I had an idea for a blog post yesterday after an exchange with someone. I was wearing one of my oversized, now vintage, “I Climbed the Great Wall” sweatshirts. Someone asked, “You climbed the great wall?” I paused for a moment to contemplate the question and replied, “why, yes. Yes, I did.”
I kept a very detailed journal as a school assignment / homework with the intent of sharing my journal & photos with my peers. That sharing & knowledge exchange with peers never happened. But I believe I submitted my journal to my teachers to read.
It was a very cold day in November 1993. Polly Klaas, who was 11 months older than me, was still missing. The day was cloudy and reminded me of the Chicagoland weather around this time of year. We called Chicagoland home during this timeline. I was 11. My father was living and working in Beijing, four years after Tiananmen Square.
We visited my father. He didn’t pull us out of school to attend school in China bc it was a short-term assignment. I remember spending days in his 41st-story apartment in the Jing Guang Centre looking at people exercising, biking, and attending school. I remember eating a lot of peanut butter toast and pulpy orange juice in that 41st-story apartment while people watching. These flavor combinations & textures still remind me of that time. If I want to take a TARDIS 💙 ride to my snacking in November 1993 in the 41st high-rise apartment, peanut butter toast and orange juice pulp – best enjoyed together – will take me there.
We took a day trip to the Great Wall of China. The sun was in Scorpio and the moon was waning crescent in Libra. Saturn was transiting my 12th house just as it had done recently from 2020-2023. Pluto was in 25 degrees in Scorpio, a time when the HIV / AIDS epidemic was still around 12 years after it was identified during my birth year and the stigma was still pervasive. Here are a few 1993 headlines to give context:
Conference Ends With Little Hope for AIDS Cure
“Only an eternal optimist would have left the ninth international AIDS meeting here last week believing that new drugs will be available anytime soon to save the lives of the 14 million people now infected with the virus that causes AIDS.”Government Panel on H.I.V Finds The Prospect for Treatment Bleak
“Experts were predicting only recently that AIDS would by now have come to be controlled like diabetes and many other chronic diseases. Instead, the latest studies show evidence of serious limitations in the three drugs so far licensed for use against H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.”In 2 Young Patients, Rare Transmission of H.I.V. Is Detected
“Scientists have detected two cases in which the AIDS virus has been transmitted from one child and one adolescent to others but apparently not by the usual routes. The most likely cause is believed to be that infected blood from one entered the other through a cut or disease that broke the skin.”“The AIDS Epidemic: 1991-1993.” https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/aids/timeline91-93.html?scp=8&sq=1991&st=cse. Accessed on 27 April, 2023.
I learned how steep a section of the Great Wall was. I remember I had this new camera for the trip. It was your typically clunky camera from the 1900s. The portion of the Great Wall we visited was very slippery with the accumulation of ice and there was no application of salt or sand from my recollection. My tennis shoes weren’t slip resistant enough. My Dad was wearing a Seinfeld-like leather jacket. The episode of Jerry’s Jacket had aired two years prior. I slipped and I dropped the film-loaded camera I was holding. I believe I fell on top of it. It broke & stopped working immediately. I couldn’t use it and I remember being very disappointed. I was 11. I didn’t know how to take the L gracefully at that time. Or maybe I did, i don’t remember.
Pics or it didn’t happen, please.
And here are the receipts.
I drafted the above before rereading my journal.
Let’s see what my 11-year-old self had to say:
Have you been to the Great Wall of China? What is your favorite snack that takes you back?