Steindorf family trek to China, take a jog on the Great Wall

By Ken Luchterhand



Ho-Chunk member and employee John Steindorf saw an opportunity of a lifetime, so he took it.
He was looking for a destination to take a vacation and, when he stumbled upon a trip to China for a great price, he couldn’t pass it up.
Steindorf and his wife, Beth, and two children, William and Olivia, flew to Beijing, China, from March 20 to March 27.
The flight was long, taking almost 11 hours from Seattle to Beijing on a Chinese airline named Hanan.
“It was like walking into the 1960s,” he said. “The stewardesses were very curious and polite. They wore uniforms with hats and provided us with two meals and snacks and drinks and free movies.”
Steindorf said the adjustment to the time change was difficult, which was 12 hours from the time in Wisconsin. Also, there was a form of culture shock in realizing the huge number of people in the city.
“There are 23 million people living in Beijing,” he said. “Traffic was always congested, no matter what time of day.” A lot of the traffic on the streets were electric scooters. Also shocking was the amount of freedom people had, the same as in the United States, which is contrary to what we have been led to believe.
“Everyone has a job, and if they didn’t have a job and was physically unable to work, they would receive a pension.” He was surprised, when entering a retail store, how many clerks were available to help the customers.
Some of the sites they visited included Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall of China, the Emperors Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, a pearl and jade factory, a rickshaw tour in Hutong, the Marco Polo Bridge and the Olympic Village.
Throughout the whole tour, they were guided by an interpreter who had attended college, but had learned to speak English by watching the television show, “Sex and the City,” Steindorf said.
The Steindorf’s first visits, on the first day, was to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, which were across the street from each other. When asked about the demonstrations and killings that happened in Tiananmen Square, their tour guide said she had no knowledge of the event.
The next day they went to the Summer Palace, which was built for emperors to live during the summer months. It also had a story of the “Dragon Lady,” a queen who had imprisoned her nephew in a portion of the palace because she wanted to prevent him from inheriting the throne.
The next site they visited was the Temple of Heaven. It was a structure that was built for the emperor’s father. He wanted to give it to him before his father died. Everything in it was created in series of nines: there were nine stories, nine arches, nine walkway, nine windows, etc. At the end of the day’s tour, they were given a ride on a dragon boat.
On the third day, the Steindorf family visited the Great Wall of China. For the most part, the steps along the top of the wall are steep and uneven, making walking sometimes difficult.
“I found a level portion to jog, just so I could say I jogged on the Great Wall of China,” Steindorf said.
They also went to the Ming Tombs, where 13 emperors are buried.
In the next days, they visited a pearl and jade factory, where they polished the gems and put them into jewelry and ornaments. They also visited a silk factory, where silk garments were made from silk threads produced by silk worms. Bringing home some of the jade, pearl and silk items were important to them, so they visited the street marketplace, where it was crowded and vendors had their wares on display and available for purchase.
“I found out that bargaining with the sellers was commonplace, so I soon learned that he could get an item cheaper than the original asking price,” Steindorf said. “I would offer a price and if he or she said ‘no,’ I would start to walk away and they would come after me and say ‘okay.’”
The rickshaw ride in Hutoung, a subdivision of Beijing was a treat, followed by an evening meal at a private residence.
“The food was excellent,” he said. “It is so fresh and much better than the Chinese food served in the U.S.”
The next place they visited was the Marco Polo Bridge, which also serves as a monument to an armed conflict that happened many years ago, he said. In 1937, Japan invade China and the bridge still displays the bullet holes and craters that were created during that invasion.
“The local people were amazed that we went to see the bridge, because it isn’t something most tourists go to see,” Steindorf said.
The “Birds Nest” was one of the attractions at the Olympic Village for the 2008 Olympic Games, and the Steindorf family visited the site on one of the last days in the country.
At the conclusion of their stay, tour staff picked them up at the hotel and took them to the airport as a courtesy.
“They were very polite and considerate. They picked us up at the airport when we arrived and dropped us off when we were to leave. And every day they would pick us up at our hotel and provide the transportation to our destination,” he said. “They drove us wherever we wanted to go.”
They were surprised on how well developed the city is, with department stores and even America chain restaurants, such as KFC.
Overall, the whole experience was eye-opening and something they are glad they did.
Their son, William, originally was dismayed that they chose China as a vacation spot, wanting to go to Brazil instead. But once there, he began to change his mind and was glad that they had gone.
“We loved it,” Steindorf said. “It was a once in a lifetime experience. We probably won’t ever have the chance to do it again.”


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