I stood at the bus stop outside the rail station, looking for a
number 215, supposedly the bus that goes to the very last section of the Great
Wall of China at Hushan.
There were a lot of 220s, 204s, and 205s, but that was about it.
I didn’t think an awful lot of Dandong’s bus numbering system. All around,
people went back and forth on bicycles, in rickshaws, on foot, in cars. I was
stopped by a man who, to my surprise, asked in English where I was going. He
said he could find me a taxi for 30 RMB. “Okay”, I agreed eagerly. His
companion started talking to me in Chinese.
They put me into a decrepit yellow taxi, a Mao pendant hanging
from its rearview mirror. Two other passengers got in and we set off, along the
river, the countryside of North Korea skipping by to the right. He pulled up at
the entrance to the restored Hushan section of the Great Wall with its big
gates and pompous statue. He tapped me on the leg and smiled. We were here.
I bought water and dried fish and climbed up the steep path on
top of the wall, dazzled and in familiar territory of sweating under the latest
bout of hot sunshine. From the top there was a clear view of the Chinese hills
and Korean fields, villages, schools and factories. Zooming in was optional,
using a telescope installed at the highest watchtower on the mountain. It is
possible to see right into schoolyards, streets, even windows entirely shut off
to the outside world. All for the bargain price of 5 RMB.
The route down from the wall back to the entrance clings to the
side of the mountain as it sneaks its way around the far side, bringing you
within touching distance – literally, not figuratively – of the old barbed wire
and concrete posts that form the border, some of them in a state of disrepair.
A concreted slope leads up the bank on the other side. Then the fields begin.
The Great Wall of China stretches for hundreds upon hundreds of
kilometres. I visited an unrestored section of it north of Beijing once, and
found the experience so astonishing that I didn’t even try to describe it on
the blog I was writing at the time. Although this is a lazy excuse, I
can understand it to some extent. Standing at the place where the wall ends
seven years later, I know at least that it is not possible to follow it back to
the point where I had stood in such awe that I knew not what to say.
I took a bus back into town but lost my bearings and got off in
an area I didn’t know, a busy downtown neighbourhood. There were stalls selling
fruit, street food, and baby turtles; mobile phone shops and restaurants with
bilingual Korean and Chinese signs. Roadworks. I walked in the direction of the
river and when I found it, I still had a little further to go.
