Shanhaiguan - The Other End of The Great Wall

Around three months ago, I was at the Western end of "The Great Wall" (长城) at Jiayuguan (嘉峪关), <Read about Jiayuguan here.> now I have reached the Eastern end of the wall at Shanhaiguan (山海关). The town of Shanhaiguan (meaning 'The Pass between the Mountain and the Sea') was built during the Ming dynasty to defend the Eastern end of the Great Wall from the barbarians to the North. The main site in the old city is The First Pass Under Heaven (第一关下天) is a fortress built into the city walls as an entry point to the 'Middle Kingdom' (中国, Zhongguo), the literal translation of the Chinese name for China.

The old city dates back to 1381 but is currently under a bit of renovation, in fact, to be fair, it's like a war zone. The main north-south road which according to my guide book had the only places to eat, bike rental shops and internet access, currently has but a handful of buildings still standing, the rest on both sides is almost all rubble and a couple of building shells. Strangely there does not appear to be anything going on at all !! So I have no idea how long it has been like this, though it is probable there are no signs of work due to Spring Festival holiday. So when something happens there I don't know, but from some of the large posters scattered around some temporary walling built on some of the demolished roadsides, the aim is to rebuild Shanhaiguan into a"World class tourist Site", by the dubious sounding processes seen on three separate posters, described as "Setup a age-old city", "Build Orient Legend of World" and "Deduct Ancient Culture, Describe New Legend" Whether setting up an "age-old city" or "building a legend" are ethically correct I am not sure.


Left: Me at one of the fortress towers of the "First Pass Under Heaven".
Centre: This is the "First Pass under Heaven".
Right: Is this the best "Bank Of China" building anywhere?

Anyway, the fortress is impressive, you can walk a few hundred metres in both directions along part of the walls and see the full extent of the fortress and it's grounds. At the far end of the wall is "Lao Long Tou" (Old Dragon's Head), another fort, which has been overly re-constructed into a bit of a theme park, but has the impressive sight of the end of The Wall, coming to its end a few metres into the sea. There is also a temple, dedicated to the sea god, also on a pier a few metres out into the China Sea.


Left: A toilet building, one of the few left standing in Shanhaiguan's old town main street.
Centre: "Lao Long Tou" (Old Dragon's Head), the Eastern end of The Great Wall.
Right: Like I had done earlier, a few people got stuck a while in this maze.

The highlight in the area though is undoubtedly JiaoShan (角山) a section of the Great Wall a few kilometres north of the old city. I walked there from town and found you could walk most of the way along a grass covered mound about 4 metres high, which is a part of the original wall. As you approach the Jiaoshan site you can see the reconstructed section of the wall climbing impressively up the mountain ahead. At the site the path is blocked so I jump down off the wall, head to the entrance, pay and off onto the newly stoned and pretty steep climb up the mountain. The steps and slopes are at time very steep and you need a good pair of legs with you. You can climb the reconstructed section for around half an hour and then it is (nowadays) blocked. But if you continue up the footpath towards the temple at the top, follow the signs that faintly say 'Great Wall', (it seems there has been an attempt to wipe it out as currently they seem to want to restrict people from continuing along this part of the wall), you reach a section further up that is in its original form, untouched, crumbling, damaged, but undoubtedly original. Along this section you can clamber a further 30 minutes or so to the top of the mountain from where you have great views of mountains, a lake and the continuation of the wall with passes and towers weaving their way down and up another steep ascent in the distance.

Overall this is a great place to visit the Great Wall. There is the reconstructed part which gives a good impression of how it must have been originally, the crumbly original part with damaged towers, grass and plants growing around, a taste of the real wall and at this time of year at least, it was very quiet, just a few people climbing their way up the paths and nobody getting in your way. There is also a lovely peaceful Qixian temple at the top of JiaoShan near to the cable car stations which was a nice place to sit and rest for a while, while locals came and gave their thanks and offerings to the Buddhist shrines. Finally, a bonus is the lovely clean fresh air environment in the mountains as proclaimed on one sign, "The best oxygen area in negative oxygen ion" !


Left: The reconstructed wall at JiaoShan. (I made it as far as the second peak to the right)
Centre: The original, un-restored part, looking down from near the top.
Right: Archway at "The First Pass Under Heaven" fortress.

This leads me to a final note about Shanhaiguan, that is the abundance of beautifully worded, rather Confucianist sayings on signs scattered around their sites. Here are a few samples:

"You are beautiful when you are smiling,
You are good when you are sight-seeing,
You are terrific when you are behaving yourself."

"Civilize your language,
refine your behaviour."

"Be a spreader of civility,
be a protector of morality."

"This is our home and everyone should cherish it."

"Please don't chuck stones down the mountain"

"Take away the beauty of your memory,
but leave behind the beauty of your heart."

"Safety is mankind's best friend" (I always thought it was supposed to be a dog!)

"Politeness is your elegance,
kindness is your happiness,
humility is your virtue"

"Leave nothing behind except your footprints,
take nothing away except your pictures"

"A small step backward of yours,
a giant step forward of our civilization"

Beijing - The Start of the Chinese New Year

Out of the freezing cold DongBei (North East) of China and into Beijing for a couple of days. I saw the important sites of Beijing on my previous visit here a few years ago and did not plan to stay long, but a glance through the guide book has revealed a few places I would like to see, places that I did not visit before and some areas that will have changed from last time. It has also tempted me to possibly re-visit some of the more well know places I have seen before. So off I go.....

First visit was to the Yonghe Gong Tibetan Lama Temple. Taking the wrong direction out of the station I ended up in Ditan park, which was as good as closed, because it was being set up with all kind of stalls ready for Chinese New Year's Day and Spring Festival. So, I retraced my steps and headed the opposite direction to the temple. Quite a grand, colourful affair, this temple was built in the late seventeenth century and unlike many is still in it's original form having escaped damage during the cultural revolution, thanks to its status as a national monument and having been closed for thirty years during this time. There are five main halls in the usual Buddhist Temple layout, first there is a large gate, protected by warriors, in the first courtyard a spirit wall, to keep away evil spirits (they cannot turn around corners), followed by each of the halls ordered by importance, the most significant temple halls are at the rear of the complex, furthest from the entrance just in case any evil should enter the grounds. In one of the temples I was lucky enough to find a Buddhist ceremony of some kind going on, exactly what I don't know, but many monks were seated around the large bronze statue of Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Yellow Hat Sect of Buddhism, slowly passing around some object(s) from one to another while all the time prayer chants continued unabated. The highlight here is in the last temple, a 26m wooden statue of the Maitreya (future buddha) carved out of one solid sandalwood tree. Although not as high/long as two buddhas I saw some time back in Magao caves, Dunhuang, it was still an imposing sight that sadly, as is usual, you are not allowed to photograph.

Left: Yonghe Temple Hall.

Centre: Incense Burning in front of the halls

Right: Houhai Lake

Next, onto the nearby Confucius Temple, obviously a Confucian Temple this one. This unfortunately is currently under renovation and not such a pretty sight at the moment with scaffolding and wooden boards covering much of the buildings. One notable variation from other temples here is the presence of a number of stone tablets (steles) which celebrate the names of those who studied and succeeded in their examinations here. In the grounds a large pavillion in the centre of a small (frozen) pond, among ancient, enveloping trees soon helps you to forget you are in a busy city of 13 million people

Next day was a "park day". Beihai park, with large lakes, a 'round city' within which is a hall containing a white jade buddha carved from one large and perfect piece of white jade and on the central island a series of buildings on the hillside crowned by a giant white dagoba.

Left: 'Round City' in Beihai Park

Centre: North East corner of The Forbidden City and moat.

Right: Forbidden City's first gateway.

A little way to the East is Jingshan Park, this contains a man-made mound created from the digging of the moat around the Forbidden city which the mound overlooks. The park highlight is therefore the climb to the top of this mound for an interesting view of the Forbidden City, which in case you have forgotten, reminds you how vast the area is.

This day was also Chinese New Year's Eve, the evening and all night long was marked by a barrage of fireworks and fire crackers from all around the city. Fireworks are supposedly used to frighten away any evil spirits at the start of the new lunar year. This though is not just one night of fireworks, it's worth mentioning that this had been happening every night for the last week. A couple of nights ago in Dandong, I was startled by some of the loudest fire crackers ever outside my hotel. It will also continue for the next week!!

Left: Happy New Year Pigs, a common sight on shop fronts.

Centre: Buddha image from Beihai Park's temple.

Right: Beijing Railway station at night

Happy Chinese New Year

新年快乐
(Xin Nian Kuai Le)

╭︿︿︿╮
{/ o o \}
( (oo) )
︶︶︶

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone. This Chinese new year is the year of the pig and is also a special year known as the year of the 'Golden Pig', which occurs only every sixty years, so this year is particulalry auspicious for Chinese. A year which should bring prosperity and success.





Left: Fireworks in Shanhaiguan on Chines New Year's Day
Centre: Bang the gong, for good luck in new year. 108 times is an auspicious number apparently.
Right: Chinese New Year lantern

For any of you that are pigs, then here's is a quick personality summary.

The Pig is a fun and enlightening personality blessed with patience and
understanding. People born under the sign of the Pig enjoy life and all it has
to offer, including family and friends. They are honest and thoughtful and
expect the same of other people. Pigs can be perceived as oblivious or gullible
because they do care about others so much that they will do just about anything
for a friend in need.

Dandong and a trip to North Korea !

Next stop was Dandong (丹东). On the train from Shenyang, I chatted a little with my neighbours and someone asked me why I was going to Dandong, I couldn't answer this one really, other than because you could see North Korea from there, and I didn't want to say that to them in case it upset them, there was no justifiable reason.

I had only a hard seat unreserved ticket for the train so sat anywhere I found a place free, most were taken up by people lying gown not wanting to give up their 3 seats!! As I sat, a young girl to the side pointed at me and grabbed her fathers arm, saying 'weiguoren, weiguoren' which means 'foreigner', this is actually quite common, so no strange event for me now, but this time, as I sometimes do, I decided to fight back and with a big grin, pointed back at her and shouted 'Zhongguoren, Zhongguoren!' (Chinese). The lady next to me laughed and said something to me I didn't understand, but moments later, the young girl had swapped seats and was sitting with her (her mother) and opposite me, saying 'Hello' and 'What is your name?' as young Chinese kids tend to do. Well it ended up with me having to give a bit of an English lesson for her and she loved it, it helped pass the 5 hours by a little quicker anyway.

Arrived in Dandong, exit the station and there's yet another identical Mao statue pointing at somewhere in the distance. The station square is huge, open and strangely empty for China, barely any people around, except for a couple of hotel touts, one of which I use and find a pretty decent room with internet PC, TV, everything I need for 8 euros a night.

Next day I head down to the Yalu river, to get a glimpse at North Korea across the icy water, visually, it's pretty uninteresting but for some reason it has some kind of attraction, some kind of curiosity factor that can keep you watching the same scene over and over, purely because it is North Korea, probably the most secretive country in the world. Taxi drivers keep shouting at me here, there are abundant taxis and they clearly have no customers, so toot and shout whenever they pass you, some offered to take me to North Korea, I was tempted but I'm not sure how they would go about doing this and I guess I won't get far anyway without a visa, there must be a border control on the roads around here. Anyway I have some fun with the taxis, if they toot, I wave back at them, which causes them to immediately get excited at the prospect of a client and stop. Parked taxi drivers also have a habit of shouting verbally and typically Chinese, very loudly at me, I have no idea what they say, so I just shout something random back at them, very loudly too, they usually laugh ;)





Left: View of North Korea from Dandong.
Centre: North Korean boats in Sinuiju harbour.
Right: Another identical Mao statue! As in Kashgar and Shenyang.

Then I found out you can go to North Korean territory without any problems, you can't go onto land but you can take a boat trip into North Korean waters very close to the shore and watch closely what is going on there, so I immediately jumped on. Within metres of the North Korean land you can watch closely at what is going on in the North Korean town of Sinuiju, absolutely nothing !! One or two people sit around doing nothing, some men on a rusty old boat, walk around and that's it really, very quiet and boring !! All you can see is a close up of a heap of rusty old boats, some old factory like buildings, some cranes and surprisingly a big wheel ! A South Korean man on the boat told me that 15 years ago, Dandong, was not much different, now it has high buildings stretching out along the shoreline for as far as you can see, all kinds of bright lights shining, buildings everywhere, in contrast on the North Korean side there is almost nothing. Interestingly at night-time, you look across the river and you see absolutely nothing, there is no light whatsoever to be seen, no street lamps, no apparent lighting from buildings even, probably they have no electricity there, I don't know, but the difference between that and Chinese Dandong is overwhelming.


Left: Banknotes from N.Korea; 200 and 100 North Korean Zonks.
Centre: Pavillion on Dandong's seafron park area.
Right: Kite flying with a message if you can read Chinese.

I spent Valentine's Day in Dandong and kept having girls running after me with bunches of roses, great fun... I suppose though, they were trying to sell them, not give them to me, but...

"Polite Queueing" day in Beijing

11 February was "Polite Queueing Day" in Beijing. Last time I was in China, queueing was an alien concept to the Chinese, even impolite queueing had no place in Chinese society, but how it's changed. This time around I noticed right away, that in some places, something resembling queueing and waiting your turn has started to be introduced. In many, busy bus and train stations, it has been enforced by placement of metal barriers, which prevents most (but not all) attempts to join the queue at the front rather than at the back. But in other places, shops, boarding metro's, buses, ordering in cafes, it is down to the individual's attitude still, there are plenty of occasions when standing at the front of the counter is of no value when someone three rows behind you has a long arm and louder voice, or when a metro door is about to open and the 10 or so people who were standing quietly behind you, suddenly burst through pushing and shoving everyone out of the way to get to a seat first.. But it is nowhere near as bad as it used to be, the Chinese (and the Russians) are becoming more 'polite'.

It is something I observed also in Russia compared to last time, a huge change in people's attitudes which make trying to buy something like a train ticket a far less harassing event than it used to be.. I even had occasions in Russia where the people behind me tried to help clarify things when I clearly had problems understanding some Russian question.

While, I found the old style to be an amazing, fascinating, unbelievable, cultural idiosyncrasy of some Asian countries' cultures, (when not in the middle of it that is). When involved in the scrum it is one of the most frustrating experiences in the world. I'm all for this bit of change though, although it will be a shame to no longer be able to sit and watch the endless jostling for position that used to take place, all just for getting a train ticket, it ws such an entertaining sight !

More from Dongbei

Leaving Harbin, I headed Southwards and made it as far as Shenyang (沈阳), the capital of Liaoning province, which is the only city in China, other than Beijing, with an Imperial Palace. So next morning I visited the palace, its temples, halls and gardens and some of the streets surrounding which together form the attractive old town of Shenyang. The palace and grounds are smaller than the Forbidden City in Beijing and just about the right size so you can, if you have the time, without getting too exhausted, explore every little pathway and every building to see what there is to offer. Something that would take you a week in Beijing's Imperial Palace. It's a quite peaceful and attractive site, not over-run by tourists (at least not at this time of year), worth visiting. In contrast, the rest of the city is quite the opposite, very busy, roads full of traffic, pedestrian streets packed with people and as ever pedestrian crossings and traffic lights are of little consequence, making crossing roads a nightmare. It took me ages to get across the road to picture the huge Mao statue on Zhongshan square, which incidentally was identical in look and pose as to the one in my first Chinese city of this trip, way back three and a half months ago in Kashgar.


All pics: Towers and Halls from the Imperial Palace in Shenyang.

As well as the Imperial Palace I came across an old mansion, a protected national relic, that was the official residence and private house of Marshal Zhang Zuolin, a famous political leader and celebrity of North Eastern China. The final site worth seeing in Shenyang was the huge Mao statue.



All pics: Dragon artwork from around the palace grounds and buildings

The three provinces of North East China are commonly referred to by those from outside of the area as Dongbei, Dongbei means literally 'EastNorth'. Because of the cold weather in this region during winter, every bit of water (except it seems the Yalu river in Dandong, see later) is frozen solid for the winter months. This means winter sports for everyone, whether you like it or not as even walking along roads, it is at times more like skating than walking ;) In Harbin there were ice slides and ice rinks made along the banks of the river and in Shenyang's DongLing Park where the lakes were frozen over, speed skating tracks were marked out. People also slid around on little chairs converted to move around the ice with the help of two ski like poles, this is called a pali and were common in both Harbin and Shenyang


Left: Ice seats called 'pali' are common in Dongbei.
Centre: View form inside one of the halls of Shenyang's Palace.
Right: A typical crowd of Chinese tourists, but in Shenyang this was the only one I saw.

Haerbin's Ice and Snow Festival

After a couple of days travelling from Guangzhou, via Beijing, I finally reached Harbin (哈尓滨) early one morning. Alighting the train, it was like stepping into one of those giant freezers, with an added howling gale, which swept up the powdery snow off the platform and circulated it around in the air as if in a mini-whirlwind. Fortunately outside, the wind was not so noticeable, but at around minus 15 degrees, it was still a bit cold. The first thing you see as you step outside Harbin station square (apart from the piles of ice and snow) is a huge ice sculpture, an indication of the main focus of attention for this part of China during the winter months. Slowly negotiating the pavements and roads which is just like permanently walking along on a sheet of ice, I found my way to my hotel and checked into my oven like room. More varying contrasts in temperature in such a short space of time, I have never experienced.

So why would I chose to go somewhere so cold ? I'm not a skier, snowboarder or winter sportsman really, my reason is to check what the famous Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture & Lantern Festivals are all about. I've seen these in the news before and I saw some ice sculptures in Leiden, Netherlands last year (indoors in an artificially cooled room), but here they have the biggest and best in the world allegedly, so why not check it out.

Harbin is so different to other Chinese cities, especially the area North of the train station up to and over the Songhua River. It is in parts very Russian-like, due to its close proximity to the Siberian Russia border and its history of Russian workers living in the area building rail connections from Vladivostock through Harbin to the Chinese port of Dalian. The main shopping street is a prime example of this with Russian/European style buildings subtly illuminated by lamps, rather than with glowing strips of neon lighting. Shop names are displayed with carved symbols, advertising on printed billboards, no bright neon flashing signs here as in most Chinese cities, quite a change. There are also many "Russian Shop"s selling the usual Russian souvenirs such as matroeshkes (those wooden multiple-doll things), communist memorabilia, badges, uniforms and of course Russian vodka. There is also an Orthodox Cathedral
which is of huge interest to the Chinese visitors who if they have not been outside of China have probably never seen such a building before ! So it is of course surrounded by Chinese people posing to have photos taken.


Harbin City



Left: Harbin station, early morning and the first ice sculpture of the day.
Centre: Harbin's Russian Orthodox Church, St Sofia's
Right : Harbin's main shopping street (Zhongyang Dajie) by night

So, onto the festivals:


Snow Festival

Walk across the Songhua river or take a horse & cart and then stroll around the quiet Sun Island, which contains a Russian Village with Russian style shops and cafes, large parks with snow sculptures, lakes which are of course now frozen solid and various recreational activities such as ice/snow slides, ice skating rinks, husky pulled sledges and snow buggies which you can drive around on the frozen lake.


Left: Street of houses, many were not just solid snow, but had shops inside.
Centre: A snow castle
Right: Looking along the Songhua river, while standing in the middle.


Ice Lantern Festival at Night (Zhaolin Park)

The ice sculptures are apparently made from ice blocks taken from the Songhua River once it has frozen over. There is a diverse collection of sculptures, including churches, pagodas, cartoon characters, bridges and walkways, a full-size stage, chess-set, a disney style castle with long ice slides and steps, everything is made entirely from blocks of ice. In the evening they are all illuminated with colourful lighting which turns the park into a bit of a winter wonderland. There are too many sculptures to be able to give a good overview without overloading this page with photos, but here are a few examples:


Left: Illuminated pagoda (and church in background)
Centre: The entrance to Zhaolin Park
Right: Chinese New Year Pigs (2007 will be year of the pig).


Ice Lantern Festival in the Day (Zhaolin Park)


Left: Ice Bridge.
Centre: Ice archways.
Right: Too late ! These poor fish didn't move around quick enough ;)

Since my visit I have found out (damn that Rough Guide for omitting this) that an even bigger snow and ice sculpture park also exists called "Harbin Snow and Ice World" !! I searched lots on the internet before the festival and found nothing to tell me what was going on in Harbin, other than the basic info of "ice lantern festival, annually Jan5 - Feb5, Zhaolin Park" and so knew nothing of this other park that has been holding the festival for 8 years now. Unfortunately being rather busy during the first few weeks the festival was going on I neglected to do any further research before I arrived and so just went by my guide book and what I gleaned from the one tourist tout I found there, who spoke any English. But, it turns out from info now readily available on the net, that I missed what is apparently the biggest and best part of the whole thing !!! Damn. Thoughts of returning have been dealt a blow by the newsflash I spotted on TV, that due to the unseasonably warm weather, with temperatures touching zero degrees and above in Harbin, organizers have decided to end the festival early and began demolishing the sculptures at the weekend. Damn, damn, damn global warming (that's who the Chinese news blame anyway). Looks like I will have to go back again next year, well at least I have the warm coat now. Going back again would be no great issue as Harbin is a decent place to visit. As well as the festivals, there are plenty of winter recreational activities going on and I also found two decent places to go out in the evenings, the Russian Bar and the Blues Bar, where I found plenty of young Chinese wanting to practice English with me, it was fun couple of nights out in Harbin, I look forward to visiting again next year now!