Galen was out of commission that day. He had spent all night in the bathroom, fighting with what he referred to as General Tsou’s Revenge, so I was visiting the sites solo that day. (By the way, if you find yourself in the center of the planet’s largest continent, I would recommend avoiding the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet).

Tower in Jiayuguan

First, I went to the Jiayuguan Fortress. This fortress was one of the first parts of the Great Wall built in 1372, during the early part of the Ming Dynasty, the period during which most of what is today called the Great Wall was built.

A Tower at Jiayuguan

The fortress was nice, but there was construction going on, which for me, detracts from it. The Chinese do not seem to mind it. Rebuilding historical objects from scratch does not make these objects fake. For the Chinese, it just makes them better.

Reconstructing History – Building Material at a Historical Site

The most famous part of the fort, Jiayuguan Gate, faces west towards the wilds that were not then part of China (though the Chinese now claim that western province has always been a part of China). It was once said “To walk through the Jiayuguan Gate is to walk out of China.”

At the gate, there was a couple: an older man and a younger woman, his daughter. I asked them to take my photo at the Jiayuguan Gate, and we began talking. Though we spoke in Mandarin, he told me they were Australians renting a car and driving around this part of the Silk Road during their (Australia’s) winter break. He complemented my Mandarin, and then we parted. I had lunch and moved on to the next tourist attraction, the westernly most section of the Great Wall.

The Couple

Climbing the steep hill up to the top of this section of the Great Wall an hour later, I ran into them again. I just asked them, “Are yall heading back into town after this? If so, could I ride back with yall?”

“Oh, actually, we’re going to the First Signal Tower.” The older man said, referring to the third tourist attraction in town, a place I had not planned on visiting. “But you can join us, if you like. And we can drop you off somewhere close to town.”

We talked for a while in their car as I helped them navigate out to the First Signal Tower. I was surprised that we mostly spoke Mandarin. He was neither a native English speaker nor someone who was still learning English. If he had been born and bred in Australia, we would have both felt more comfortable switching to English at some point. If he had still been trying to learn English, he would have thrown it out in phrases when he could. But he did neither, content with just going back and forth with me in Mandarin. He was from Xiamen, just across the water from Taiwan, so I threw a line of Taiwanese at him. “You’ve studied Taiwanese too? Very impressive!” he effused.

“What is he saying?” his daughter asked. The older man then explained to her what Taiwanese was.

After showing our tickets, we were waved through to the First Signal Tower, a twelve foot tall mound of dirt alongside the Beida River with a smaller line of dirt snaking across the desert and back towards the Jiayuguan Fort.

The First Tower

We returned to the car, and continued talking. He was a professor of Chinese and translation in Australia, he explained, and he began talking about job security in Australian academia, about the differences in the Australian education system. Just a lot of detail about college life in Australia. By the time he had dropped me off at my hotel, I realized why he had been wanting to probe my Chinese so much.

“People like you are hard to find. Really, I rarely meet native English speakers who can speak Chinese at your level. We should keep in touch. Who knows, maybe when you finish up with your Ph.D. we can work something out.”

When I proposed to hitchhike on this trip, I never thought I would come out with a job offer.

What could make this ancient Ming Dynasty site better? A mechanical bull.