Beijing/Qufu...Delhi/Varanasi...Cairo/Alexandria...
Beijing in summer was much more difficult physically and emotionally than prior journeys in search of understanding and sense of these places and peoples.
And, though I perhaps neared heat stroke one scorching afternoon walking from the garden beside the Forbidden City to my 6th floor room in the King's Joy Hotel... I viewed the swarmed Forbidden City, Mao and his mausoleum, the Great Hall of the People, parts of the restored and unrestored "Great Wall", the Temple of Heaven, the crowds, the oppressive smog, the business/shopping areas...
China correctly perceived confronts the "Westerner" with the deepest questions as to what is the human being, and what is the reality of the "Western Civilization", and its entire history and world-views.
More to write later.
A difficult, tiring, lonely trip it was.
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