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Yesterday I visited the “Dragon Head,” which is the point at where the Great Wall meets the sea. Apparently it gets its name due to the shape of the towers and wall at the very end. Perhaps I don’t have a very vivid imagination, but I don’t think Dragon Head would have been the first parallel drawn in my mind…but I guess it does remind me a bit of the Luck Dragon from The NeverEnding Story.

Walking around that portion of the wall and the nearby Sea God Temple, I got to read more about the US’ invasion of the area and destruction of those two landmarks (Both were rebuilt much later). Armed with more information and taking a little more time to look on the Internet, I did find quite a bit of information about the battle. One professor from Wisconsin, gives a pretty good run-down on it. However, I find it interesting to think about how the two groups have even named the conflict: the signs call it an invasion by the Eight Powers (including US, British, French, Japanese, Italian, Austrian, and Belgian forces); Americans refer to it as the Boxer Rebellion. “Invasion” interesting in that the Eight Powers had already been there and were responding to attacks. “Rebellion” interesting considering the Eight Powers were not their government to be rebelled against…

However the conflict is referred, though, it is blamed for much of the destruction of the wall, which had to be rebuilt later in the 20th century. It also means that what I saw yesterday is just as much new as it is old. BUT, destruction by foreign forces or not, I’ve found that much of the Wall and the other historic sites have been reconstructed or restored and are rarely seen in their unrestored condition…

“You learn more about who’s telling the history than you do about the history itself,” was the basic premise of a world history course I once took. At first the idea seemed like academic-theory hogwash to me, but then I came to see what that chubby Australian professor was trying to teach us. Does a missing story in U.S. high schools’ history textbooks mean it didn’t happen? Hardly…it just tells us what today’s writers of history, and our society, value.

I thought about that premise often today as I visited The First Pass Under Heaven, a pass (uh, the first one) through the Great Wall in Shanhaiguan. Although the weather was dreary, and the attraction isn’t a big one for tourists (I only found it mentioned in Frommer’s guide books), I thought I’d still give it a go. Although not too much to see, (especially because a big portion of Shanhaiguan and the Wall are undergoing renovations for the 2008 Olympics), there is some; portions of the towers and walls have authentic and replica army clothes and weapons on display. But that’s not where I spent most of my day. Nope. It was the included museum visit. The nearby Great Wall Museum took me a good couple of hours to wander through. With way more information on bricks and towers than most people would enjoy, the museum chronicles the Wall start to finish.

Near the end of the exhibit was a room on Shanhaiguan’s strategic military importance and the battles fought there. The U.S. was mentioned a couple of times, most notably for a “slaughter” in 1900 and the country’s aligning with China’s nationalist party when it was struggling for power against China’s communist party. Um, yeah, not the most loving descriptions of America (although another room did have a huge photo of Ronald Reagan walking on the Wall), I’d say, and the descriptions of China throughout…well, they were obviously much more glowing.

When I came home, I looked online for the 1900 battle mentioned in the museum; I found nothing. Then I reread Frommer’s description of Shanhaiguan, and it gives a far different description of the city’s strategic importance. But, I’m not surprised at all. And I can’t tell you who’s right. But if that world-history lesson is true, I’d say our Chinese friends still only trust us as far as they can throw us. (Which with our rate of obesity, ain’t very far)