Ditan Park

This guide follows Shi Tiesheng, a twenty-one-year-old paralyzed during the Cultural Revolution, who wheeled himself into Ditan Park in Beijing, once the Temple of Earth where emperors made yearly harvest offerings on a square altar. It traces the roughly fifteen years he returned here almost daily, watching insects and shifting light among the old cypress trees, and the quiet presence of someone who followed him without ever being seen. You'll hear how he later put those years into words. Stand beneath the same cypress trees beside the dry moat as you listen.