Back in 2020, life in Beijing got a little more… interesting. COVID-19 was a new and interesting phenomenon, and living in the city became even more of an adventure than usual. As new health protocols were rolled out, the rules seemed to change from day to day. Most of my Chinese neighbors found themselves locked down in quarantine at some point or other, stuck at home for weeks— or even months— at a time.
With international travel shut down, the expat’s preferred leisure activity— leaving China— was simply not an option. Tourism was effectively limited to Beijing, but on the bright side, there were very few people out and about. It was almost like having the run of the capital, with none of the usual traffic or congestion. Apart from some difficulty getting into buildings and shopping areas, all of which seemed to have made up their own unique rules for access control and contact tracing, the beginning of this pandemic was a golden opportunity to explore.
With the help of an old Fodor’s guidebook, I dutifully began ticking off each of these city landmarks in turn, working my way from Tiananmen Square down to the shuttered street food stalls of Wangfujing Street. It only took a few weeks to work through the city’s top attractions, which is how, a month or so later, I found myself moving on to the city’s second-tier attractions. And there, towards the back of my guidebook, a short paragraph introduced me to the Marco Polo Bridge (known locally as the Lugou Bridge, or 卢沟桥).
Life in the mega-city had slowed to a crawl, so I had more than enough spare time to journey out to the remote Fengtai District. And just like everywhere else in Beijing, Lugou Bridge had a small contingent of private security guards standing watch over the site. I could tell that the BaoAns were bored by their sleepy post, because they took a few minutes out of their day to hassle a foreigner. It was a token display of professionalism, so I, for my part, reciprocated with the customary response of pretending not to understand what they wanted. And when both sides grew bored of the charade, I dutifully signed the contact tracing resister with a fake phone number and my usual pseudonym, Mr. Seymour Butts of Ontario.
After I’d made it past the checkpoint, I had to admit, Lugou Bridge was pretty impressive. The structure’s anglicized name comes from the explorer Marco Polo, who called this stone bridge “one of the finest in the world” when he visited China in the 12th century. At 260 feet long and 30 feet wide, Lugou Bridge might not be so massive by today’s standards, but apparently the engineering is so solid that cars were able to traverse it throughout the 20th century. But the most remarkable feature of Lugou Bridge is its statues— over 500 of them, and every one unique.
According to my guidebook, Lugou Bridge was constructed between 1189 and 1192. The lions came later— they were added on over the course of a few hundred years during subsequent dynasties. And while the bridge has always been a local landmark, it achieved worldwide notoriety in 1937, during an episode known as the “July 7 Incident”. At the time, Japanese soldiers were stationed outside of Beijing, and they were intent on entering the city to search for a missing soldier. The Chinese denied this request, and a skirmish ensued at the foot of the Lugou Bridge. Although the outnumbered Chinese managed to hold off the invaders, historians agree that this was the first real battle of World War II’s Pacific theater. A nearby museum tells the story— with heavy emphasis on the Chinese government’s version of events.
All in all, this voyage to the outskirts of Beijing seemed well worth it… at least until the next day, when an unknown caller rang my cell phone. In broken English, I was questioned on whether I’d met anyone in the Fengtai District recently, or if I visited any markets there. The inquiry seemed random, until later that week, when I spotted a news article about new COVID-19 cases popping up at a nearby meat market.
Apparently the local authorities had stepped up their contact tracing game, and were now tracking any cell phones which had pinged off towers near reported COVID-19 cases. The call was a stark reminder that the city was still firmly engrossed in its pandemic response… and that it would continue to be a challenging time for us explorers.