In China, a person does not sweat. It doesn't mean you can't sweat but the people think you are in some form of arrest if you sweat like I do. My wife kept me pretty cool and wiped down, but there was no denying that the wall has many feet of souls that a visitor must understand to fully appreciate the knowledge that the Great wall's second name is the Great Graveyard. That plus the heat and I thought I might be one of the next to experience the G. G. of China.
We finally landed on the first level with two more levels to go--straight up, nearly. I chose to take a break. My wife has never visited any of the sights we Americans would consider photo-worthy, so, with all of her energy, fitness and lack of sweat she chose to go to the top and have a view of what the main roadway and transportation route looked like. We separated and I watched her climb until I lost sight of her from distance and numerous people.
It was only about 20 minutes and I saw her descending, slowly. By then I had cooled down and began to walk up to meet her. When I saw her she was not so sturdy. We stood in a small tower while mopping her down. "I guess I am not Chinese, she smirked." I was curious as to the attitude change. She told me that, 是皇帝 (shi huángdi), First Emperor, began the wall and even if it was a barrier for the Qin Emperor to keep invaders out it also held people in. If the workers were unhappy or starving they were simply killed or bodies removed and tossed in as mud to fill the wall. At the Wall's Acme in time, over 1/5th the population worked to complete the barrier: about 1 million people in all, and the wall took years to complete. There were improvements in the Ming and other Dynasty's. It is being renovated in some spots, today.
"Back in those days," my wife rehearsed, "you were very healthy and obligated to build this wall by royal edict." I took away from that, as meaning any healthy person who worked the wall looked forward to declining health and starvation conditions, winter and summer. It was summer, humid and about 105 degrees. And, I was still confused. Why she didn't feel Chinese; I was curious. She replied that, "I plan to live passed today even with the heat and the closeness of the people. About half way up the last level the heat and crushing visitors simply wore me down and I began to sweat like you," --her new foreign husband. She returned to tell me that she was not Chinese because she could not duplicate the energy and value system of the first citizens in the Qin Empire. With tears in her eye, or perhaps sweat, we left to ground level and our Air Conditioned hotel room where she found a documentary on the television about the Great Wall and the purpose of the highways.
...I could see.
…She was becoming Chinese again.
No comments:
Post a Comment