home to the emperors during these periods, it seemed to lack a homeliness with its vast open spaces and elaborate structures. That said, it was still marvelously detailed and colorful.

Forbidden city

forbidden city2

forbidden city bw

Tiananmen Square more than anything is an historical place. Unfortunately, the large concrete field that comprises the square almost pales in comparison to everything that has happened there. From government demonstrations of power to citizen protests, this square has been a central part of Chinese political history.

Old Beijing Street is relatively new, but is meant to represent how a shopping area might look in times past. The Starbucks and Haagen-Dazs ice cream may take away a little from the authenticity, but even these modern shops are set in themed buildings.

haagen dazs

old beijing

Jingshan park, located just north of the Forbidden City offers a fun hike to the top of the city to get an appreciation of the vastness and the layout of Beijing.

Jingshan park

The Summer Palace was probably one of my favorite spots in Beijing, and not only because I got to dress up like a king. It is set next to a beautiful lake and both the serenity of the nature it is near along with the grandeur of towering Chinese palaces. It was nice to stroll through the palace and next to the lake.

summer palace1

summer palace bw

king

summer palace2

summer palace3

The Temple of Heaven, a place used for worship, again is comprised of awe-inspiring structures laid out in a very methodical manner. And again, similar to the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven is surrounded by thousands of trees.

temple of heaven1

temple of heaven2

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Beijing Pharmacy Experience

When wondering through the old parts of Beijing, I came across a beautiful Chinese “pharmacy”. I placed the word pharmacy in quotes because I would have been hard pressed to find Advil, Tylenol and multi-vitamins. Instead, in this multi-storied building, I found things like flying squirrel feces, rhinoceros horns, snake oils, and turtle shells. I witnessed medicines made from insects, made from fungi, and made from plants. All these medicines, including those only made from plants, came with a high price tag either because of the age of the plant or the care the plant received. There was even a thousand dollar ginseng root. In addition, each medicine served a different purpose from aiding with kidney problems to liver problems to indigestion to sexual dysfunction.

The outside of the pharmacy:

Pharmacy

I am not about to discuss the merits of eastern versus western medical beliefs; however, being that I am in Beijing, I wanted to learn and begin to understand some of the basic tenants of eastern medicine. Eastern medicine is based a lot on traditional religious ideas of balance and opposites—yin and yang. Stemming from this, illness then derives from an imbalance, either between competing body systems or between the body and its environment. Furthermore, these eastern medicines can help bring the various body systems into better balance.

Having studied biology at school, I am one who always wants to see evidence for any claim, but in this case, although the westernized explanation for why a specific remedy works may not be available, there is at least some empirical evidence that these medicines work. Chinese medicine has changed little since antiquity and has been improving the lives of people which it has treated throughout its tenure. Also, there are many examples of westerners finding a more scientific explanation to why certain eastern medicines function as they do. All in all, it was an eye-opening experience to walk through this eastern pharmacy in the heart of Beijing.

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Beijing Qingfeng-Xisi Hutong Guest House

Located at No. 58 Xisi bei wu tiao Hutong (no.58 Xisi North 5th Alley) Xicheng District, this hostel has been an additive experience to my stay in Beijing. Although I arrived the first morning before 7am in the morning and clearly woke up the people who manage the hostel, they were still so nice and accommodating. Not only was their spoken English so welcome, but their demeanor and helpfulness made me feel so much better after having just arrived in this new place. I should probably place such a review on yelp or tripadvisor, but for now, it will remain as a memory to me of how wonderful the staff was.

The front door of the hostel:

Front door

Although the inexpensiveness of a hostel is appealing enough to make me want to stay at one, the atmosphere and the camaraderie shared at most hostels was also a strong pull being a solo traveler. In the morning before I even settled in, I met Mike from Montreal who was consulting in the Chinese space program. As a gift from them, he received a model Chinese space rocket, which was very impressive. He told me where a couple good food spots were and how to get around. After meeting Mike, I had the confidence to go check out some of the sites that Beijing had to offer.

Later that day in the evening, the guest house taught us how to make dumplings. Not only was this a valuable cooking lesson, it was also the perfect opportunity to meet the other residents.

Making dumplings

Me and dumplings

While having my hands messy forming dumplings, I met the residents and staff members. There was a mixture of English and Chinese spoken by all, except for a few of the residents like myself who only could contribute in English. One of the residents has been staying here for about 6 months and is in an intensive Mandarin language course. He was our default translator in both directions whenever communication blocks arose. I met one pair, Laura and Alex, who traveled here from the UK by train. It sounded like quite the experience when they recapped a couple of their highlights from destinations like Berlin, St. Petersburg and Mongolia.

Hostel Scene

By the end of the evening, after playing a couple games of chess with Mike, I was able to convince Laura and Alex to join me the following day on my adventure to the Great Wall.

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My Worn Identity

Several times throughout my academic career, my class was asked to write words that we identified with, whether it was adult, tall, American, blue-eyed, Muslim, etc.  Unfortunately, it is these “identities” that could get me in trouble as I meet new people from other cultures.  And to complicate matters further, these identities are far from self-imposed.  Instead, I have no choice but to wear them in plain site as I travel.  I can’t hide speaking english with an american accent and having curly hair with a jewish nose.  I also have little doubt that Americans and more specifically Jewish Americans might not be loved everywhere they travel.  People may disagree with our politics, philosophies, and general cultural norms.  It is for this reason, that if given the chance, I want extend that identity.

I am a brother.  I am a son.  I am a new uncle.  I am a grandson.  I am a friend.  This is easy to say and hard to prove.  I can foresee a situation where I am sitting next to someone on a train or bus and they look at me and immediately fill with preconceptions of who I am.  This scenario soon devolves into a lecture about why Americans are failing in some aspect or another, and there is little pause to see if I agree with the philosophies and politics of my American people, but that doesn’t matter.  I am not an individual here.  I am an American.  I might as well be riding a Harley Davidson wearing an American flag bandana blasting Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA through the heartland of Vietnam.  I might have to wait for this anti-American lecture to start to fizzle, and then I will reach into my backpack and grab a couple photos that I’ve been traveling with.  These photos start to show that I am not just an American.

Family in San Francisco

I hope these photos will show that my identity starts with family.  Whatever happens, I know my family will be there.  Whatever I do, I know my family will support me.  And whatever I blunder, I know my family will forgive me.  These values I feel transcend any one culture and will hopefully allow me to connect with that lecturer sitting next to me on a much more personal and individual level.  I will introduce him to my 5 month old niece.  I will tell him what my sisters do and who my parents are.  The stories we then begin to swap are more about who we are as individuals and less about what our politics are.

My niece

These two photos I will carry with me as I begin to travel.