Asia is a Wall is a WallPrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
When literary guru Gertrude Stein was asked to describe a rose, she said everyone knows what a rose is—a rose is a rose is a rose. When I think of Asia, I think that Asia is a wall, and a wall is a wall. Well, not quite, not in Asia.
"There's something about a wall," wrote Robert Frost in his poem "The Mending Wall." And then he asked, "Is a wall to keep someone in or to keep something out?"
He was writing about the stonewalls in the farmlands of New England. I often wonder what he would have written had he travelled in Asia. Asia is one continuous wall, one wall after another. Here he would have concluded, certainly, that walls in the past were built to keep someone out.
Last week I mentioned that I would be writing this week about places to visit in Thailand but I will hold up on that for awhile, until Royal Orchid Holidays releases its latest booklet on Thailand. In the meantime let me tell readers about the walls of Asia. My fascination with the walls of Asia came the first time I arrived many years ago.
I was baffled by the first wall that I saw, on the coast of the Chinese mainland. The war was over and I was aboard a troop transport carrying a detachment of US Marines to China to repatriate the Japanese forces there. When the sea turned yellow, and then mud colored, we were nearing the coast. Early one morning we saw land, a faint silhouette almost like a darkened cloud. A voice came over the PA system telling us it was the southeast coast of the Shantung Peninsula.
Gradually the land came into view. It was dismal, mountainous and barren. No life. Not even a tree. And no colour except gray—and hard. Even when dawn turned into day it was bleak. As we steamed along the coast, we studied the shoreline: a sheltered cove with junks at anchor, a fishing village nestled in a valley and little more.
There was something else, however. It looked so strange at first. Near the village was a long and narrow line, as if someone had taken a draftsman's ruler and had drawn a pencil mark from the edge of the sea to a vanishing point in the far mountains. It was a wall, a wall without apparent purpose. We landed in Tsingtao and from there I was sent to Chinese language school in Peking, now Beijing. My introduction to walls was about to begin. For the next three years I would be surrounded by walls.
I travelled to Peking by train, an ancient conveyance that must have served the Marines before me during the Boxer Rebellion; the coal-burning engine huffed and puffed and sent out belches of steam and messy black soot. The land was arid and dust-swept. After the second day monotony set in and, being young and impatient, I found it much more interesting to climb up the ladder between the coaches and sit on the roof with my legs hanging down. Since we moved slowly, there was not much wind.
For hours every day I studied the unattainable horizon. The tracks before us unrolled like a black ribbon upon an endless waste and behind us we left a finger of smoke that lingered motionless in the lacquered sky. I became dust-covered—my eyelashes, my hair, my clothing. Then I saw it: the wall around Peking.
The great city loomed up like a picture in a child's storybook. Peking, the mighty and ancient capital of Cathay. It seemed to take hours to close the distance. The track led through a tunnel in the wall with hardly enough room for me to sit on top of the car. However, when I attempted to return to the compartment, the conductor had locked the door. I came out of the tunnel coughing and covered with black soot.
But I soon forgot my discomfort. A new and fascinating world flashed before me, strange and unbelievable. Everything caught my attention. I wanted to stop the train then and there, as though once we passed it might be all gone forever. In a sense I was right. The wall of Peking no longer exists. Chairman Mao, in his desire to bring Beijing into the 20th Century, had the wall torn down and now in its place is a ring road.
Peking was an exciting place to live, if you liked living behind a wall or two. There was the massive 12-metre thick outer wall around the city and then there was a second wall which enclosed the Tartar City and within that a third wall around the Imperial City. And in the very centre of these walls was another walled city, the grandest one of them all: the Forbidden City. It should be listed as one of the wonders of the world. The closest thing I have seen to it, outside of Mainland China, was in Hue in South Vietnam which, unfortunately, was mostly destroyed during the war.
There were still other walls like the Whispering Wall of China. It's a true masterpiece of masonry. You can stand with your ear to the wall and talk to a friend a hundred metres away and no one else can hear.
And then there was the greatest discovery of all: the Great Wall of China. It has to be the greatest man-made structure of all times, ancient and modern. While places like Angkor Wat may astound one for its beauty, the Great Wall is a masterpiece of man's incredible determination to survive. Its construction was begun in the Third Century BC when Rome was only a trading post. It varies from 4.5 to 7.6 metres high and in places is 7.6 metres wide. If it were relocated to America, it would stretch from New York to the Mississippi or, in Europe, from Moscow to Paris San Francisco.
While in China I returned to the wall many times, once by Jeep, and drove nearly a hundred miles on what was one of my first expeditions. After my discharge, my dream was to follow it from end to end. After nearly half a century that dream of youth is about to come true, and hopefully I will be able to write about it, in parts, in this Travel Weekly Feature. I am outfitting an expedition to follow by road along the entire length of the wall. (See www.transasiaexpedition.com.)
Some restoration of the Great Wall is taking place. Dong Yaohui, general secretary of the Great Wall Society of China, recently told reporters, "It's a matter of funds. If it took more than a thousands years to build, what can we do in a generation? It's better to keep it as it is if we can't repair it properly." Peter Ferdinand, Warwick University and an expert on the Chinese government, said he believed the authorities do have the will to preserve what remains of the wall. "For ideological reasons, previous regimes did not want to preserve the past," he said. "But I think efforts are being made to save what is left."
On October 1, 1949, when Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the Peoples' Republic of China atop Tiananmen gate, the country entered an era of change. With a soaring population, huge housing estates had to be built to accommodate them. During the Great Leap Forward, heavy industry was introduced into the cities. Walls suddenly began disappearing.
But some cities did stand firm. Xi-an is one. When you first see Xi-an, the city kind of leaps out at you. The reason? The city is surrounded by a massive wall. To enter you must pass through one of twelve gates and, when you do, it's like passing into another world.
The original wall, begun 2000 years ago, is still there. It measures 11.9 kilometres in circumference and was rebuilt in the early period of the Ming Dynasty. It has twelve gates, 5984 arrow-shooting holes and 98 ramparts. The wall of Xi-an is the biggest and best-preserved city wall of ancient China.
An impressive drive is in a motorized trishaw around the outside of the wall. There's a moat and, in places, the trees are dense. Through the trees you can see the crenelated wall with towers and open embrasures. A drive along the inside of the wall is an entirely different show. The most interesting is inside the South Gate. You find yourself in old China.
When people ask me what my favourite wall is, I'd be lying of I didn't say the Great Wall. But that doesn't rule out other walls in my book. One expects China to have walls but many cities outside of China also have walls. We often forget they are there. Take Chiang Mai, for example, which I wrote about last week. As I mentioned, I have known people who have travelled to Chiang Mai and didn't even know that Thailand's second largest city has a wall. Once you begin to take notice of the wall and fortifications, you discover that Chiang Mai is, really, one vast wall.
Ayutthaya, Siam's ancient capital, was once a walled city of great importance. Many vestiges of this past can still be seen by travelling from Bangkok by boat upriver to Ayutthaya. Several walled fortresses appear along the banks.
Before World War II, Manila was one of the great cities of the East. She was also a walled city. They called her Intramuros—before the bombs and the destruction of war.
It started with the Spanish when they arrived in the Philippines 400 years ago. Intramuros began not as a walled city but as a wooden fort. Before that it was a Chinese settlement. When the Spanish decided to move their capital from Cebu in the south to Manila, they fortified the settlement. In 1590, they replaced the timber with stone, gradually extending it until it became the walled city of Intramuros. The walls were massive, 13 metres thick and 22 metres high. There were seven main gates to the city and inside there were 15 churches, six monasteries and most of the Spanish population.
Those who remember the city speak of it with the highest praise. This great walled city stood for 350 years and then came World War II. The walls and a few gates are all remain. Their destruction was one of the great tragedies of the war. There has been an effort over the years to rebuild the walled city and some of the walls and gates have been refurbished. The ruins of the old Fort Santiago stand north of the cathedral. You can walk along the walls and ramparts and visit the old dungeons.
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall," wrote Robert Frost in The Mending Wall. He may have been right that the "something" was marauding armies. Today these walls are a mark of beauty. I wonder how Robert Frost would handle that.
Next week I will take readers to the beach resort of Pattaya. QUESTIONS & ANSWERSQ. Dear Mr. Stephens, I have read a few of your Weekly features. I went to Thailand about 10 years ago and enjoyed it very much. I have written and published a book on traveling with dogs that your readers might find useful. Keep up the writing. I hope to return to Thailand some day—with my Maltese, Izzy. David J. Forsythe, MD,
www.GlobetrottingPets.com
A. Dear Dr. Forsythe, Indeed, some readers may find your book, Globetrotting Pets, most useful. I looked up your website and your book on Amazon.com found them most interesting, and informative. When I see someone walking down Silom Road in Bangkok with a Maltese I will know it’s you. Welcome back. —HS
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited. | 
