Scott's Bike Trip to the Great Wall

In the Land of Confucian -- Foreigners in China

Man and the Great Wall Series by Scott Urban

Week 8 (October 17, 1997) -- Wing Tip

"He who has not been to the Great Wall, is not a great man." -- Chinese Proverb

Introduction: Scott Urban went to China in 1994 to work at the China Daily newspaper in Beijing, where he stayed until 1997. While in China, Scott contracted a severe form of bicycling mania, which manifested itself in his 6,000-kilometer bicycle journey to Xinjiang in 1995 with friend Brice Minnigh. Scott and his bike

In the Fall of 1996, Scott Urban and another friend William Lindesay spent every weekend possible cycling to the Great Wall of China to find lost sections of the Wall, with nothing more than curiosity, bicycles, and a map of the greater Beijing area. The trips involved comparatively big distances and tough conditions, but the payoffs were rich: in store could be anything from a swath of rubble to a grand section of Ming Dynasty ramparts with intact towers and inscribed tablets. This fall we invite you to join the ride and see the China that's not usually seen.

Scott currently resides in Denver, Colorado, USA, and is involved in a number of China-related projects. He can be reached at 110362.3041@compuserve.com .

(Continued from last week)

We found a way up onto the Wall and stopped to eat some fig bars. Immediately we were meeting Chinese tourists coming along the Wall, astonished that we were wearing shorts so late in the autumn.

Beijingers are gregarious. They love to chat, and one feels very comfortable with them. It was late in the afternoon. People coming back from the further stretches of Wall were exuberant. Tired from climbing all the stairs, but excited and proud of the edifice.

Along came a pair of foreigners with big cameras, producers of a travel series for the Discovery Channel. Hearing us chatting in Chinese with Young Cao, the elder of them called out, "Parlez vous Francais?"

"No -- we speak English."

"Great," the guy said in a London accent. "I'm English." Why he assumed we were French is beyond me. "How many miles have you hiked along the Wall?"

He'd jumped to a conclusion. We explained that we live in Beijing, and come out on the weekends. Little did he know that Will has ran along the entire length of the Great Wall of China, and wrote a book about it.

"When you get back to London, you can look for my book," Will told him. "It's called Alone on the Great Wall, published by Stodder and Houghton in 1989."

We parted ways with them and set off along the Wall, Young Cao still tagging along. I stopped to fix my socks and Will went ahead to take some photographs.

A vendor came along to sell some wooden Buddhist ornaments. He saw Cao there and asked him, "why are you hanging around these guys?" I interrupted and said we'd made friends with him down in his village. I asked the guy if he was from the same village.

"No," he said. "I'm from a village on the other side."

"Oh, so how do you know each other?"

"Villages this close and not know each other!?"

He changed the subject, picking up one of the wooden ornaments. "You can give this one to your wife."

I explained that I was a naked stick -- a trunk without limbs or branches of any sort, which is a Chinese euphemism for being unmarried.

"Well, how old are ya?" the guy asked. I told him I was 28 according to the Chinese method of counting. "You don't have to get married," he said with a big grin on his face. "You can just play around!" I told him I was trying to be more serious than that. "Well, you have done that business, right?"

"Twenty-eight and not done that business?!"

I decided to pick out an ornament. We discussed prices, and that got me to thinking about money, about $60 of which was in my jacket... which was no longer with me. I realized I'd left it somewhere down in the village or on the trail near it, maybe as we were locking up the bikes.

It was getting late, and the boy would soon have to head back. I turned to him. "I've left my jacket somewhere down in your village. It's got about 500 yuan in it. How about going back and trying to find it? If you do, help yourself to some of the money. We'll come off this mountain tomorrow morning, and we should be back to the bikes by 9 a.m."

He agreed to do it, but suggested we come stay the night in his home -- wouldn't it be cold on the mountain? "Thanks," I told him. "But we've got sleeping bags, and we'll take some extraordinary pictures at sunrise. Anyway, it's our hobby. Now, go back and see what you can find, okay?" With that, he ran off, and I caught up to Will and explained the new development.

Like me, Will knew the loss wouldn't be the money, it'd be the jacket. It's a top-rate piece of equipment the manufacturer gave each of us for the ride to Kashgar last year.

For my cycling life around Beijing, the jacket is indispensable.

Considering the situation, I figured my odds of recovering it were the best they could be: Young Cao would get down to the coat far sooner than I myself could and be my proxy at the same time, meaning I didn't have to hold up the march to the Oxhorn, which we estimated to be less than another hour's hike along the Wall.

I tried not to dwell on the incident. "My man Cao's on the case," I reassured myself. "I bet you anything he'll be there tomorrow with my jacket."

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