[beep]

i fled from beijing and headed to shanhaiguan, where the great wall meets the sea.

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i stayed in a nasty little hotel in the industrial part of town with crumbling wall plaster and a bathroom so unsavoury that i was afraid to enter. my room hosted a squadron of mosquitoes that would fly around my room in formation, and suck me dry each night (in a bad way).

the main square was an enormous rounded affair, bigger than the open area of fed square. big speakers were set up in all four corners playing music in the afternoon as groups of people played shuttlecock, hacky sack, laughed and talked and hung around.

at dusk, the square was transformed. imagine this: ~ 1500 people crammed into a big city space all dancing, jumping, laughing and clapping their hands wildly like energiser bunnies whilst the speakers blasted music. not chinese or traditional music either - but hardcore eurotrash techno. and then, rising above the sexy, deafening electronic beats, the following lyrics:

this is the time to rock! this is the time for sex!
this is the time to rock! this is the time to [beep]

but the [beep] was inconsistent, and at the end of the track the angry german girl's voice roared: "this is the time to fuuuuuuucccckkk!!!", whilst all around, old grannies pounded the concrete in their little chairman mao slippers and threw their arms up in exhilaration with great big smiles on their faces. i had a great big smile on my face too, though i was vaguely concerned that i'd stumbled into an alternative universe.

the sense of community and inclusion is powerful at these nightly gatherings. i've experienced them in a number of towns now, and i wish we had the same sort of thing in oz, and i don't just mean raves. you just feel like you're in love with everyone. and you are.

the great wall enters the sea at a place called 'old dragon's head'. it was fairly disappointing, having been built (sorry restored) in 1987, so i was over it before i arrived. but then the wall crosses a plain to a city fortress, called 'first pass under heaven' which is beautiful, and then heads up into the mountains. i swallowed my pride and took a chairlift to the top of a section of this mountain wall. for about half an hour, there was no-one else there. to walk along the wall, with the sun beating down and the mountain cliffs and crags falling away beneath you, and to be totally alone with all this...history...was exhilarating.

i went to an excellent great wall museum with some interesting propaganda, but it had a sign at the exit that i really appreciated. it said 'the great wall does not belong just to the people and history of china, it belongs to all people.' it really resonated with me because it appealed to a feeling that i have always held true - something difficult to express without using cliches. that we are all the same people - one enormous family of people. that anyone's history is everyone's history. that your story is my story. that no man is an island.

fact: at any given moment, there are an estimated 10 million people on trains in china.

i hopped onto a train with what felt like about 10 million other people, and came over to dandong this afternoon. it's right on the border with north korea! i can see north korea over the river! i wanted to cross the river and poke around for a bit, but apparently it's not that simple. what sort of an idiot turns up at the north korean border without a visa and expects to be over it within 24 hours and a minimum of fuss? hello ondrej?

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pics 1 + 4 - the great wall at jiao shan, shanhaiguan

pic 2 - reeking of piss

pic 3 - first pass under heaven