“Only a true (uninfected) hero climbs the wall”*

*The following events occurred earlier this week. I’m posting the account unaltered

I’ve been in China less than 24 hours and I’ve already climbed the Great Wall, eaten duck brains straight out of the skull and cuttlefish roe soup, learned how to distinguish real jade from counterfeit, cut myself with my new knife, and swung by the Water Cube for a photo op. Yeah, I’d say it was a productive day.

We arrived in Beijing and were quickly greeted by a crew of masked technicians from the Chinese CDC before we could even rise the seats we’d occupied for the past 12 hours. Given past problems with SARS and avian flu, they’re not taking any chances with this whole H1N1 thing. As a result, every passenger on the plane was screened with a laser temperature sensor to ensure no feverous sacks of contagion (or “FSOC”) could infiltrate the People’s Republic. Not wanting to be labeled as such, I tried to suppress my lingering cough left over from senior week. Thankfully, I survived unscathed and was allowed to enter the country. The same cannot be said of one of our party, Pete, who made it through the first temperature screening but got pulled aside at the secondary temperature test before passing immigration. We stood outside the curtained area waiting for him, but when he emerged wearing a mask (and, to his credit, a wide smile), it became clear that he was in for the royal treatment. He spent two days in a Chinese hospital while haz-mat suit wearing doctors decided that, despite a temperature of 37.2 degrees (about 98.8 degrees F) he did not, in fact, have swine flu. As he’s studying in Beijing while we’re in Dalian, none of us have actually seen him since we got off the plane, but we hear via the almighty facebook that he’s bounced back nicely, and is getting along well with his new roommate from Kazakhstan.

While Pete enjoyed the scenery in flu quarantine, the rest of us set about our obligatory sightseeing for the short time we had in Beijing, starting with, of course, the Great Wall. En route to the nearest accessible section, which climbs up a mountain about an hour’s drive from downtown, we stopped at the Ming Tombs complex, a Chinese Valley of the Kings for the rulers of the Ming Dynasty. These Emperors chose to be buried in this specific out of the way spot because, situated between a mountain and a river, it has the best Feng Shui money can buy close to the capital. The next dynasty, the Qing, had to schlep its royal corpses miles away to find a place with similar good vibes.

While the tomb complex was interesting, we didn’t linger long enough to poke around the whole thing. Instead we headed off to the place everyone wants to go: the Wall. Unlike at the Tombs where we got detailed explanations of everything in the little museum, our tour guide decided that we, in fact, didn’t need no education, and turned us lose on the awesome landmark. As you’d expect, the place was packed with tourists, but, after 20 minutes of climbing, we found that our legs had a bit more oomph than those belonging to the Shady Acres Retirement Home tour group (matching red trucker hats and fanny packs included), and we promptly left most of them behind.

Climbing further up, the crowds thinned more and more, to the point where we were among the only people in sight. Up here, the hugeness of this mammoth structure starts to hit home, and one wonders what the Mongol scouts who happened upon it first thought (my guess: “crap, that’s a bigass wall”). This is a structure like so many world landmarks (the Great Pyramid comes to mind) where pictures become a futile means of capturing its magnitude. Don’t even try.

On the way down, we did swing by the kitschy tourist stop about halfway up so one of our group members (let’s call him Mr. T.) could pick up his “Hero Card”. This is a really high quality piece of ID that displays clearly the carrier’s status as a hero, because, according to Chairman Mao, one cannot be considered a hero, or a true man for that matter, until he scales the wall. We all thought this was a hilarious product, and Mr. T. volunteered to acquire one for himself. Even funnier was our professor’s remark upon seeing the fruits of our day’s climbing: “You pay money for this?!?”