Flathead group gets a peek into diverse country of China

A written script dating to the 16th century B.C., 56 distinct ethnic groups and a terrain ranging from the 13,000-foot Tibetan Plateau to the coastal flats of the Yellow, East China and South China seas make China a land rich in diversity.

To say that a group of 100 people, most from the Flathead Valley, saw China during nine days in early April is something of a misstatement. The Kalispell Chamber of Commerce's 2009 Mission to China contingent sampled a slice of the country, taking an eastern-rim peek at areas around Beijing and Shanghai.

But what a peek it was.

From the Great Wall of China, said to be the only manmade object on earth visible with the naked eye from the moon, to the delicate cherry blossoms in carefully sculpted Chinese gardens, the experience was jaw-dropping.

The people of China are her richest resource, economically and culturally.

Beginning with our first evening dinner of Peking roast duck barely an hour after landing in Beijing, the warm welcome surrounded us. Everywhere we traveled, to ancient temples and modern shopping districts, that openness of spirit followed.

Chinese met our gazes on the streets, smiles spread across their faces, a glimmer lit their eyes when we smiled back at them with our eyes. Our parroting of rudimentary phrases of greeting and thanks delighted them.

The commercial press of those people hit us full force on our first full day in Beijing.

We were besieged by street vendors on the short walk from our hotel to the tour bus as we headed out for the 1420-vintage Temple of Heaven.

Laden with 'silk" purses, paper fans, packs of chopsticks and the like, they offered it all for sale. Special deals for their American friends were common, bargaining was expected and, while their Chinese yuan certainly was accepted, the U.S. dollar was prized. That routine repeated itself every time we boarded and exited the buses. Tour stops and the Americans they delivered are a well-exploited market for the vendors.

As it turned out, so was that morning's jade factory - and the subsequent centers for silk, embroidery and rugs, cloisonne, pearls, herbal medicines and green tea.

As one tour member said, it is important for the Chinese to extract money from Americans' pockets. And they're very good at it.

China's people work long hours for minimal wages, and often under grueling conditions.

Cloisonne workers hammer out sheets of copper, solder metal wires into intricate designs, paint each section with minuscule brushes, fire and enamel the pieces of art, breathing the fumes and straining their eyes and hunching their backs all day.

Translate that into knotting fine silk threads on looms at the rug factory, or polishing and carving jade and high-quality jadeite, or painstakingly threading sliver-fine needles to pull gossamer strands of silk through fabric for two-sided embroidery that can take two years for a master artist to complete, and the dogged work ethic of the Chinese people is stunning.

Although a small bonus may be paid to the master artist when a work sells - 90 percent or more goes to the government - they continue their art.

Architectural accomplishments of the Chinese people were equally stunning.

Our first day took us to the No. 1 goal of many on the tour, the Great Wall of China. We visited the Badaling section northwest of Beijing, the most popular tourist destination among all the reconstructed sections along its 4,000-mile reach.

Known as Ch‡ngchng, the Great Wall first was begun more than 2,000 years ago in the Qin Dynasty (221-207 B.C.), when China was unified under the ruler Qin Shi Huangdi. Over the years, sections of the wall were linked together to prevent nomadic invaders from entering.

Kiln-fired bricks cemented with a mortar of lime and glutinous rice formed walls that were 8 meters high on average. Locally quarried rocks and tamped layers of earth and rubble filled in the core between the walls. It is said that the bones of some of the thousands who died in its making also were added to the mix.

The Great Wall topped the jagged peaks of the highest mountain ranges along the northern border, roughly defining the boundary of Inner Mongolia. Over the years it was breached by invaders, some sections crumbled to ruin, and time and again were rebuilt.

As we stood atop one of those reconstructions, no words could capture the intensity of the history, the vast sense of landscape, the determined purpose and protectiveness of a culture that knew it had much to defend and was willing to go to great lengths to defend it.

Time and again throughout the tour, China's sense of history and place washed over us:

The Temple of Heaven elaborately decorated in the Ming Dynasty colors of red, yellow and blue; the Ming Tombs dating from 1425 A.D. honoring 13 of the 16 Ming emperors; Tian'anmen Square, known to the outside world for its 1989 massacre but known in China as the gate to the Forbidden City, the centuries-old home of Chinese emperors; an empress' Summer Palace.

In the south, at Suzhou and Hangzhou outside Shanghai, exquisite gardens of flowers and pruned trees and coi-filled ponds and gnarled rock and curving walkways told the eternal stories.

In Shanghai, a 101-story high-rise building and striking television tower and neon-lit wonders stand as testimony to accomplishments of architects who built Shanghai's new town from nothing into today's complex maze in just 11 years.

China is indeed a land of contrasts and diversity, a land that cannot adequately be captured in words. It is a land that must be experienced, perhaps many times over, to be grasped.

Reporter Nancy Kimball may be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com