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Standing on History

Do you know what it’s like to walk across history? Have you experienced standing on the centuries, touching time? There are places on the Earth that I swear are some kind of gateway to the soul of our planet. The Great Wall of China is one of these. You can sense a strange energy coursing through the stone walls and uneven stairways of this ancient monument, an odd sort of memorial to the blood, sweat, and tears of the people who gave their lives to this crazy work of timeless engineering.

I had never climbed a mountain, never had a reason to, until I found myself at the bottom of this wall. It took me nearly two hours to get to the top. It was worth every sweaty, wind-sucking moment. Being at the top of the Great Wall puts the size of things into perspective. Take my word for it: nothing is insurmountable.

Tags: ancient, Chinese, Great wall of China, history, travel

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Categories China, Travel

The Face of China

6 Mar

A group of Chinese tourists in Beijing

I thought I would continue on my current Chinese theme with some photos of the people that I encountered while I was on my trip. Admittedly I had no idea what to expect upon my arrival in China, with pictures of soldiers carrying automatic weapons and Communist Party members keeping a watchful eye on the populace flickering in my overactive brain. Since my previous travels had really been confined to Europe where, as Americans, we get mixed reactions depending on the location, I was not prepared for the greeting we received. No matter where we went as a group or individually (for those of you reading this who don’t know me, I went on this tour as a chaperone with two other teachers, 15 high school juniors and seniors, and three parents), we were greeted with excitement, smiles, and open arms. The Chinese people were some of the friendliest I have encountered anywhere, and they were genuinely intrigued by our presence in their country. I’m sure we were a sight to behold: 21 Americans moving in unison, all with our cameras out, staring wide-eyed at everything we encountered. It was pretty commonplace for the Chinese to follow us around like paparazzi, snapping photos of us in many different states of tourist-ness. We were as foreign to them as they were to us, and it created a sort of sightseeing ballet. We would move forward and they would move around us, always smiling, always interested in where we would go next. I am convinced that there are pictures of me on some Chinese blog somewhere, and underneath a caption that reads “Goofy American with big ears at the Great Wall.” Let me explain.

One thing that I learned about the Chinese is that they are always eager to practice their English, especially the kids. They would come up to us and immediately start asking questions, sometimes more personal questions than we are typically used to in our reserved western culture. At one point on our trip we had the pirvilege of visiting a school in the central Chinese city of Xi’an. The day we went was actually a national holiday, but about half of the students and their teachers showed up to spend several hours with us anyway. It was a unique experience, for sure. At this school I learned first hand how honest and up front the Chinese can be. They believe you are who you are, and you should be proud of it. The conversation went like this:

Chinese student: Hello, you are very tall!

Me: Yes I am.

Student: Are you a student? How old are you?

Me: (slightly flattered to be mistaken for a student) No, I’m a teacher. I’m 29. ( I was really holding on to that last month of my 20′s)

Student: Oh (looking up at my face and squinting, almost as if she didn’t believe me). You know, your ears are very large!

Me: (definitely surprised) Well, uh, yes (laughing now, with my colleagues who found it particularly entertaining). So I’ve been told!

This was not an isolated incident. I got used to being stared at and even touched by any number of people I encountered on the trip. At one point our tour bus driver stopped me on my way off of the bus, looked up at me, smiled, and rubbed my belly like I was some fat Buddha crossing his path to give him good fortune. In that moment I tried to figure out how I should react to the very odd invasion of my personal space. Obviously he didn’t speak English, so maybe this was his (odd) way of saying hello. Apparently the best response I could come up with was to say “Uh, thanks” and continue down the stairs in confusion. Another time, while visiting the Forbidden City in Beijing, I felt a strange presence while taking a picture of some architecture, almost as if I was being watched. I turned my head to see a very elderly Chinese man standing next to me having his picture taken by his entire family with my backside. I guess there is a drought of 6’5″, 250lb white men in China. At least that is what I told myself each time this happened.

I have many more stories like this. Maybe I’ll share them in another post. In the meantime, I thought I would post some photos of the people that I encountered along the way. China was the first place I visited where I finally felt comfortable enough to start using people as subjects instead of just the buildings and landscapes that I am so comfortable with. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed interacting with them!

Remember to click the thumbnail for the larger version.

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Categories China, People, Travel

Instant China

26 Feb

There are places in the world where I am fairly certain I will never set foot. They are completely foreign places where the people speak languages that bear no resemblance to my own, the smells are as strange to my nose as the language is to my ears, and the food touches taste buds that have sat around bored for my entire life. These are places where the people look at me as if to say “Where did you come from, big goofy white man?” China is one of these places.

For some people a trip to China is a commonplace occurrence. More often, as formerly closed economies embrace capitalism, the world opens up to big business and the employees that do their bidding. For me, however, China was about as far away from home as I could ever think of traveling. If you had asked me several years ago what the likelihood was that I would be walking around a WalMart in central China getting yelled at for taking pictures of my friends in the check-out lane, I would have answered definitively “none”‘ (those pictures will not be on the site). Now, here I am almost a year later, and I am still regularly amazed at all that I experienced during the 10 day trip.

I have been very lucky. I’ve stood under the Eiffel Tower, kissed the Blarney Stone at age 12 (which, now that I think about it as an adult, is pretty gross), and stood in awe of Stonehenge. I’ve sat and listened in on debates at the European Union in Brussels, and I’ve ridden a bike by the windmills and canals in Belgium. But for whatever reason, all of those amazing places put together pale in comparison to the feeling of taking almost two hours to climb to the top of a mountain on the centuries old steps of the Great Wall of China to survey the land below. It really was one of the single most unforgettable experiences so far.

What I’m saying is that life is full of surprises. Some are good and some are not so good. I would do well to remind myself that we never know what the future has in store, and there’s even a chance that it might be something amazing.

*A note about the pictures in this post: If I had to pick one camera format to use for the rest of my life, hands down my choice would be a Polaroid Land Camera, specifically the Sx-70, but any will do in a pinch. No matter what I am snapping a picture of, they have a magical ability to make any subject look old and mysterious. I was heartbroken when Polaroid announced that they were discontinuing production of their instant line, although I have discovered that Fuji still makes a decent replacement. I am still hanging on to the last few packs of original Polaroid 600 film in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator in my garage. Each picture is a story that develops in front of your eyes, and I can’t bear to think about running out. That being said, these are only a fraction of the shots I took while in China. I have literally hundreds of digital pictures, each with their own story, that I will most certainly be sharing here at different points. In the meantime, click on each thumbnail to get a closer look.