You wanted another great adventure,
didn’t you? Well, here I am on the Great
Wall of China. Never, ever in a million
years did I think that I would have an opportunity like this—to travel to the other
side of the world and see such amazing things.
So, I guess I’d better begin at the
beginning…right? It will all make
sense. My youngest daughter dates a guy
who is Taiwanese, but raised here in America.
They were planning a trip to China and Taiwan for almost a year—his mom
was going, too. About a month before we
traveled, my daughter called and asked if I would like to go, too.
Travis and I talked it over and it all
came together amazingly quickly. We left
for Beijing, China on May 4th and just recently returned to the US
on the 27th of May.
So, I thought that I would put together
a series of letters to share with you some of the amazing things that we
saw! I had always, always wanted to go
to the Great Wall—just never believed that I would.
Here is the internet description of the
wall:
The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of
stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an
east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China in part to
protect the Chinese Empire or its prototypical states against intrusions by
various nomadic groups or military incursions by various warlike peoples or
forces. Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century BC; these,
later joined together and made bigger, stronger, and unified are now
collectively referred to as the Great Wall.
Especially famous is the wall built between 220–206 BC by the first
Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Little of that wall remains. Since then, the
Great Wall has on and off been rebuilt, maintained, enhanced; the majority of
the existing wall was reconstructed during the Ming Dynasty.
Other purposes of the Great Wall have included border controls,
allowing the imposition of duties on goods transported along the Silk Road,
regulation or encouragement of trade and the control of immigration and
emigration. Furthermore, the defensive characteristics of the Great Wall were
enhanced by the construction of watch towers, troop barracks, garrison
stations, signaling capabilities through the means of smoke or fire, and the
fact that the path of the Great Wall also served as a transportation corridor.
The Great Wall stretches from Shanhaiguan in the east, to Lop Lake
in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner
Mongolia. The most comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced
technologies, has concluded that all the walls measure 8,851.8 km (5,500.3
mi). This is made up of 6,259.6 km
(3,889.5 mi) sections of actual wall, 359.7 km (223.5 mi) of trenches and
2,232.5 km (1,387.2 mi) of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers.
Family members showed up at the Beijing
airport to pick us up and tote us off to the Mayan Hotel. This residence was built to look just like a
Mayan temple (Mexico). It really seemed
a bit odd and out-of-place to be staying in something that was not
Chinese. But hey—it was really
comfortable and well-taken care of.
We left about 9 am the following day to
travel by van up to the wall. It was
quite a ways outside of the city. We
drove through small villages and saw the more rural existence of the Chinese
populace. (It reminded me a lot of
Bolivia where we lived for 10 years) Of
course, the roofs of the buildings were all of typical Asian design rather than
adobe bricks.
Arriving at the entrance to the
wall—there was a huge parking lot carved out of the side of the mountain. It was filled with big tour buses and all
kinds of other vehicles. Off to one
side, were a series of small tent-like structures where every kind of touristy
souvenir could be found. Since we had
arrived early, the vendors weren’t very aggressive. Just sitting around with their bowls of rice
and morning drinks.
We actually rode on cable cars to get up
to the wall. It was a long, long way up
the side of the mountain and we would have been absolutely exhausted from
climbing up there. We were very tired
even walking back down on a very well-built trail.
I was absolutely fascinated to think
that each brick, all the mortar, etc. had to be hauled up that hill without the
use of modern machinery. And to see it
stretching across the ridges of the mountains for miles and miles was
astounding!
Every so often, we would walk through a
small guard house like the one below.
Inside
the guard house, they had built the most ingenious thing. This square hole was put into the roof so
that the air would flow through the sides and then be pulled up through the
roof. This caused natural air
conditioning to take place. It was
pretty hot outside, but nice and cool inside.
J
Of course, the wall really serves no
purpose in modern days—other than for tourists.
And, in reading about it in a book that I found at a foreign bookstore,
it didn’t always keep “the bad guys” out or in either. But, it did serve a greater purpose for
maintaining a very obvious border between two countries! Nowadays, the wall is all inside of
China—just snaking its way across the country.
I was thinking about all the work—the
tremendous time and effort that was poured into building this. All the people that did so have long been
forgotten. No one alive remembers any of
them—a few kings and officials here and there from the history books, but not
the masses of people that were needed to construct something so vast!
Man is always trying to build something
to be remembered by. We have such a
desire to have a life that means more than just to live and die. But, we spend so much wasted time trying to
find meaning outside of God. I’ll share
more with you about the temples that we visited, etc. But, let me leave this thought with you. God—Creator God—God of the Universe is living
and breathing! He really is alive…He is
great and sovereign and awesome. And He
cares about each one of us so, so much!
The Great Wall means nothing to Him!
He loves people!
We all stood around in awe and amazement
with what ancient peoples had accomplished, but that is NOTHING in comparison
to what the purposes of God are for us!
