"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. We had everything before us. We had nothing before us." -- Dickens

We went to the Great Wall today. It was a big day for us. We had spent the night at the Grand Hyatt in supreme luxury. Sam and I are sharing a suite with Betty and Gabi. It has two bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen, internet access and marble tubs. The pool is the most beautiful I have ever seen.

In a lovely and generous gesture, Dave treated the whole group to a wonderful indulgence: our own air-conditioned mini-van with seating for 23 passengers. We filched some fabulous rolls, meats and cheese from the breakfast buffet. ("They expect us to take stuff," said Jeannie, as she stashed several carefully-made sandwiches into her purse. ) On Ching Ching's advice, we rejected the touristy and heavily-trafficked Badaling section of the wall in favor of the Simitai section 45-minutes farther away from Beijing, making it a 2 1/2 hour drive. The time went by quickly, though. Sam and Ryan had their Game Boys. Jeannie and Dave had their Blackberries. Betty finally got around to braiding Gabi's hair, a 2-hour undertaking that hurts like heck for Gabi. I kept her distracted with stories. First, the story of "Two Friends," which was a spinoff of the bedtime series "Four Friends." Then the true-life story, "When Uncle Jeff Covered the Tiananmen Square Incident," which Gabi missed yesterday. This was followed by several other stories of my life, afterwhich Gabi graciously thanked me even though it was I who should have thanked her because I so rarely get such an appreciative and captive audience.

After about 2 hours and 15 minutes, the van slowed to a stop and we noticed that traffic had backed up for as far as we could see. "We can't go any farther," said our driver. There was an accident. We inched to the front of the snarl -- you can do that in Beijing, there seem to be no traffic laws -- and saw a huge truck toppled to its side, the windshield shattered, blocking the entire two-lane road. We also saw a crookedly parked bus with passengers standing outside in the rain. A police officer gave our driver directions for a simple detour so we made a U-turn and were on our way again.

The detour took a long time. It was approaching 12 noon and we had been riding since 8 a.m. when Jeannie insisted we stop for a bathroom break. The driver tried to find a public toilet, but we were too far gone. "Does he understand that we're willing to use the bushes?" said Jeannie. "He can't find a place to pull over," said Betty, who was doing much of the translating. We finally stopped in field where there were no bushes in sight, giving us a perfect opportunity to practice Betty's brilliant parasol dance routine. This ingenious maneuver debuted at the Stone Forest in Inner Mongolia when I had an emergency in the middle of an afternoon of touring. Betty and I retreated off stage where she opened our umbrellas in front of her, twirling them and singing a Chinese love song while I squatted behind her. No one was the wiser and I left the scene with my dignity in tact.

This time, however, we had the kids and four umbrellas. I don't know any Chinese love songs. Instead, I accompanied Betty with the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." We must have been quite a sight for the motorists that passed us -- three moms and four kids with umbrellas. It took us a long time because we all took turns and Jeannie couldn't stop laughing.

When we finally got to the parking lot at Simitai, we found only one tour bus in the parking lot and an ominous sky. Just as we stepped out of our van, we felt a few drops of rain.

Nothing, however, could have deterred us. It was our second to last day in Beijing and we had spent 4 hours getting to the wall. At the least, we would get to the actual Wall and taking a few pictures, then get back in the van and go home. We put on colorful rain ponchos marched to the cable cars. Once at the top, we could walk up to one of the watchtowers on the wall to take pictures. There was a spooky feeling in the air. Here we were ,virtually alone at the Great Wall, one of the world's most famous sights. (Who said it was the only manmade structure visible from the moon? "Must have been an astronaut," Sam reasoned.)

Each cable car took two people. The kids wanted to ride together but we wouldn't let them. "I don't believe we're riding cable cars in the rain," said Jeannie. "I don't believe we're riding CHINESE cable cars in the rain."
She got on with Ryan, then I got on with Sam, Dave with Ella, and Betty brought up the rear has she always did, with Gabi. The cable car moved very, very slowly and the sky was so dark and cloudy we couldn't see the top. The seats had been wiped dry by the attendants, but the cars were still wet and very rusty. As we ascended, the rain began in earnest. Looking up, we saw a clearing in the clouds where a watchtower was shrouded in mist. Sam said it looked like Hogwarts and we were young wizards heading up for the first time. To me, it was magical too. It was unearthly. One of the most beautiful sights I'd ever seen. The valley below became deeper and deeper as we rose and each time I thought we'd reach the top, the clouds parted to reveal another hundred of yards in front of us. Then came a bright flame of lightning quickly followed by a loud rumble of thunder. Sam and I grabbed each other's arms and smiled nervously. It started to pour. The cable continued to rise, which was a comfort. Another flash of lightning and a louder roar of thunder. The car stopped. We dangled helplessly on the line like little marionettes with make-believe smiles on our faces, pretending not to be scared. The cable started up again and we were temporarily relieved. Then a wicked slash of lightning hit very close above us. I heard sizzling sound. Later, Dave said he heard the sizzle and smelled smoke, too.

The car stopped and it just poured and poured. We were suspended in air, soaking wet, and scared. Sam reached across to me and pulled my poncho closed over my skirt, as if that would keep me dry. Then he said, "You know what my favorite book is?" I said I didn't, please tell me about it. He recited the entire plotline to the "Supernaturalists." We continued to dangle. The cars were too far apart for us to communicate with the others, but no one appeared to be panicking.

Terror has a way of sharpening all the senses, making this otherwise spectacular sight all the more awe-inspiring. Betty later said that in that moment, her own life struggles seem puny and she felt like an old soul returning back to the earth. Jeannie, we later found out, was trying to amuse Ryan with word games, but he refused to play, making wisecracks instead, so she continued to play without him. She later realized that all the words she came up with were weather-related. Ella reported that Dave wore a tight, fake smile that made it obvious he was terrified.

The cars reached the top. (Of course. You wouldn't be reading this now if it didn't.) The attendants became very animated as they pulled us in, radioing to others in frantic voices. We were the last ones on the cars, the only ones on.

We were directed to a shelter and told to stay there until the rain stopped. The adults remained closed lipped and stoic for the sake of the children. "Well, my hair is ruined," I said, as we got into the shelter. Jeannie and Dave tried to figure out whether it was safe to take the cable back down again. I said I couldn't take the cable car down because I promised God I that if He got me to the top safely, I'd never get on another one for the rest of my life. Dave smiled. "What else did you promise him, Wendy?"

The rain continued for an hour. When it finally let up, we were told that the cable car would NOT take passengers down. We started to climb up but were stopped by police who said no one was allowed to climb up. The only alternative, we were told, was to climb down ourselves -- a 1 1/2 hour hike that could take longer with children. We were disappointed that after all that, we wouldn't get to see the Great Wall. But we started to climb down.

Ryan was indignant. Sam was quite unhappy, too. We were soaked and the plastic ponchos were sticking to our skin. Dave explained patiently that even though there was only a small chance that the cable cars were dangerous, we could not take the chance and that often in life you have to play it safe, especially when the stakes were so great. I told Sam I was just as miserable as he was, and I'd never put him through this next trial unless it was absolutely necessary.

As we started to descend, we found ourselves accompanied by some local Chinese people. A man who walked next to me pointed out items of interest, such as "windows" in the wall where weapons were positioned and engraving on bricks that indicated the date of repairs to the wall. We realized, happily, that our path was on the wall itself. So we made it afterall. Feeling better, we began to enjoy our companions who we soon realized were the hawkers that sell postcards and picture books to tourists. One hawker had assigned himself to each adult in our party, Jeannie noticed. We had read that these persistent "guides" could be a nuisance and can ruin a visit to the wall with their relentless selling. This time, however, they had a story to tell us.

"This is the 6th watchtower," my new friend told me as we passed it. "Today at the 11th tower three people were [unintelligible]." He made a cutting gesture across his throat. "Dead?" I asked. He nodded and made the gesture again. Then in a combination of Chinese language and pantomime, he told me that they had been struck by lightening in one of the watchtowers that had a hole in the roof. The rain poured through the hole and the tourists had no protection from the lightning.

He pointed to the cable cars. "You see how no one is going up or down any more? You see how they won't let anyone climb to the top?" Are they foreigners? "I think so." What country are they from? "I think from France or England," he said. I called to tell Betty. The guide told me to stay quiet. "Don't talk about it," he said. "It's bad. It's bad for business." I realized we'd probably be his only "guests" that day.

He was lowkeyed and seemed to be decent, warning me of slippery or loose stones on the way down, telling me stories. They exchanged information with the other sellers positioned on the wall as we walked past, getting updates on the accident. It was two tourists, he said. One of them lost a leg. The bodies are still up there. Uniformed men passed us as they made the climb UP the path. "Police," my guide said under his breath. He called out to them. "You're not using the cable cars?" One officer grinned at him, as if the guide was a wiseguy. "No cable cars," the officer said.

My guide reached into his jacket and surreptiously brought out a souvenir book of the Great Wall. "Miss," he said. "Could I interest you..?" Later, I replied. I'll buy one at the bottom when we're done with this, OK? He nodded understandingly. "What does he want?" Dave and Jeannie asked. "He wants to sell us souvenirs," I replied. "Tell him we'll buy anything he wants," they said. "It'll be our offering to the Gods of the Great Wall for sparing our lives."

The climb down was enchanting. We passed through watchtowers in varying states of decay and walked through several layers of mist. At times, the air was as clear as we had ever seen it during our entire stay in Beijing. All the time, we were alone without another tourist in sight. It was so beautiful, I begged Sam and Betty to stop for pictures or at least to look up, but they were more interested in getting to safety. At onen point, the guide said, "Listen. Those are the ambulances. See how they're getting closer?" Later, Betty said that her guide told her that the bodies would have to be examined and photographed before they would be brought down.

The guides stopped us just short of the end, before we were about to reach a phalanx of souvenir hawkers at the base of the hill near the parking lot. Betty bought first, establishing a whopping 100 yuan price for the picture book. The three other adults followed her lead, grateful to the guides for helping us down. They pulled out postcards, too, and we bought those, too. We didn't want to haggle. It was unseemly. They didn't haggle either and disappeared before we hit the aisle of souvenir stands near the parking lot. We started peeling off our ponchos and jamming them into a garbage can, but a T-shirt seller stopped us and asked if he could have them. Sure, we said, and handed them over. I can see how they'd be useful to cover up merchandise in the rain.

As we climbed back into the van, our guide re-appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. "Miss," he said, "Please be careful. Have a safe trip home." Moments later, he was gone. Jeannie said, "One of our guides just disppeared into the bushes." We boarded the bus and took off our wet shoes and socks. Several of us spread out on the seats to nap. The accident had still not been entirely cleared up and we had to take another detour to get back to the hotel. We got back at 6:30 p.m. -- about 6 hours late. Jeannie emailed Ching ching on her Blackberry that we'd have to cancel the big dinner at the Taiwanese restaurant but could meet her at the hotel buffet. We all regaled ching ching and her husband Qu Jiang with our tales of adventure. We all ate heartily. Ching ching presented us each with silk picture frames of the only pictures she had of us -- the ones taken at the hospital where they stitched my eye. They stopped in our rooms briefly and then went on their way to start their vacation to Vietnam the next day.

The children were easily persuaded to go to bed -- Sam in my king-sized bed and Gabi in Betty's. Betty and I stayed up to gather our thoughts and check our email. Dave had emailed me a wire service story about the day's events:

One Greek tourist killed by lightning at the Great Wall, her male companion injured and taken to Beijing Union Hospital (right behind our hotel); a truck and bus collide near the Great Wall, killing 7 passengers and severely injuring 10. Jeannie would later say that this is when the gravity of our situation hit her full force.

We Visit the New Artists' Community
Today the children had their "homestay," the day that they go home with their conversation buddies for a taste of how regular Chinese kids their age live. Ryan and Sam went together, which was a relief to me because I've been concerned about this event. In recent days, the director of the program, Bai Fan, seems to be vague and sometimes inconsistent in her answers to questions about the families. It became clear that many of the buddies' families were reluctant to bring our kids to their homes, perhaps because they were embarrassed about how modest their living quarters are. It certainly isn't because it's too much trouble to clean the place, which would be my excuse. In the morning I emailed Ching ching to let her know that even though we left her yesterday saying we would probably be too exhausted to see her today, I could get away to see her if she needed some girlfriend time.

She emailed back that she, too, was exhausted. But knowing the importance of seizing the moment, she offered to show us around the new artists' community in Beijing and take us to lunch there. We agreed to rendezvous at the Lido Hotel where Chingching would then direct us to the artists' community, because "you're never gonna find it." It was tucked away in a section of old factories, some still in use, near the airport. The taxi could only go as far as street and we had to walk the rest of the way into a village-sized cluster of high-ceiled industrial buildings. The places were very much like SOHO lofts, painted white inside with lots of windows and exposed pipes. One of the first large studios we entered was an abandoned factory that still had quotations of Chairman Mao painted on the rafters in big red Chinese characters. Underneath the fading slogans was one particularly provocative painting of nude, young, Chinese men curled up around each other -- kind of like a Klimt painting or that famous old nude of John and Yoko in bed. I later found out that this ironic juxtoposition of Mao sayings or images is a very common sight in new China, if for no other reason than the fact that there too many old Mao references and too little time. In other words, new China is moving so fast, it hasn't the time nor the inclination to erase the past to make way for the future.

The next gallery blew me away. It contained rows and rows of headless wire mannekins wearing every color of tattered Mao jackets and work pants. Empty suits. They resembed a unit of those ghostly terra cotta soldiers in Xian.

There was a terrifice pair of comic book statues of Chairman Mao holding hands with Karl Marx. We mugged it up in front of them as chingching took pictures. Then the moms decided that chingching and I ought to pose together in front of the statues to echo the student-mentor relationship between the two men. I was supposed to stand in front of the mentor Marx while ching ching stood in front the Mao, the student, but that would have meant exposing the right side of my face (henceforth to be called my "bad side,") to the camera. So we did the opposite, but I think the any viewer who cares will get the point.

We had a great 2 1/2 hour lunch in which we touched on many important subjects such as .

My Summer Vacation by Wendy Lin

This is the story of three moms and their four kids in China.

My two friends, Betty and Jeannie, and I enrolled our four children (Ella, Ryan, Gabi and Sam) in a Chinese language emersion course for the summer. It's a 3 1/2 week program. The children are studying reading, writing and conversational Chinese in addition to Chinese culture, including calligraphy, martial arts and Chinese painting and such. The program takes kids 6 to 18 years old, with kids under 13 years accompanied by parents. Ella, Gabi and Sam are 10-years-old and Ryan is 8.

We arrived on Wednesday night and were met by a staff member of the Sino Language Gateway who took our luggage and whisked us away to our domirtory rooms at Tsing Hua University. We flew directly from NYC to Beijing and it took us 14 hours.

So we three Moms have set up camp in the dormitory with the kids (each of us has our own room).

Sam and I settling in nicely. The dormitory is very comfortable, even luxurious, by Chinese standards. Tsinghua (pronounced ching-hua) University is an old, prestigious school that dates back to pre-revolutionary China and is known as the M.I.T. of China. We are staying at the brand-new foreign students dormitory with rooms that are air conditioned with private baths and color TV.
We eat in the school cafeteria and see the children for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We would like to sit in on their classes, but have been tactfully asked not to.

The kids are adapting wonderfully, Sam having had a rocky first day with jet lag and culture shock. He is a picky eater to begin with, but he's really finding it difficult to eat in the Chinese cafeteria. Ella never met a new food she didn't want to try, so she is in heaven working her way through each new and unfamiliar dish at the university cafeterias. There are many cafeterias on campus. The Tsinghua campus is huge ("It's like Ohio State," says Jeannie.) Our main cafeteria has 3 floors of food. You order your food from stalls, like a food court at a mall, and swipe your food card to pay. Sam and Ryan are still bringing forks to their meals, but Ella and Gabi are managing nicely with their chopsticks.

I don't like the food much myself and don't always like to use chopsticks when a fork would be so much easier, but feel I have to set an example for the children. When Sam was having his first night crisis, I promised I would move heaven and earth to get him McDonald's chicken nuggets the next day. (He was HUNGRY.) Jeannie and Betty, having lived through my agonizing over Sam's food since his infancy ("Do you think he's eating enough? Are you sure he's eating enough?") continue to indulge me and helped me present Sam with a hot Happy Meal for lunch the next day. And naturally, he barely looked up from his tray of Chinese food when I arrived with the fast food treat, saying he was doing just fine without it, thanks.

Sam is in the beginner's class of Chinese, along with Ryan. The girls are in the intermediate class, although they're thinking of switching to beginner because it's a bit too difficult for them. Sam was initially placed in the intermediate class after scoring well on the placement exam. He asked him how this was possible since he has had no Chinese language training and doesn't know any Chinese. He said the test was multiple choice and he guessed. After spending a few minutes in the intermediate class, he was put in the proper group.

After dinner, the kids have a conversation class with a Chinese "buddy" who is a local kid their age, usually the son or daughter of a university professor. The buddy doesn't speak much English so the kids have to use their language skills to communicate. The first day, Sam and Ryan just played tic-tac-toe with their buddy.

The weather has been awful in every way, but today the sun is out for the first time and the kids have the day off. We are debating what to do with this precious day because it is the only unscheduled day in the entire program. Yesterday, while the kids were at class, we took a cab into the city (about 45 minutes from campus) to see Chingching Ni, a former Newsday reporter who is now the Beijing correspondent with the Los Angeles Times. I met her when she was a student at the journalism school at Columbia; Jeannie and Betty also know her from the Asian American Journalists Association where WE all first met. Chingching's being here is a godsend. She was born and raised in Beijing. Her advice is not to go the Beijing Zoo. ("Disgusting," she said.) She recommended an ice skating rink where they also serve 31 flavors of Haagen Daz ice cream.

There is more to write, but I will send this now to get it to you before the news gets old.