Just over a month ago, I flew to China to visit my youngest brother, Conor, who'd just finished up his January term study abroad program in Beijing. Within twenty-hour hours of landing, we were on our way to the Great Wall at Badaling, on a bus where we were the only white people. (Conor speaks Mandarin, fluently enough to have conversation about American health insurance in a noodle shop, which is to say, more than well enough to get done anything that needed doing while we were there -- so he was my trip interpreter.) Badaling is the most-touristed and easiest-to-reach section of the Great Wall, but it actually wasn't as crowded as I would have expected on a Saturday afternoon, and also, it's beautiful.
We were suitably impressed with the Great Wall itself, but also quite impressed with the tourist infrastructure surrounding Badaling. Conor tells me that Chinese tourism is not necessarily up to par with Western tourism the majority of the time, but at Badaling the Chinese were all over it. For instance, running short on time or generally feeling too lazy to walk all the way up the Great Wall? No problem! You can ride the sliding cars.
Yes, the sliding cars are exactly what they look like: a very slow-moving roller coaster. After the fact Conor told me that all along the route there were signs saying "no photography" but since they were only in Mandarin, whoops. If there were anywhere in China where I would have figured on English translations being prevalent, the Great Wall would have been it, but nah.
Even more unexpected than the sliding cars, though: after the bus drop-off point in the snacks and souvenirs section but before the sliding cars, we walked under a sign that Conor examined and scratched his head over. "Um, that says 'bear park,'" he told me. Why yes.
The environment they're kept in is pretty sparse, as you can tell from the pictures, and it's upsetting in the way that basically any zoo is upsetting -- but also, these bears were
cool. They may be begging for food from tourists and gnawing on pieces of trash (see below) but they seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves. Which is maybe even sadder than if they just looked dejected. I don't know. But they are some awesome bears.
For instance, please meet Edna.* Edna was my favorite. Edna was initially into the spirit of tackling the other bears, but then got distracted by gnawing on her own leg.** Then she found and commenced gnawing on a piece of shiny trash, which amused her to no end. (There may have been an end, but it wasn't during the fifteen minutes or so we spent watching her.)
*Edna may have possibly been Ed. Hard to tell!
**Just like our favorite hyena in The Lion King! Hence the name.
In conclusion, woohoo China! You were awesome and sometimes a little awful, but always, always weird.
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