不到长城非好汉

He who has never been to the Great Wall is not a true man.

Since ancient times the great wall has been a symbol of China. The First Emperor of China was quite a bad ass. Among other crucial unifying edicts, he forced the recently emasculated warlords to tear down the walls between the seven regions and to strengthen the northern wall that protected the new empire from the Huns. The vision of the First Emperor was profound, and very controversial. He pioneered the necessary administrative and logistical practices that would allow for what has now become the Peoples Republic of China, and he did it by many of the same means the current administration has. Land reform, censorship, and strong rule by a central government have never been popular practices. As similarly echoed by a recent predecessor he said "A thousand may die so that a million may live."

After three assassination attempts he died on a search for a magical elixir of life. As you may know he was buried with an impressive entourage of clay soldiers near his capital, now called Xi'an. As forebode by the sentiments of the great Chinese philosopher poet Chuang Tzu the empire lasted but a day as his son and conniving advisers were not able to keep the empire from falling apart, even through their cruelest efforts. My summation of his poem follows: 'In our greed we tend to bundle and lock our things up... This just allows a bigger stronger thief to come and take the whole wad.'

All told, the moral of the story is that China one awesome wrapping along what in earlier times was it's northern border.

The moral I guess is pretty weak, flimsily leading into me telling you about my most recent trip to the great wall…

It is currently exam season for Chinese students. Here in China suicide is the leading cause of death in young adults so I can't be sure that I had almost no classes this weekend because my students were actually taking tests... but the fact of the matter is that I had Sunday off! With my free time I decided to join two fellow teachers and one awesome couch-surfing traveler on a leisurely stroll along the great wall. We arrived a little late due to general disorganization, and had to pay double our normal rate with our normal driver due to lack of communication on our part. For the whole trip little snags kept tripping us up, but nothing big, nothing bad.

Once we hit the trail we quickly discovered that one of our companions has asthma, because of this Bryan, David, and I took most of her weight between us. In order to do this David had to use her pack because his was too small. Unfortunately the girls pack was very uncomfortable on his hips so Bryan and I took some of his weight.

When we arrived at the wall we found there a pretty chill Chinese dude up there selling bottles of tea, beer, water and ice cream. After a little rest we decided on our way, towards the tourist trap. This way we would have one fairly tough day and then an easy day ending up where there would be many taxis, buses, etc. The other direction would take us along a more difficult path towards a small town where we would have to call a taxi all the way from Beijing because I had lost all of our taxi numbers. That would be very expensive. Additionally, the route we chose took us past my favorite part of the wall!

Just before the most beautiful part there are two difficult climbs. Bryan has the greatest stamina among the four of us so he was in the lead. I am often in the back so that I can watch everyone, especially on the hard parts.

The strap on Bryan's new DSLR camera case (made in China) had just broken, but he tied it securely without a hitch. It would hardly be worth mentioning if not for the fact that during the first complicated climb the snap snagged and popped open flinging Bryan's new DSLR camera out and down the mountain. David, right behind him, thought it was a rock and ducked out of the way. Tanya could not catch it from where she was. And I caught it "on the bounce".

After close inspection we turned it on and discovered that the camera, though falling, rolling, and crashing down 40 ft of the great wall still worked! After wiping the very large white spot left by smashing against the limestone off the lens we discovered only a very small scratch. Aside from superficial damage the only other injury was the loss of an easily replaceable dial.

Two minutes later we came to the really difficult part. It is really not that difficult for me, but the others find it so. At this place we took off our packs and daisy chained them up the mountain. "We" being everyone but me. I kept my pack on for an extra challenge. Next I did something that was very stupid, and a little embarrassing. We were near the top of the cliff when Bryan passed up his pack again and instead of asking him to take it down and pass it back up in a different way I grabbed it by the strap that holds his sleeping pad on. Once I was holding the entire weight the strap broke. Luckily Bryan caught the pack, and luckily he did not fall off! I still feel really bad about that. Once I had the pack, partially out of humiliation and partially because I was really frustrated with the obstacles in my way, I threw it on my shoulder and climbed the rest of the way with one hand. Tanya was very impressed, "Wow! How did he do that?" She asked. Bryan, with unruffled class responded "It's all about the finesse." I don't think he intended to sardonically point out my brutish emotional response to a difficulty that may have been better handled with patience, and that's certainly not how Tanya perceived his comment, but I thought it poignant.

Soon we all forgot about both the camera and the pack, for once we turned the next corner we had entered into a magical wonderland where the wall sweeps round a great jolt of rock from out of the mountain, and bends again following the edge of a deep fissure, leading us all the while towards the ruins of a simple yet exceptional guard tower aside spires of limestone garnished with delicate trees struggling for life. At some point along this route Tanya mused on the fact that the wall was built for war, and wondered if the laborers could appreciate the beauty of what they were doing, or if they could imagine foreigners coming from worlds away to see at once the power off man and the grandeur of nature. Writing this I have to imagine that many of them could, even if they were far from their home and loved ones facing on one of the most difficult tasks man has ever confronted.

As they say "after the ecstasy, the laundry.", and so it goes. We had a quick conference to asses whether we were going to make it to our desired camp spot, decided we could if we busted ass, and prepared for the hump.

We kept a steady pace for the next two hours and arrived just before sunset. At the entrance to the tower there was an old Chinese lady charging five kuai for the use of a wooden ladder. When I heard this I was indigent. I decided to climb in threw the window. It took me a good few minutes to fully asses the situation; two people yelling at me not to do it, one in English and one in Chinese; A pack with food and water weight for two; and A 30 ft drop to my certain doom... No problem. After groping around for all the hand holds necessary while still standing on the wall I pulled myself over the nothingness and found my way into the tower with ease.

I will not forget the next two sights for all my life. First, David and this Chinese woman glaring at me with wonder, and then an exceptionally hot foreign girl telling me she would be changing cloths in the next room over! Walking up to the roof of the tower I was very disappointed to find a crowd of people. On every other hike we had done we had met at most five people, and never camped near anyone. Never the less, there we were at our camp spot with no less then 15 people! The difference this time is that we are now in peak tourist season, and Zhengbeilou (our camp site) is the most famous place to take pictures of the great wall. My disappointment was only slightly mediated by the fact that almost half of them were very attractive young women, but it soon completely disappeared when I discovered that all of them were very friendly and fun. I talked and joked with the group of photography students as my friends snuck off into the darkness to do what ever sneaky things happen in the darkness...

Food is always the best part of camping. Sure, the beauty of the scenery and the intensity of exertion can both lead to almost spiritual experiences… but the food is always divine.

The Mexican photographers shared some of their extra food as we waited for Bryan to finish cooking our meal. It was presented to me by seriously one of the most beautiful women I have ever met in my life! I was so very disappointed to find that the whole group was on a whirlwind tour of China and I would likely never see her again. No big deal, the odds that the most beautiful girl I ever meet is going to find me attractive enough to do more then a little flirting are low.

As we started preparing for bed we found that Bryan's sleeping bag had disappeared. Assuming that it had fallen off the wall I offered him to share my bag. I was slightly amused and slightly saddened that I was surrounded by such beautiful women and I was cuddling up next to a dude. Really cuddling too, the wind was quite strong and any space between us let cold air come in. I tried to spoon him for a few minutes for warmth and to reduce wind exposure but I couldn't stand his smell, I preferred being a little cold to sleeping with his BO. In the morning I found that though a little cold, I may have gotten the best rest. Among the common complaints of rocks on the hard floor there were more serious complaints coming from David. All he brought was a blanket and a poncho; he was not at all prepared for the wind and did not get a wink of sleep. He spent the whole night pacing up and down the wall to keep himself warm.

Once the Mexicans started waking up David scouted around their sleeping area and found Bryan's bag. The had not even slept under it, hey had slept on it. At first I was pissed, but once I realized that they had no idea what was going on or whose equipment was whose I could only laugh. Bryan, who hardly slept at all, then happily curled up in his new found comfort to catch a little sleep, I wrapped my bag around me and sat up for a little meditation, and David continued his pacing...

While waiting for Bryan to cook breakfast I offered massage clinic. David was very sore from his ill fated attempts at sleep, and Tanya has a persistent shoulder problem. David had never had a massage from a man before but was tempted by Tanya's endorsement, and was of course urged on by pain and stiffness. He was of course very impressed to find that massage can be more then just a great way to get into girls pants, it can also occasionally offer almost instantaneous if not complete alleviation of common discomforts.

Not believing in but hoping for a way into some Mexican pants I of course offered a massage to any of the photographers. After breakfast one of the guys apologized for wanting some work done on his shoulder. I was happy to help him and gave it all the attention it deserved. A little while into the massage the one amazing woman came to watch and told me that the man I was massaging was her brother. In retrospect I am very happy that I am never shy around women I like. Though I can only think of 4 or 5 other women I have ever thought were so beautiful I did not feel even the slightest bit uncomfortable. I felt strong and capable, yet completely rapt in her beauty. After the massage the Mexicans left as my group continued to lazily prepare for our day.

The second day's hike was very short and fairly easy with only a few steep areas, none requiring actual climbing. The only tricky part is the Ox Horn. The Ox Horn is very peculiar for two reasons, the first being it's shape and the second being its construction. It looks like it would have been easier to fill in the valley with stone then to run along the ridges used to connect this part of the wall. Bryan thinks the only reason they did it this way was because it is totally bad ass to have a section called "The Ox Horn". It is long and unreasonably steep, and worst of all... They did not build in steps! Flat pavers at around a 75% grade could not be easy for anyone, let alone an army! I imagine one of them falling and the troop of them tumbling like dominoes!

After the Ox Horn we quickly got to Mutianyu, the second most visited part of the wall. It is pretty bad. If you think the Chinese can fuck up anything you just wait to see this; the views are unspectacular, the wall is completely 'restored' to better then new condition, and the place is swamped with people. Of course, the closer you get to the cable car the fatter they get, and the more it looks like a Disney theme park waiting queue. I don't think you can understand how amazing the wall is when it looks like it was built a few years ago, just another project sold to the lowest bidder...

Luckily, as bewildering as it is, David waited to get to the freshly paved wall to injure his foot. At first it was just uncomfortable and he refused my offer to carry some of his stuff, but before long he could hardly walk and so I carried his pack slung across my chest like a girl carries a purse. Just like that. Many of the Chinese I passed commented “啊你很厉害!” (wow, you are very powerful.) It was quite cute really.

When we made it to the parking lot our old taxi driver found us! He is pretty lucky for us. We first met him on the bus one day on our way to the wall. As I was talking to him Bryan was told me not to waste my time talking to him. Bryan has, as have I, that one can rarely trust the advice of locals. Once we got off the bus my new Chinese friend told me he could take us to the wall for well under the best price Bryan had gotten before! Anyway, he recognized us this day and asked us if we wanted a ride to the bus into the nearby town!

I was very Happy to take off my pack and start the long journey back home Wudaokou.

A journey not worth recounting.

喝什么茶？Drink what tea?

This is from an email to a friend. I have added a lot and subtracted a little.

My life here is about as far from my life in Seward as life could get!

I hardly exercise. I don't do yoga or meditation. I rarely go hiking. I never go hiking alone. I often go drinking. I rarely pass on hanging out with my friends in order to relax and be alone. I am learning a little bit of Chinese. I go between feeling satisfied with my slow progress and feeling completely dejected at my utter incompetence.

I eat tons of great food! Everyday!

The only Chinese I know is that that is around and about food or tea. (although today I did have a waitress comment on how poor my Chinese is.) I also drink copious quantities of quite delicious tea daily. I have learned most of the Chinese that I know in a tea shop with a great middle aged man who speaks no English. He even gave me my Chinese name 飞虎 (flying tiger). Unfortunately his landlord will not continue to rent him space because the area that I live in is quickly being gentrified. Although that shop is no longer around I still make it down to the tea market once a month or so. You would love this market! It is insane. It is probably about the size of downtown Seward, maybe a tad smaller, but with maybe more tea shops then then there are buildings in all of Seward, and a population that certainly far exceeds that of Seward, even on the 4th of July. I usually spend four to six hours sitting around with two of my good friends drinking all kinds of different teas. I know more kinds of tea now then I would have thought existed, and I have forgotten the names of far more...

The whole experience is a pleasant one. Except for the first bit when they try out their English on you and grab at you... "Hello, Try some tea!?!" or just "Tea! Sit!" Of course half of the time the words are spoken almost unintelligibly. I have learned not to go to any of those shops, it is better to find an older man or woman who seems almost completely disinterested in your existence. They are the good ones who know what they are talking about and are going to be more patient with the fact that I don't understand half of what they say.

The next step is to find a tea that you want to try. This is getting more and more difficult as I am becoming more and more familiar with more and more of the common teas. By the way "越来越", something like our "more and more" is pretty common in Chinese so they love to use the saying "more and more". Anyway, once you find a tea that you want to try then you have a seat at what is more often then not a large ornate tea tray with all manner of tea pots; funny little bowls with lids, or without; cute little clay statues of feet, pigs, dogs, rabbits, dragons, or frogs; a stand of traditional tea utensils, one looks like a paint brush, another a small set of tongs, and a few others. I prefer when the shop keeper pulls out a range of the selected tea. 铁观音 "Iron Goddess of Mercy", or more accurately (the One) Observing the Voice of the Chinese People, is one of my Favorites. There are of course legends about this tea but in addition to the fluff there are many levels of quality. The cheapest you can find at any Asian market in the US, here they cost about $1 for a bag. The higher end ranges all the way up to around $136 for the same amount. Of course I only drink on the higher end of the scale... In the $10 a bag range. I have not tried anything much more expensive, but for $10 I am drinking amazing tea! So, what I prefer is for the owner to pick out a few different varieties around the $10 mark and brew two of them at a time until I settle on one of them.

I guess for a proper education in tea the first thing you need to know is that there is only one basic tea plant. From that one plant the Chinese make six basic types of tea. Red, Green, White, Yellow, Oolong, and Pu'er. Many but not every tea master includes a seventh variety,maybe you can guess it? Jasmine Tea. Everyone I am sure is familiar with at least 3 of these; green, jasmine, and "red tea". What we call black tea is what the Chinese call red tea. Some of you may be familiar with white tea and oolong tea as well. Let me tell you now though, unless you are going to a Chinese tea shop and getting really good tea, it's probably not fair to even call what your used to drinking "Tea". Well, at least not "茶“, but I guess none of you probably do.

First of all, the black tea we drink is mostly from India, and though I think it's good, I love it in fact, and sometimes order it here in China actually... But It is so different then Chinese red tea that I think they should be called different things... hmmm...

I don't really care much for red tea myself. It has taken me many months of exploration before I recently, finally, found a few varieties that I like.

Green tea is awesome, but if you only drink green tea from a bag or something else unspectacular, the likes of which you you will find easily in the United States, you are really missing out.

White tea I am also not crazy about. I like the cheap white tea you get mixed with fruit in bags in the United States better actually.

Yellow tea is very similar to green tea and I still know very little about it. It is more bitter and much less common then green tea.

Oolong, or dark dragon tea, is by far my favorite variety. Among oolongs there are two that are far and away the most well known. Da hong pao and Tie guan yin would likely be the only two oolongs to make almost everyone's list of "the ten great teas of China" To me, quite erroneously, I consider these two to mark the two main kind of oolong teas; smoked, and unsmoked. I make this retarded distinction because I mostly drink tea from one area of china and this is a large distinction in the tea of the area. Two other remarkably distinct varieties are ginseng oolong, and milk fragrance. Ginseng oolong is predictably covered ginseng powder, so by fallacious logic we can conclude that the milk smelling stuff is covered in milk powder, or at least soaked in milk? Maybe they make it like jasmine tea, leaving the milk and tea in the same area and then separating them so that the smell stays? Wrong again. The actually water the plants with milk! Fucking crazy right? The stuff kinda tastes like butter.

Pu'er is something altogether different. If you are into tea you may have come across it, but if not you probably are not missing anything. The two kinds of Pu'er are so distinct in flavor and character that it is a little surprising that there distinctions are not more linguistically fundamental. After you go through the various processes required to make Sheng (raw) pu'er you have the option to basically start composting the stuff and vuala! Shou (hand) pu'er! If you ask me the composting is pretty necessary. Sheng pu'er not only tastes bad, if hurts my belly if I drink to much. Shou pu'er on the other hand, after some warming up to it, is really pretty great. I didn't like it at first, kinda thought it tastes like dirt, but my old tea master used to drink it all day, so I have gotten used to it.

Enough about tea already! Jesus Christ!

A day at work, or a few hours at least.

Yesterday was a chill day, maybe a little too chill for my pocketbook. I had two students cancel class so I only worked about 4 hours.

I woke up this morning somewhere around late o'clock. My first student was one of my cancellations. After my morning class I rushed back home hoping that my couchsurfers would still be home. They had already left so I took a nap.

I woke up just in time to run off to have a quick lunch of 饺子 (dumplings) before getting to work. I don't know if they were exceptionally excellent or if I was just hungry... They are always pretty good.

Both of my students yesterday are really bright interesting people. The first student is a middle aged gentlemen from Beijing. His English is really pretty good except for the fact that you can't understand him through his think accent half of the time. He also has difficulties catching long sentences. He works for two companies presently. One of them is a joint venture between Pannier and a Chinese government owned company. He is working on GMO rice with that company. The other company is working on making a 'natural' artificial sweetner. Because his boss is the chairman of both of these companies he is only getting paid by Pannier, and for this reason Pannier has told him that he has to choose between them. The three main factors in his decision were money, position, and politics. Choosing the Chinese company he has been offered a little less money, a much higher position (vice president) and the sense of ease that comes along with knowing that he is working to strengthen China rather then to help "westerners" control the worlds entire seed bank.

I have only had two classes with the second student so I don't know much about him yet. When I asked him about government censorship he made a pretty strong stand in favor of censorship. More to come on that I am sure.

After work I went out to dinner with my surfers and lost my cell phone... I am not happy about it. Don't really want to talk about it actually...

Happy Fathers Day

After six months of not owning a computer and using my telephone, or the work computers, for occasional email access I have finally broken down and bought a little netbook. My telephone does most everything that a computer can, but using it is terribly slow and awkward. I found myself rarely answering emails, and almost never calling home. After not calling home for mothers day and Merrin's birthday I felt sufficiently guilty to go out and buy a damned computer. It has been nothing but a royal pain in the ass since I got it, of course. First of all it was all in Chinese, and the microphone would not work. After several attempts at installing an English version of Windows I gave up and put in Linux. That flew like a rock for a few days, but I still couldn't get the microphone working. I installed Skype and had a silent chat with Merrin for about an hour. Quite like the good old days, she remarked.

Now, in what seems to me to be a fairly mainstream mind state, it blows my fucking mind that I stopped talking for so long... But that's another story.

I finally broke down and went to 中关村 the biggest tech district here in Beijing and overpaid for some guy to install Windows. Now it works... Mostly.

Oh shit.

I worry that I have almost lost your attention and I haven't even said anything interesting yet.

Ok, the last time I checked in was about three months ago. I had just left my job with the au pair company and was starting my new glamorous life as an English teacher. That's right, English with a Capital T. Lculily you hardly need to be able to speak English to get a job here in Beijing. I have met Nigerians teaching here who are incomprehensible over the clammer of your average bar. These dedicated young men, when not selling drugs at said local bars, are teaching children how to be misunderstood by English speakers everywhere.

The moral of the story is: I can teach English like a Bad Ass even though I can not spell, have no idea what the difference between a gerund and a participle is, or where to put my prepositions at.

I don't work very much of course. I spend most of my time loafing and moaning about how much my life sucks, but all and all I can't complain... If I did nobody would listen...

The little work that I do do however is pretty fun.

Let me lay it out for you. (You smell'n what I'm step'n in?)

On Monday I teach 5-7 little brats. They're kinda cute really, but their behavior is almost as bad as mine was when I was a child, haha, jk.

This last week my teachers assistant, who does most of the work but gets paid shit, was not there... Wholly shit. Fuck that. I need to learn something about discipline or I might as well jump out a fucking window. The owner of the company had to come in to help me control the kids for the first half of the class period. I was so embarrassed! Well about as embarrassed as I could get. All that yoga and meditation I used to do hasn't left me with a calm mind per se, but it has left me with a general sense of apathy. I can only really give a shit about what someone thinks until habit makes remember my breath for a few stray seconds, then I remember that everything is comprised of utter bullshit, or emptiness, depending on how you look at it.

Luckily I'm not stupid, after the break I had them straightened right up. They were tip top for when the boss came in to check on me the next time. Little fuckers. I also teach them on Wednesday (a word that I can't remember how to spell for the life of me).

Aside from the occasional substitute class for that school all of my other work is on the weekend.

As some kind of divine punishment for my terminal laziness all of my free time is when the rest of the world is working, and vice versa. On top of that, I have to wake up ass early in the morning on Saturday and Sunday after a night of partying to go to work. My old definition of ass early was around 4am at which time I would wake up and thoroughly clean my every orifice before doing yoga and meditation. Now, I often don't go to bed until around that time on a Friday or Saturday night in preparation for my 8 o'clock wake up call. I hardly do yoga or meditation anymore and my mood and body both suffer heavily for it.

Anyway, When I get to work I sit in a little box and talk to (usually) interesting people about a variety of topics for a set period of time. It's all one on one, it's all pretty chill, the job is insanely easy, but it makes me feel somewhat like a prostitute. After their time is up I get my tickets and they leave.

So, that's a quick look into my current life... Stay tuned, I'll be writing more.

In fact for my fathers day present I am going to start writing much more often. Maybe not blogging everything, but I would like to start writing almost everyday. The only thing Dad has asked of me for a long time is to write. As the shitty son that I am I of course have not been writing, but maybe I can do a little more?

Well, in the words of some old dead guy...

     Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before

   I swore---but was I sober when I swore?

   And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand

   My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.