古北口|威廉司马台长城已经不再是当地的明星，她成了一个外来物的背景( 四 )

But I was shortly to see that they were now one and the same place.
The Water Town is a quaint little recreation of a South China town with canals and little houses alongside. Welcome to Gubeikou, the ancient “North” pass that now has a flavour of the south. The developers are obviously expecting large numbers of visitors. the car parks are large, the five star hotel would dwarf most downtown-Beijing hotels, and the ticket office looked more like something you’d expect to see in a city railway station. there was a line of about 25 windows, with all sorts of “packages”. It was on seeing this that I felt the Great Wall was not the star attraction, but just one of many.
It was however the only original one.
For all its loveliness and quaintness and cleanliness, the water town seemed fake to me. Like a clean barn without the animals, straw and dung.
We had a high price ticket that allowed us to approach the Wall by water. We donned life jackets and started to be rowed along a canal. Welcome to Venice I thought.
I was curious to know where our “captain” came from. Simatai perhaps, thinking that the project designers might have had the political correctness to create jobs for the locals. No. this man came from Miyun County Town, about 50 or 60 kms away. There was a ‘work bus’ very day, he said.
Once through the ‘Water Town’ we reached the cable car station. It’s a new, high-speed flight up to the Wall, and there you will find the Wall.
The views remain tremendous, although I have always thought the the best place to appreciate Simatai is when viewing the ridge from afar, from Jinshanling, or the walk between Jinshanling and Simatai.
As I took the cable car down I reminded myself that If I was critical of the development of a southern-style Water town beside the Great Wall I wold be critical of the Qing Emperors who re-created the far so they could be near. They brought their favourite sceneries of the south to the north for pleasure, so why can’t today’s Chinese? They can and they did, but in juxtaposing the two they made the star, the Great Wall, into the background, which is literally behind — although above — the town itself.
Back in the town we enjoyed an excellent lunch, one of the best I’ve had of late, and one of s standard that would be hard to beat in Beijing. but the restaurant was almost empty, as were most of the others that I peered into.
My verdict. If you’re one of the lucky ones who visited Simatai in the “old days”, when you could walk there, have a beer, ‘laobing', pork and peppers with a farming family in the village, and go back to the big city refreshed by your simple day out, then don’t bother going back. Just keep that good memory.
【 古北口|威廉司马台长城已经不再是当地的明星，她成了一个外来物的背景】If you haven’t been to Simatai, then you still have to go. But you just have to accept that you came at the wrong time to a what was once a much better place.

古北口|威廉司马台长城已经不再是当地的明星，她成了一个外来物的背景( 四 )

秒懂生活扩展阅读