There is a saying in China that "you're not a man until you've been to the Great Wall". And so it was that when I came to China, I headed towards the Great Wall to discover my masculinity.
Badaling was the first section that I visited; however, it didn't make me feel like a man. All the tourist shops, rebuilt sections, and full-figured foreigners just made me feel like an old tourist.
A few months later, I visited Jiankou, a wild section of the Wall, and discovered what it must feel like to be Indiana Jones. When scaling steep sections, the climbers ahead often dislodged bricks and sent them flying past my eyes. Even though this was extremely dangerous, I had to confess that living on the edge felt great! Very manly indeed.
More months past, and my mother came to visit. To show her how I had grown, I took her on a 10-kilometer walk from Jinshaling to Simatai. The walk turned out to be more difficult than I had imagined, and I felt a bit guilty when my mum told me that her legs felt as if someone had taken to them with a baseball bat.
Although I had already been to the Wall three times, when I saw an advertisement to go to Mutianyu, and go up by cable car, I again signed up. Unfortunately, the driver got lost and so took us to the wrong side of the mountain. Instead of a relaxing cable car, we would have to climb.
To make matters worse, no one knew the way, so we had to follow some old trails. I've never been keen on following old trails because you never know whether they have been made by humans or an animal, such as a rabbit or a tiger.
This particular trail was also continually blocked with spider webs. Not only was this a problem as the spiders running on my skin felt a little discomforting, I also saw it as a sign that few humans went that way, and there was probably a good reason for that.
After four hours of hiking, we finally reached the summit and laid our hands on the Wall. Our water was gone, the sun was hot, and we felt ready to die. It was then that we heard a happy call of "hello".
Standing in the guard towers was an old man of about 70 offering to sell us drinks.
Considering what we had been through to get there, I thought finding a 70-year-old man selling drinks to be about as probable as finding George Bush playing cards with Osama Bin Laden.
While it will forever remain a mystery how the old man got there, his drinks refreshed me, and I was subsequently able to consider my achievements with a clear mind.
In total, I had been to the Great Wall four times. I had experienced it tourist style, Indiana Jones style, bad son style, and finally, wild animal style.
As I stood there on the mountain top, hair blowing in the wind, I could finally call myself a man.
(China Daily 06/26/2007 page20)
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