A little over a year ago I leaned against the International Youth Hostel separated from the Beijing Railway Station by 8 or so lanes of clogged traffic; cars disgorging passengers laden with large plaid-patterned bags and picking up tired looking travelers in suits toting knockoff Victorinox laptop backpacks and briefcases. I remembered the time I lugged a leather duffel bag full of tile samples to the foot of the bridge stretching over the road where we paid a leathery old man ten kuai to shoulder the heavy bag and foot it across the road. That night was humid and kites with little lights on them danced over the tangled Beijing roundabouts confusing us badly.

The day I waited for my sister to disembark from the Tran Siberian Railway and find her away across the road to the building where I was waiting for her was cold, hard and bright like slate. I hoped the map I’d sent would be clear. Neither of us are talented when it comes to things like directions. I split my attention between the screaming argument going on about the hanging of a sign outside of a massage parlor and the building across the street that I once heard sees 100,000 travelers a day.

Photo: ernop

To the surprise of us both, I found my sister and soon we’d bid goodbye to her friend and were heading back to the apartment in Wudaokou I shared with my girlfriend and talking about our respective experiences living in Russia and China and studying the languages.

My relationship with my sister has been rocky over the years and I was pretty sure that, like most prolonged family contact, it would eventually produce a shouting argument over whether the indie rock music my sister, brother, and mother all now listen to is the worst music ever made or if, in fact, the hip hop I prefer is worse. Or a screaming match over which Haruki Murakami book is best or whether The Third Man is so much better than Breakfast at Tiffany’s that it’s not even funny. Serious things like that.

In fact, my sister and I got along shockingly well for the two weeks she spent with us. Time apart had mellowed us both at least a little bit and we were both slightly more mature. This was best illustrated on our trip to the Forbidden City. Stepping off the subway I managed to kick her Van’s slip-on off the back of her foot and onto the nice new subway tracks. I resisted the urge to jump down and rescue the shoe or blame her for her choice of clearly inappropriate footwear, and she managed not to lose her temper which was an impressive act of self-control as it was now January in Beijing and she was without a shoe.

Photo: cornfed1975

We limped over to Xidan and its series of giant blocky shopping malls and soon we’d found a new pair of shoes. It’s actually a lot weirder than you’d think to go shoe shopping wearing just one shoe. But in no time we were walking with cold red faces through the 9,000 rooms of the last seat of China’s imperial power and I was recounting to her the horrible section of the guidebook on the making of a eunuch that my mother had insisted on reading aloud on her visit and which will be forever etched into my mind.

Unfortunately it turned out that my sister, six years younger than me, had progressed a lot further than I had. A few days later we retrieved her friend from the train station hostel and set out for the Mutianyu Great Wall. We took the bus until we reached Huairou where we bargained with a driver to take us to Mutianyu.

The driver was a middle aged man who talked with me about tourism in the area and his hopes that the upcoming Olympics would spark a surge in tourists to Mutianyu; how his children were heading to college in Beijing. When we left him in the parking lot to wait for us with the other drivers he grabbed my arm and smiled at me brightly and also pained, “Pengyou it’s winter, give me just a little bit more.” I shook my head and told him I’d think about it.

Tune in next time for part 2 where I lose my temper and act like an angry spoiled baby

***

Ask Us > What is the best part of the Great Wall?
In Pictures > Mutianyu section of the Great Wall covered with snow
China Explorer > An Introduction to Planning Your Trip Around China

Warning：The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.