Randy & Vicki's Saturday Letter from Beijing

Saturday night, Beijing .

First of all…we were not in Japan when the earthquake hit. Our entire group was in Beijing well before that. I only heard about the quake via email from back home. Even if we were still in Japan the quake was 250 miles from where we were ( Tokyo ).

Today we toured the Ming Tomb and the Badaling section of the Great Wall. We also walked the huge area known as Tiananmen Square (made famous back home as the site of the 1989 democratic protests by students).

Random observations….

It rained most of the day today which made the visit to the Tomb dangerous and the visit to the Great Wall less enjoyable than it might have been (the haze prevented you from seeing more than 20 or 30 yards in front of you). We were saddened when one of our tour group, Pat White (the editor of the Cumberland Presbyterian), fell on the wet surfaces in the tomb and fractured her ankle in two places. As I write this she is undergoing surgery in a Chinese hospital and is foremost in our thoughts and prayers.

The hazy conditions at the Great Wall created an eerie sort of atmosphere. The wall ascended in front of you up into the sky and disappeared into the mist…something like a stairway to heaven. It also provides quite a metaphor for our journey of faith: often we wish to see what lies ahead of us and God only allows us to see what’s right before us. We continue on the journey by faith, not knowing what lies beyond the next bend—new challenges to climb or havens of rest and refreshment. Sometimes we meet others on the way who encourage us because they’ve been where we are once before; they are able to encourage us to keep going because
what we seek is not that far to go. After we have climbed the wall, we become those who encourage the one’s we meet on our way back down. I have been blessed by those who have encouraged me through their own faith journey and now it is my job to do the same for others. Okay, thus ends my own Sermon on the Mount (or in this case, Sermon on the Wall).

Tiananmen Square was an eerie experience, too. Our Chinese guides tended to gloss over the events of that protest in 1989. The official spin was that the square is a symbol of the love the people had for Chairman Mao (whose mausoleum sits on one end of the vast square). “We worship him” one said. The eerie part of the evening came when a huge crowd began to assemble in the square and police cars could be seen driving back and forth amongst them. It felt to me like I was witnessing a re-creation of that bloody day of 1989. It turns out that it was just a crowd of people gathering for the ceremony in which they lower the flag in front of the building bearing Chairman Mao’s portrait. Apparently this is a big deal in Beijing .
8.5
I described Beijing...in a recent update...as looking like the after effects of a battlefield....architecturally anyway. I quipped to a friend that there must not be any famous, modern Chinese architects as the buildings were so unimaginative and ugly. To be fair it may be that it depends on what part of Beijing you are in at the time. From our drive last night I realized that if you visited the hotel row on one of the main thoroughfares you would think Beijing was one of the most attractive and interesting cities for architecture in the world. Most of those buildings seem to be no more than 15 or 20 years old. In addition, their is destruction of the old and new construction going on literally everywhere in the city. Our tour guide last night said something to the effect that China wanted to be like America. I believe that is clearly true. They've got the rude, aggressive driving part down pat...and it appears that they are working on the architectural part, too. For now, however, although the new parts (i.e. as the impressive new buildings of the Olympic village) look amazing, the old slums, as my friend Kevin says, "look slummier."
Blessings,