The Great Wall, the world's oldest theme park

The Great Wall, the world's oldest theme park

Endy M. Bayuni, The Jakarta Post, Beijing

"Your heart is beating too fast," a doctor at the herbal
research medicine center tells me through an English translator.

"I just climbed up and down the Great Wall, and it nearly
killed me. Could that be the reason my heartbeat is fast?" As
usual, the skepticism in me comes out. Not without a reason: Only
a few months ago, I got a clean bill of health after a general
checkup in Jakarta. And I was not about to be cowed by some
Chinese doctor who claims that he can tell me what is wrong with
my health in just a few seconds.

"Your cholesterol is high, and you are overweight," he
continues. My bulging stomach gives it away obviously, and the
Peking duck I have been stuffing myself with these last three
days must have raised the cholesterol level.

"You have too much fat tissue blocking the blood circulation.
That is why your heart is beating too fast."

Now, that kind of doctor-speake really scares the pants off
me. My skeptical barrier is not as strong as the Great Wall. I am
listening, doc.

"Your tongue is off color. Your body heat is abnormal because
your liver is not functioning fully."

When the doctor prescribes me with a couple of herbal
medicines, I naturally ask: "Do you take credit cards?"

"Sure we do," the translator-cum-cashier gratefully takes the
Visa card out of my hand.

The visit to the herbal medicine center is part of regular
day-long tours that travel agencies in Beijing offer visitors. My
group consisted of a dozen people of assorted nationalities who
were whisked into a room on the second floor for an overview of
Chinese medicine and its history. It is then followed with a free
medical checkup, which consists of a doctor feeling up your pulse
and inspecting your tongue. The doctors will then happily
prescribe you with the proper medicines, which, coincidentally,
conveniently and immediately available on the premises.

Welcome to the Great Wall tour.
*

A visit to the Great Wall is a must for first time visitors to
Beijing. I don't quite buy Chairman Mao's challenge that "you're
not a real man until you get to the Great Wall" printed in most
brochures offering such tours. But I had expected that a visit to
this ancient structure, just one-hour's drive from Beijing, would
take me through the long history of Chinese civilization and its
many dynasties.

I have come here expecting a journey back in time and to have
some sort of spiritual experience.

A visit to the Wall will also be helpful in understanding some
of the contemporary thinking among Chinese leaders, Chinawatcher
friends tell me.

The wall was built by the Qin dynasty to deter foreign
aggression from the north. Subsequent dynasties added and refined
the border, and built the watchtowers to detect incoming
invaders. China's ancient and modern history is filled with
stories about foreign invasions and occupation, from the Mongols,
Manchurians, the Japanese and more recently the West. Because of
that, suspicions, concerns and fears of foreigners remain strong
among most Chinese, at least until recently.

The Great Wall is a symbol of both the greatness of Chinese
civilization (and thus a source of pride) and also of their
sentiments towards foreigners.

But with China's economy now opening up to the rest of the
world, and with Beijing scheduled to host the Olympics in three
years' time, xenophobic sentiments that were echoed in statements
by its leaders in the recent past are rapidly losing ground in
China.

Foreigners, including first time visitors like me, feel very
much welcome in Beijing, perhaps even more so than they would in
other Asian capitals. (Jakarta for one is not as friendly to
foreigners, according to a South African friend.) Tourism is
booming with this opening up, and xenophobia will soon no longer
have a place in China.

But the rapid growth of China's economy and its tourism sector
also inevitably means the commercialization of some of China's
historical and cultural heritage. The Great Wall, unfortunately,
is not spared this either.

A typical Great Wall tour today consists of not just a visit
to the Great Wall itself, but also brief stops at a jade factory,
cloissone factory, herbal research medicine center, and the Ming
Tombs complex. They were brief stops, but long enough for
tourists to decide whether or not to buy the items on display,
and to haggle over prices. A quick traditional Chinese lunch is
usually thrown into the package.

The Chinese are doing what most other nations are doing in
selling their tourist sites: packaging as much as possible into
one program. Such tours are popular for those with a day or two
to spare in Beijing. And for 350 RMB (US$43) it's probably good
value for money.

But, as with many package tours in other parts of the world,
the commercialization of historical and cultural sites tends to
deprive visitors of spiritual and emotional experiences that
journeys like these are supposed to evoke.

My trip to the Great Wall, as well as to Tiananmen Square
(including Chairman Mao's mausoleum) and the Forbidden City
earlier, were all very interesting and fun, but they were devoid
of the spiritual experience that I had hoped for when I set foot
in Beijing.

*

Taking one of these package tours of the Great Wall, as one
American member in my tour group describes it, is more like a
trip to Disneyland. Our tour takes us to the Badaling Great Wall,
the nearest to Beijing, and thus, the most commercially
exploited.

Souvenir vendors greet you as soon as you arrive at the
location. Before you buy your entrance tickets, there are bears,
confined to their places a safe distance away, to entertain you.

But it is the sliding cars taking you up the hill before you
begin your climb that reminds you the most that you are in a
theme park rather than a historical site. The cars come in
different colors. Getting into one, you need to go through a
turnstile and navigate your way through steel structures set up
to prevent people jumping ahead of you.

For the physically challenged, there is always the cable car
that takes you to one of the peaks of the walls, allowing you to
enjoy the vista without so much as a struggle. (Now I know why
Chairman Mao says you're not a real man until ...)

The wet weather serves as another distraction in this tour.

"You're lucky today," our Chinese guide tells us. "The group
yesterday suffered from severe heat and humidity." He buys us
plastic raincoats, and a horrified American tourist next to me
reacted: "I'm not putting one of those thrash bags on me."

Once we disembark from the sliding cars, the climbing begins.

Our guide says the goal is to reach the peak of the Badaling.
And we have 90 minutes to go up and then come back down.

In parts of the Great Wall, we have to climb very steep steps.
In others, the floor is ascending and the wet surface is
unhelpful. And the fact that there are hundreds (and probably
even thousands) just like you struggling up and down at the same
time makes the climbing even more challenging.

One really needs to be in good shape to scale up and the down
the Great Wall. Between the struggle for the next step, the
pushing and shoving with other tourists, and catching your breath
every now and then, it is easy to see why many people lose sight
of why they are there in the first place.

I manage to catch a glimpse of the dramatic panorama from one
of the watchtowers: the green hills around us, the other parts of
the Great Wall in distant mountains, and, wait a minute, look at
those foreign invaders?: Yes, tourists in cable cars.

Reaching the peak of Badaling, after such a struggle, was
quite an achievement for a man of 90 kilograms with wobbly legs,
but such a feat quickly turns into an anticlimax. Greeting you at
the top are more vendors, selling t-shirts and bronze plaques
that say you have reached the top of Badaling Wall. If you have
five minutes to spare, they can engrave your name in the plaque
for no extra charge. Even the amateur photographers are doing
brisk business, although most tourists come equipped with their
own small digital cameras.

*

"You've been cheated," a Chinese friend of mine tells me on my
return to Beijing when she hears about my purchase of the Chinese
herbal medicine during the tour.

I guess part of being a tourist is to be ripped off from time
to time. But then, I am taking the herbal medicine home.

Beijingers of course don't go to Badaling. There are other
parts of the Great Wall some further distance from the city where
apparently you can truly absorb the greatness of its
architecture, the role it played in subsequent Chinese dynasties
since the 13th century, and the glory of Chinese civilization.

But for a first and short visit to Beijing, scaling Badaling
is not so bad. The package tour was fun and interesting, at least
for the money you pay.

Next time (and no doubt there is going to be a next time) I
should give myself a little more time and go for the more
challenging and lesser visited parts of the Great Wall and get
that spiritual experience I was looking for. Before commerce
takes them over.