2015-08-24

【Aiden in English】

        You simply can’t go to Beijing and NOT go to the Great Wall. It is the very fact that a lot of people come to Beijing every day.

        The Great Wall is one of the most famous spots in Beijing. The most popular sections are known as Badaling and Mutianyu, respectively. And the Great Wall of China is spinning 21,196 km/13,171 miles so that no one would walk the entire route up to date. The majority of the tourists just decide to pile up in one place: Badaling Great Wall. With hundreds of thousands of tourists coming here, the area at the foot of the Great Wall sort of became a shopping center. Stores of all kinds lined the streets, yelling so many advertisements that I thought I was walking through one of those operas my mom enjoyed. 

        Instead of taking the cable car, which turned out to be a mistake, we started from to bottom. Now here’s something I wanted to know. As I looked at the endless rules of the Great Wall, how did troops get from one place to another quickly? The Great Wall seems like a wave, rising and falling. At times, there would be a 60o slope and no stairs. Back then, there wasn’t even a handrail! One thing it did have though was a natural AC. On one side, the outward walkway that the troops were defending had vents for pouring hot water or something. But at the same time, it became a vent only for air in a hot midsummer. At the height it was built, the Great Wall had natural breezes coming from the north. The wind was caught in the vents and channeled through the holes, providing a cool blast. The fresh air was well needed with the density of the tourists here. And people tended to slow down and built up many bottlenecks in different areas. The 60o slope and the hundreds of steps after were exactly where mass conjunction occurred. People pushed, shoved, yelled, and screamed. The only way to see anything a foot in front of you was to look at the ground. Tourists were shoulder to shoulder, and unfortunately, some people were coming back too. Soon, there was a slow trickle of a single file of people who inched out of the enormous mass. 

        After trying to push ahead, I finally decided to leave it. I’ve seen the Great Wall of China and walked on it. Now, I have proof. As I made my way down though, I surely saw that it was only that section which was blocked. In fact, a few of beacon towers away, the Great Wall was absolutely empty! Well, it didn’t look as if I was going to get there anytime soon.

        Beijing has a lot of places to visit. However, every tourist just needs proof that they’ve been to the Great Wall, don’t they?! With that said, I now have proof of scaling the Great Wall of China.

【紅霞譯文】

        但凡到了北京，你捨不得不去長城，這已成為不爭的事實，而每天從四面八方進京的人潮源源不斷。

        長城是北京最著名的旅遊景點之一，其中最受青睞的一段分別為八達嶺長城和慕田峪長城。眾所周知，萬里長城橫貫21,196公里／13,171英里，迄今恐怕無人徒步走完全程，而絕大多數遊客慕名前往八達嶺長城觀光。這麼一來，數以萬計的大隊人馬蜂擁而至，長城腳下頓時變成購物中心，挨門逐戶的商家店鋪忙於招攬生意，吆喝聲此起彼伏，令我恍如步入媽媽熱衷光顧的歌劇院內。

        我做了一個錯誤選擇，不是乘坐纜車登高望遠，而是決定千里之行始於足下。現在擺在面前的是諸多登山須知，此時我心如亂麻，究竟怎樣才能靈光地從一個地方移至另一個地方？長城地勢好像波浪一般上下起伏，有時坡路陡峭得高達六十度，並且毫無任何台階而言，要知道從前甚至連個扶手欄杆都沒有，天然空調倒是唾手可得。登山大軍挺進的路邊設有噴熱水器或類似裝置，但同時在三伏天裡，水汽早被蒸發只剩下熱氣了。隨着高度增加，長城北面吹過習習微風，微風颳到噴氣孔後被分散開來，送來些許涼意，尖峰時刻高密集群體需要的就是新鮮空氣。登山者有意放慢腳步，無形之中沿途各地又形成了大大小小的瓶頸。前有六十度坡路，後有數百級台階，這種路段成為交通擁擠的重災地區，人們推推搡搡吵吵嚷嚷，唯一能看見的地方就是自個兒腳下毫釐方田。遊客之間你碰我我蹭你，“屋漏偏逢連夜雨，船遲又遇打頭風”，恰在這個時候有人逆行而下。說時遲那時快，少數人竟然衝破重圍揚長而去。

        眼見前行努力未果，我終於打起退堂鼓。不到長城非好漢，現在我完全可以自詡天下豪傑。歸途上，我發覺堵就堵在自己撤退的地方，實際上後面幾個烽火台人跡全無，但天曉得猴年馬月才能爬到那裡。

        北京有很多值得參觀的地方，然而人人都信奉不到長城非好漢，不對嗎？！言必信行必果，我說到做到登上了萬里長城。