The Great Wall and Temple of Heaven

 April 1, 2026

We took a day trip to the Great Wall on Monday. We came to this same Mutianyu access point nine years ago, and it has expanded and become even more touristy. The hike up to the wall is a fairly moderate hike with lots of steep steps. Last time we had no crowds, but this time we were in a steady train of people. It was certainly an easier climb than the steps we took in the high elevation of Tibet!

It was cloudy and overcast when we left Beijing, so we were happy to have blue skies. It was  mid 60's, perfect hiking temperature. 

This is the view from one of the guard towers. There are 23 restored watchtowers on this section of the Wall. We only walked to about six of them. When it was time to head down, there were three options. You could take a gondola, ride in a toboggan or hike back down.

Since Karl is "too old" to toboggan (those over 65 are not allowed to), we opted for the gondola. The students all wanted to toboggan, but ended up using the gondola because there was a two-hour wait to ride in a toboggan.

One of Karl's students from his first semester he taught at UPS in 1990 lives and works in Beijing. Karl invited him to come speak to his class one morning. 

Entrance to the Temple of Heaven.

The next day we visited the Temple of Heaven, a 15th century imperial sacrificial complex on the central axis (the fengshui-inspired layout of imperial buildings in central Beijing). It was the sacred space where the emperor, as the Son of Heaven, would go to communicate with heaven, offer animal sacrifices, and pray for a good harvest. One of the buildings is called the Hall of Abstinence, where the emperor would fast and purify himself before he performed the rituals.

The Imperial Vault of Heaven

The Imperial Vault of Heaven contained the ancestral tablets of the emperor. The ancestors were thought to help maintain the balance between the celestial and the human worlds.

The Temple of Heaven.

In the Forbidden City, all the roof tiles are yellow to signify they are imperial buildings. The roof tiles are blue at the Temple of Heaven to symbolize the heavens. The round-shaped building is also reminiscent of the earth.  

Can you spot Karl in this picture?

The entire population of Taiwan is the same as the population of Beijing! Fighting the crowd is just part of the experience of traveling in China. If you get close enough to look inside the building, you can see a gilded dragon painted on the ceiling.

The full color spectrum of a tomato! These are all tomatoes of various hues.

Yan'an and Beijing

 Founding members of the CCP with Mao in the center.

March 29, 2026

Before we left Xi'an, we took a long day trip by fast train to see the patriotic site of Yan'an. Yan'an served as the headquarters for the Communist party from 1935 to 1947. Mao and his associates lived in cave-like dwellings while they formed the ideology that would shape the Party in the years to come. It was also the location of the end of the Long March.

Entrances to some of the homes where the CCP leaders lived.

These cave-like homes are called yaodong. They are dug into the side of the hills and provide excellent insulation. They are cool in the summer and retain heat in the winter. They include big, arched ceilings that make the small square footage feel spacious. They are inexpensive to build and require local materials that made them suitable to the area.

A bed inside one of the homes.

We are seeing many "red tourism" sites because Karl is teaching a course on Chinese nationalism. The government has put a lot of energy into creating a "usable history" to tell the Party's story in a way that fosters national identity and serves as a way of instructing the population in their ideology. There were many Chinese tourists and no foreign tourists. Interestingly, all of the signage was in English and Russian.

The entrance to the Yan'an Revolutionary Memorial Museum.

The museum is short on artifacts and long on narrative. There was very little English, but we had two guides: one who spoke in Mandarin and another who translated for her. Our English guide has been with us for much of our time in Xi'an. The most interesting thing about him was learning that he idolizes Mao. On the bus coming home, Karl talked with him about how we have heard that most Chinese say Mao was "70 percent right and 30 percent wrong" in the choices he made and the policies he implemented. However, our guide feels that Mao was 100 percent correct. Karl tried to persuade him that if Mao had resigned before the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution, that could have been a true statement. However, the guide feels that the Cultural Revolution was a necessary party of China's modernization and needed to happen. 

Entrance to the Great Mosque of Xi'an

Our final excursion in Xi'an was to see the Great Mosque. It was founded in 742 AD in the Muslim Quarter. It was such an interesting blend of traditional Chinese architecture and Muslim characteristics. The magnolias were in full bloom too!

Example: this gate has Arabic writing with lotus flower embellishments.

This bride and groom were taking photos and allowed us to take a picture of them.

We met this family in the mosque. The son and his parents were visiting from Xining (where we got on the train to Tibet). They were very interested in hearing that we had been to Xining and went to the mosque there too.

We took the high-speed train from Xi'an to Beijing. It took over four hours to make the trip, and it was a crowded train where we were not all sitting together. Karl traded with someone to sit across the aisle from me but it turned out the person he traded with was only on a short part of the leg. He ended up having to move several different seats before the journey was done.

We got up early the next morning and had a full day visiting Tiananmen and the Forbidden City. We had hopes of seeing Mao in his mausoleum but they recently closed it for renovation. This was our third visit to Tiananmen and the one with the most heightened security yet. We had to make an online reservation before we came, and pass through at least three security checks. The first time Karl visited, there was no security. There was a small patch of lawn surrounding a statue and the local tourists were more interested in looking at a lawn mower.

The Forbidden City was a very busy place. It is not the height of tourist season yet, but there were sure lots of people. Each time we have visited, more of the Palace has been restored and open.

New to us this visit, was the jade, jewelry and treasure exhibits. It took a while to make our way up to view the items. The collection has 2 million objects with only 10,000 items typically on display. We did not have the time to see even a fraction of of them.

Crown jewels of an empress.

After touring the palace, we hiked up to the top of a hill in an adjacent park to look down on the complex. No wonder it is called a city. It has over 980 buildings and is the largest collection of ancient wooden buildings.

On our way back home, we stumbled upon the site commemorating the May 4th movement. It re-energized Karl. The rest of us were ready to find dinner and rest our feet!

Xi'an

Southgate of the Xian city wall all lit up behind us.

March 24, 2026

We finished our studies in Fuzhou with two interesting excursions. We spent the afternoon at a 3,000-students middle and high school in Fuxing. It was originally started by the Great Aunt of Gordon Trimble. Our students were divided into pairs and they went into classrooms and spent the afternoon doing whatever that class had planned. Karl and I tried to drop in on all of them, but we developed a following ourselves.

The student/teacher ratio was 50 students to one teacher! This was the first time most of these students have personally met or talked with a foreigner. They wanted to interact with us. They came up and asked for our autograph. They didn't know exactly what to say, so I started asking them if they had an English name. Most of them did not, so I gave them one.

In one of the classrooms, they were playing string games. The teacher was surprised I knew how to play this game too!

We went up into the mountains to visit the summer retreat city of Guliang where the Trimbles and other foreign missionaries, teachers and doctors spent the summer months a hundred years ago. Guliang has been restored and made a local tourist attraction. Our visit caused a stir and the local news media followed us around in all of our exploring. They interviewed Karl and a few students as well. Our visit culminated in Karl receiving an award for the University recognizing the continued cooperation between local and foreign friends. Fortunately Karl convinced them to mail the trophy home because it is made of metal and quite heavy!

Tourists dressed in Tang Dynasty period costumes.

We had hoped to attend church meetings in Xi'an, but unfortunately foreign members are not allowed to meet together at this time. We took a Sunday afternoon walk along the city wall. Xi'an was the capital of China during the Tang Dynasty. And the popular tourist activity in many parts of Asia is to dress in local period dress and have your picture taken. 

The view from the wall. It is wide enough for 16 horses to ride abreast. The popular tourist activity on the wall is to rent bicycles. We looked into it, but you must be between the ages of 12 - 65, so Karl was sorely disappointed.

A statue of Emperor Qin Shi Huang.

Certainly the most famous tourist attraction in Xi'an is the burial site of the first Chinese emperor to unite China, Qin Shi Huang. 

This is the main pit. It contains thousands of life-sized 2,200 year-old clay soldiers. When they were first uncovered they were brightly colored. Within hours of them being exposed to air, the colors faded. Because of that experience, the excavation is being carefully undertaken and the most important burial mound will not be opened until they have a better understanding of how to preserve what they uncover.

We took lots of pictures and marveled at the unique representation of each individual soldier.

After seeing the Terracotta soldiers, we ate a quick lunch and moved on to see the Huaqing Palace, the winter resort for a Tang Dynasty Emperor. It is built on a hot spring. We were not prepared for the Disneyland-like remake of the palace. They had a singing and dancing group dressed in period clothes that entertained nonstop as we moved through the palace.

They even had an acrobat perform and live action theater in one of the buildings.

 

The real reason for our visit was to see a series of rooms the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek lived in when he he visited here in 1936. This was his bedroom where he was staying when he heard the Communists were looking for him. He jumped out the window leaving his dentures on his night stand and scrambled up the mountain side.

He hid out in the crevice of these rocks, only to be discovered and kidnapped. This experience of Chiang's is known as the Xi'an Incident. We took a train up the switch-back route that he climbed on foot. We saw lots of school children on field trips coming to see the historical site.

You could even pay money and put on some Nationalist clothing for a photo behind his desk.

Fuzhou

 

March 19, 2026

We are spending the week on the Hwa Nan Women's College campus in Fuzhou. This is our third trip to this campus, so it is nice to come back to a familiar area. However, China changes so quickly! We think we know our way around except all the buildings we are looking at are new since our last trip! One exception to this is the building behind us. This building is the location for the original Hwa Nan Women's College established by Lydia Trimble in 1908. We are staying on the college's second (new) campus and are being hosted by Lydia' great-grand nephew. And we are getting grand treatment!

Here we are on the steps of Trimble Hall with Gordon and Sonia Trimble. There is also a Trimble Hall on the campus of the University of Puget Sound, so our students feel at home!

We had a fancy welcome dinner with present and past leaders of the college. They fed us all sorts of local delicacies including abalone!

We explored some of the Ming and Qing Dynasty residential homes of Fuzhou. This home had an opera stage within it's walls. The stage is on the left above the fish pond. It was built in the 19th century.

The homes are built with apertures in mind. All the rooms flow from one to another and the windows and doors are intricately carved. 

This famous heart-shaped tree is a classic Fuzhou photo opportunity.

We took a day trip up into the mountains to explore some of the tulou built by the Hakka. The tulou are essentially castle-like structures built by the Hakka ethnic group. We visited two homes. The first one is just a museum operated by a family. The second one we visited was square-shaped and some family members still lived on the upper floors. They were built between the 12th -19th centuries. They could hold up to 800 people and they were self-sufficient since they stored food and had wells and family shrines inside. They were between 3-5 stories tall and each individual family would occupy a vertical section of the building.

The ground floor of this tulou was a tourist market. There were plenty of tourists! We were the only foreign tourists. If you watched the live-action version of Mulan, it was filmed in a tulou.

This is a square-shaped tulou and was built over 300 years ago. Our guide told us that the round tulous were stronger than the square or rectangle varieties.

Inside the square tulou, you can see that it is lived in because there is laundry hanging on the upper floors.

Karl giving an impromptu class lecture.

We had a cultural activity with our students and some local Hwa Nan students today. We learned how to do some calligraphy. Our students got to dress up in the traditional clothes of various eras. The students behind us also dressed up. They used make-up and pinned up their hair. I don't have those pictures yet, but they were transformed!

We learned how to hand-dip fans into paint to give them a pretty textured background. Karl is trying his out.

His finished product looks nice!

We admired some of the art made by the students. This painting was made using egg shells. It is a Fujian province traditional technique.