Pingguoyuan（苹果园）

Saturday, January 28

This afternoon two classmates and I rode the oldest subway line all the to its western terminus at Pingguoyuan (literally “Apple Park”), which is at the very edge of the city of Beijing. It was remarkable what a difference a 20-minute ride made; there was no longer any evidence of the ultra-modern city of Beijing—in its place was an enormous coal-fueled power plant with twin cooling towers. Such a short train ride took us from a metropolitan city to the 2nd world. We received even more stares and odd looks out on the periphery of Beijing than we did in the heart of the city. A friend of ours had told us about how it hiked up a small mountain not far from the subway station, so we began to walk westward. After walking for about 30 minutes, which included passing the power plant, we started to head north towards what we thought was the mountain. We arrived at a gate to some sort of military installation. After wishing the guard a happy new year and talking to him for a minute, we were directed towards a path that would take us up the mountain.

Stairs faded to a rock-littered dirt path only 18 inches or so wide that led up the hills. We reached a clearing and had a rather commanding view of the city, power plant, and surrounding area. After climbing a little bit higher, and curious as to whether there was a return path on the other side, we soldiered on. We discovered a dirt road and began wandering down it. After walking for only a few minutes we met a woman walking several large, friendly chowchows. Only a few meters behind her were two older men standing and talking. We began to talk with them and soon discovered that the older of the two was 82 years old. One of the friends that I was has been studying in Beijing for over a year now, so he was able to converse quite well with them. They were fascinated and entertained by our cameras. They asked where we were headed and we explained that we were just going in “that” direction, pointing up towards another trail. For some reason, the elder of the two decided that he’d walk with us. For the next half hour or so (a few solid kilometers) he led us down a different trail towards the bottom of the mountain. He used a branch as a walking stick, but for a man of his age he was ridiculously spry. On one or two occasions when he knew he would need assistance stopping himself after hopping down off of a rock, he simply pointed himself towards a tree and used the trunk to catch himself. This would prompt us to encourage him (in Chinese) to take it easy. He would merely wave his hand dismissively and continue down the path. He spoke to my friend most of the way down, talking about how China and the US should be friends because they are both powerful countries and economies with similar interests. Once we had reached the road he continued to lead us through a hole in a fence, down another flight of stairs to the main road and got us on a bus back towards the subway. He was incredibly friendly and helpful—had it not been for him we would’ve taken a much longer time to find out way down the mountain. The bus deposited us at the subway station and we made our way back towards the modern Beijing.