Tag Archives: beijing

The Number 68 Bus to the Great Wall


Posted by Patrick Okens

Nov. 22 – Beijing

“You must see the wall to be a hero” goes a Chinese saying. You can’t be snobbish about seeing one of the wonders of the world. It’s something you simply have to do if you can. But you can pick the route less traveled to get there, and today that’s what Daniel and I did.

Not for us the plush, pricey tour buses going to the Great Wall at Badaling, the most tourist-frequented destination. Instead, we hopped on the public bus (30 cents) as it squeaked and bounced to its terminus at the Juyong Guan part of the Wall. We left at around 10am, safely past the commuter crush, and had seats for the 70-minute ride through the northwestern suburbs of Beijing. I’m sure there is a comprehensive land-use plan, but it was as if God was having fun playing Sim City with Beijing. A cement works and an immense coal depot beside a golf course; a locomotive factory close to a university with a prominent white cupola; a gated community with an ostentatious statue of a Roman charioteer next to a People’s Liberation Army barracks.

It was a good day for the Great Wall. Mid-week, off-season, no crowds. Best of all, though, was escaping the smog. After yesterday’s “very unhealthy” rating, Beijing’s air had actually worsened overnight due to the swarm of diesel-belching delivery trucks. So in the morning my eyes itched, I had a headache, and felt like my lungs were peanut-sized. Starting on the Wall’s steep steps changed all that. Home is where the heart rate is, and it felt good to move and to breathe relatively clean air. It wasn’t long before I got serious about passing everybody else ahead of me. Daniel in tow (he’s in shape and kept pace), we stomped past the Chinese, Indian, French and American tourists on the rampart. After about 20 minutes, 1km distance and 300m of vertical (yes, trail running friends, we checked on Google Earth), we reached the segment summit, snot dripping, sweat trickling, and happy. From our windswept vantage point we could see a long beige stone ribbon coiling down the valley and back up the other side. We descended with less bravado, but will doubtless have delayed onset muscle soreness tomorrow.

Taking a regional bus back towards Beijing, we stopped for a late lunch at a “village” (thousands of residents) named Yangfang. In a large, empty restaurant, we had the local specialty; a hotpot of boiling water into which we dropped thin, pink slices of mutton and Chinese mushrooms, turnips, and cabbage. Once cooked, these were dipped in a peanut sauce and flavoured with coriander. By the time we left the restaurant, the wind had picked up, swirling dust and dead leaves in our faces. What makes the place particularly interesting is that it is a Chinese muslim community. There was a whiff of coal smoke as we strolled past the 500-year old mosque and new-looking madrassa to our last, lonely bus stop. Everyone knows about the Great Wall. Not even Beijingers know about Yangfang.


Into the Northern Capital (dernier paragraphe en francais!)


Posted by Patrick Okens

Nov. 21 – Beijing (Bei=north Jing=capital)

“First I went here. And then I did this. And so-and-so happened after that.” I really wanted to avoid having my blog turn into a straight-up diary of events. Picking a theme-of-the day was more what I had in mind for this journey.

But how to choose among the following experiences in my first 24 hours here? Where I’m staying, and with who; a night-time grocery shopping trip; Beijing’s air quality; the 12km of walking through the city centre; bus and metro commuting; or two hours auditing a Chinese-French interpretation class? “Quit whining and do all of them”, you say? To which I retort: “I’ll save the groceries and commuting for later posts. Deal?” I guess I’m learning to bargain, after all.

My Beijing base is an apartment complex about 20km north west of Tiananmen Square, in a two-bedroom furnished flat rented by a former colleague. It’s on the 12th floor (really the 11th, since the superstitious Chinese don’t use the number 4 for floors), from which there’s a view of the commuter rail station and another endless array of apartment buildings. The place is modest-to-decent by Canadian standards, though it could use a coat of paint and vigorous scrubbing of the kitchen and bathroom utilities (not the current tenant’s fault, I’m quick to add).

Daniel is the name of my generous host. He’s the first of a list of friends I hope to visit as I make my way west. In fact, as he’s my only contact in China, I likely would not be doing the “360” without him putting me up. We worked on the 2010 Games together. He’s a superbly proficient translator/interpreter, an avid cyclist, and has a quiet, wry sense of humour. While we pored over a map of Beijing yesterday, I also discovered that he has ambitious plans for my stay here. You’ll find out about those in due course.

This morning dawned cold, clear, and toxic. According to the U.S. Embassy website, Beijing’s air today rated a 215. Can’t tell you what that means other than it’s deemed “very unhealthy”. I had thought the heavier the smog, the worse the air. But I guess smaller particles cause more damage because they can bury themselves deeper in the lungs. Chemists or Wikipedists will know the science behind this, but certainly I was huffing a bit trying to keep up with Daniel on today’s excursion. After picking up my Beijing-Irkutsk rail ticket downtown, we made our way along the outer moat of the Forbidden City, where Chinese tourists in matching hats clustered before entering. We climbed up the steep mound of Jingshan Park, where seniors gather to sing patriotic songs, ballroom or line dance, and even play hacky-sack (they’re good at it!). The view from the dead centre of Beijing’s bullseye is as good as it gets – hazy and incomplete. We skirted the pretty, placid Qianhai and Houhai lakes, then ambled through the quaint Hutongs and a great outdoor market offering the full culinary spectrum from revolting to mouth-watering.

[Ma version en langue francaise de ce paragraphe se trouve ci-dessous, mais sans corrections par le prof. Clavier anglo, donc pas d’accents!]

A long northward bus ride took us to the leafy campus of Beijing Language and Cultural University, where twice weekly Daniel teaches a course on Chinese-French interpretation. Nine young women take the course, and all speak very good French for having learned from scratch in four years, with at most 3 weeks in France. I gave a five-minute presentation in French about my journey, while two of the students left the classroom, then returned when I was done. Two other students presented their French-Chinese translation to the first two, who then translated all back into French. The results were more-or-less accurate, but there were a few surprising results: Apparently, I sailed to China from Canada’s capital; the ship had a crew of Filipinas; I’m going to visit my girlfriend in Moscow!

Un long trajet d’autobus nous porta vers le nord au campus de l’universite de langue et de culture de Pekin ou, deux fois par semaine, Daniel y enseigne un cours d’interpretation chinois-francais. Neuf jeunes femmes prennent ce cours, et maitrisent tres bien le francais pour n’avoir eu que quatre annees d’apprentissage, y compris trois semaines en France. J’ai fait un discours de cinq minutes en francais au sujet de mon voyage, durant lequel deux etudiantes se sont absentees. Deux autres etudiantes ont presente leur traduction francaise-chinoise de mon discours, et les deux premieres on par la suite traduit le tout en francais. Les resultats etaient plus ou moins corrects, mais avec quelques resultats etonnants. Figurez-vous que j’ai navigue vers la Chine depuis la capitale du Canada; que l’equipage du navire se compose de Philippines; et que j’irai a Moscou visiter ma blonde!