Dandong

Monday, February 1, 2010

We’re on our way to Dandong, and in the country at last. Cornstalks gathered into what look like old-fashioned conical haystacks dot the fields along the highway along with piles of sorghum stalks, perhaps destined to be made into a kind of particle board.

Now we begin to see rice paddies, with their distinctive dikes. Now, in midwinter, the land is brown, though we are seeing more snow. In three months the rice paddies will be filled with new plants and irrigated again and the country will be the soft green of early spring.

In several of the small villages, some houses have thatched roofs. In many of these villages there is no running water.

Every few miles we pass huge greenhouses; not just one but eight or more very large ones. Straw mats are rolled up on top during the daytime, and then lowered when the sun goes down.

We’re traveling through a marsh nature preserve now.

I’ve never seen this before – a completely frozen-over river.

More and more greenhouses. This land is some of the richest land in the world, we’ve read.

From time to time the highway passes over country roads. Traveling each are bicyclists and bicycle- and horse-drawn carts loaded so high and wide we wonder why the tires aren’t flat. And always, there are a few pedestrians.

It must be a long walk between villages, since we can’t see one on either side of the road, and it’s cold outside, but of course, if walking is your only mode of transportation, you walk.

Riding alongside us on the interstate is a woman on a bicycle steering with one hand, a shovel in the other.

Bernie points out that all the houses face either east or south, following feng shui.

We follow the outskirts of Dandong once we’re off the interstate; we’re going to visit a perfectly restored section of the Great Wall.

Autumn stops to ask directions often. She knows where we are going, at least in general. She often checks two or three people in the same area to confirm what the first person told her. I think she likes the conversation.

One man in a village directs us down a narrow, unpaved street. After driving a few feet, we see a shepherd and a herd of sheep ahead of us. There’s nothing to do but wait. In a few minutes the shepherd has moved them, and we’re back on another highway.

We can see the Great Wall and it’s not far, but the route is circuitous and it’s ten minutes before we see the sign directing us there.

Bernie purchases our tickets. Autumn does not want to go. She will wait for us.
Remnants of this section of the wall were discovered on Tiger Mountain by archaeologist in the early 1990s. It was built in 1469.

Here the wall is built alongside a stream that forms the border between China and North Korea. On one side is a pretty hill with houses and woods. It’s easy to imagine how beautiful it will be in summer.

The wall is wider than I’d thought it would be-more than twelve feet, with guard towers every few hundred feet. We walk between the first and third towers. Up ahead is a steep climb and the ice, which is spotty where we’re standing, is clearly visible and solid all the way across.

We stop and look at each other. “Who would have thunk?” I say. Never, until a few months ago, did we ever imagine we’d see the Great Wall. And here we are standing on it.

A Chinese family joins us on the wall. They are taking pictures of each other and Bernie volunteers to take a picture of all of them. Then they take a photo of us.
Yep, there we are. “Who would have thunk?” Bernie says.

We rejoin Autumn and drive into central Dandong. We can see tall buildings ahead; apparently Dandong is a thriving metropolis. But at the edge of town ramshackle buildings and some very poor Chinese live in the shadow.

Last night we had said we would not want to get too close to North Korea and wouldn’t walk on the bridge. As we park and look around it doesn’t seem so forbidding, and I declare that I’ll do it. Bernie joins me but Autumn remains behind again.

This bridge, the Broken Bridge, was a rotation bridge built in 1911 by the Japanese, connecting China and Korea. In 1950, during the Korean War, U.S. army forces bombed the bridge. Shortly after the armistice, North Korea took down its side, so the bridge is now a half-bridge.

We walk to the end, in the middle of the Yalu River. The effects of the bombing are still here-twisted metal and bullet holes.

We’re both old enough to remember the Korean War, though barely. What we do remember is American soldiers, family and friends, coming home from Korea with silk embroidered jackets that said, “I know I’m going to heaven because I’ve spent my time in hell.”

It’s cold here now. In a few minutes we’re going to get in the car and drive up the street to a restaurant where we’ll be warm and well-fed.

The winter of 1950 has been described as the coldest winter ever recorded in Korean history. What would it have been like to be an American soldier, with only a tent for shelter and without adequate warm clothes (the supplies of cold weather clothing did not arrive in Korea for their first winter here).

Today the contrast between Dandong and Sinuiju on the North Korean side is stark. Dandong bustles with new building, high-rise apartments and businesses of all kinds. Sinuiju’s two story buildings and non-working factories appears to be almost deserted.

From the end of the Broken Bridge we can see, directly across from us on the North Korean side, a Ferris wheel. It’s as if it’s trying to convey to the world that in the Workers’ Paradise, this is only one of the many pleasures to be enjoyed.
Below us, a fisherman in a small boat strings his nets across the Yalu. We shiver and turn back.