Great Wall of China

        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 4^th and just recently returned to the US on the 27^th 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!