The Day I became a True Man

If you could read the Chinese inscription on the monument above (I can’t read it either), you would read: He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man—Chairman Mao Zedong.  On April 15 I became a true man. 

Sias Unversity had two Sports Days on Thursday and Friday making an ideal four day weekend for Jean and me and a student friend (the guy seated beside me in the first picture) to hop the fast train to Beijing.  We had three wonderful days seeing the major historical sites from this ancient capital of the Chinese empire.  We were able to walk through the Forbidden City, the emperor’s gigantic palace.  If we had dared to enter while there was still a reigning emperor we would have been put to death instantly.  Now we wandered and took photos with thousands of other tourists from all over the world.  We toured the Forbidden City with Rob Olson, an Oak Hills alum who lives in Beijing.

Inside the Forbidden City

More impressive than the Forbidden City was the Summer Palace, the smaller palace surrounded by trees and a lake where the royal family went to cool off during the hot summer months.  We were impressed by the story of the empress dowager (the emperor’s mother-in-law) who had him locked inside the summer palace so she could control the government.  Such was politics during the Chinese empire.

The 17 arch bridge at the summer palace

We ate Peking duck in a Beijing restaurant-- very good.  But we avoided some of the foods for sale in a street market.  The photo does not show that the scorpions are still alive and wiggling.  Our friend Rob says he has eaten them before--tastes like chicken. 

The only negative side to our journey was our first night in our hostel.  The hostel was wonderful, an old building typical of the style of houses a century ago.  It was located just a half mile walk from Tianenmen Square.  But the first night was HORRIBLE!  Our room was on the ground floor the furthest from the lobby with a window that looked out on a side alley.  Across the alley was a building under construction.  All night long trucks of bricks pulled up to be unloaded into metal wheelbarrows, less than ten feet from our pillows.  We hardly slept all night.  Our thoughts were not very Christian that night!  Fortunately, the hostel was able to move us to a different room the next day where we slept in peace and quiet the remaining nights of our stay.

A view of the courtyard in the hostel