Tai Shan: Capturing “The Look”

Maybe it didn’t actually seem as bad as those passing faces would suggest. Maybe, like child birth (or so they say), you forget about the pain and the hours of struggle once it’s over, and eventually look forward to doing it all over again. But as well as the nagging sense of disbelief at your own recent achievement, there’s also always just a twinge – just a tiny little crumb of an impulse – to stand on the steps as the crawlers crawl by, and, for want of less heartless phrase, laugh in their sweaty red faces. On my way down from Tai Shan, that’s essentially what I did.

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Sunrise on Tai Shan

7000 steps and over five hours climbing. It had rained almost all the way up until we’d climbed too high for it to rain any more. For the rest of the way to the summit we were passing through a whiteout that still hadn’t shifted by the time I went to bed. It didn’t look good for the sunrise. But you pay you money and take your chance. And if you can see no further than your outstretched hand on the only day you’ve got to go up there, you’d better be praying to everything you can on your way to the top for a clear sky in the morning. I’d set my alarm for 04:15. Sunrise was at 05:20.

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7000 steps to the top of Tai Shan

When it comes to mountains, they don’t come any grander or any more renowned in China, than Tai Shan. It is neither the tallest nor the most spectacular of China’s famous peaks, but having been visited by anyone who was ever anyone in Chinese history – from the first emperor Qin Shi Huang to Confucius and Mao Zedong – the mountain today, like Tiananmen Square in Beijing, is a place of pilgrimage for the Chinese people, a chance to connect with thousands of years of Chinese history and tread the same steps as those nation builders that came before them.

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