THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA

                         An Awesome Visit to a World Wonder

The day before we were due to visit the Great Wall our guide told us, “It is a 3-½ hour drive tomorrow, but the area we are going to is not crowded. Badaling, where most people go, is so crowded you have little chance of seeing anything. The Great Wall is the number one tourist attraction in Beijing. Most tourists ride to Badaling, 70 kilometers northwest of the city. At an elevation of 3050 feet, it is the highest part of the wall. That part of the wall was restored in 1957 with the addition of guard-rails. Since 1980 it has become exceedingly  crowded, so a  cable car was added to  smooth the  flow of tourist traffic. Vendors selling everything  imaginable, souvenir shops, and fast food kiosks abound, all attributing to a circus-like atmosphere.”

            We liked our guide’s idea and actually were happy to ride through the countryside in our van. Enroute to the Great Wall we stopped in the satellite town of Dongzhinen. We’d call it a suburb. The lovely hotel had western restrooms. It was a pretty little city. As we rode along we passed a kite factory, porcelain factory, a large bamboo factory and many tree farms.

            Several native villagers were waiting for us when we arrived at Jinshaning. They formed a line across the road and as we started up the small hill the front person fell away  to accompany one of us, until we

My guide at the wall in Jinshaning

all had a local villager at our side. My escort was a 12-year-old boy. They stayed with  us all morning until we returned back to the starting point.

            It was nice not to have to jostle our way through a crowd.  It took about 10-15 minutes to walk the moderate incline on a narrow concrete road to the wall. After reaching the wall we faced several steep steps up onto the wall, and then one could go either left or right. I turned left and climbed steps that were broken every 20 steps or so by a small flat platform. The wall climbed to a summit before starting downhill, then up again. I made it to the summit stopping every so often to take in the magnificent, awe-inspiring, panoramic views of tree covered hills with shallow gorges. It was a warm sunny day but not too hot. At the wall we all went our own way at our own pace for a couple of hours before  meeting  again at the bottom for a late lunch. Each one of the villagers had a plastic bag with a book about the wall and most of us ended up buying it as payment for the escort.

 The Great Wall of China (Changeheng) qualifies as one of  the world’s greatest civil engineering feats, and is the only man-made structure visible from outer space. The Longest cemetery in the world is a symbol of greatness and strength.  It took many generations to build and is a superlative path from east to west over mountains and the Mongolian plain.  The purpose of the wall was to protect the Hau, the dominant ethnic population, from foreign invasion. The massive ramparts were begun in separate strategic sections between 402-221 B.C., nearly 2500 years ago! During the reign of China’s first Qin emperor some 300,000 men worked connecting the segments into one huge snake-like fortification. Life was hard during the construction. Archaeologists estimate that the wall ran 6200 miles through an expanse that now covers 16 provinces. Today the wall still covers an impressive 3750 miles, from the Bohai Sea at Shanhai Guan on the east, to Jiayu Guan in the Gobi Desert, crossing five provinces and two autonomous regions. The Great Wall was not only a barrier, but it also served as an elevated highway linking defensive forces along China’s rugged mountainous northern frontier. The road atop the wall provided a means of rapid communication and deployment of troops, arms, and food.

Over a million men worked on the wall under deplorable conditions. When they died their bodies were thrown into the center between the walls and covered up. Every third man was said to have been conscripted to work on the wall. Of every 10 men only 3 returned home.

            Turrets are placed an arrow distance apart. The turret base is 40-foot square, 40-foot high tapering to a 30-foot square at the top. The turrets were built a bit outside the walls so the walls could be protected. The turrets follow several different designs. The wall is not straight as it follows the terrain plus the belief that the devil can only travel in a straight line, so the ups and downs and curves protected it from evil. China’s first emperor, who reigned only a few years, built the Wall to prevent western expansion into China, not for China to expand outside and never really performed the function of a defense line. After his death, the wall fell into a 1000 years of decay, with only small areas of it being kept in good repair.

The long serpent-like wall twisting over the landscape has 24-foot wide walkway on top that allowed 8 men to march abreast. The Ming dynasty repaired the wall and replaced many parts of it. Much of it was replaced with masonry and often set on large granite blocks. Gates were added, and various history notes were inscribed along the wall.

            During the Ming Dynasty the earthen wall was faced with brick and stone, a project that took over 100 years with a phenomenal resource and human cost. In the past, around Beijing, parts of the wall were torn down to reuse the building material. The Wall was basically forgotten after that and parts of it began to deteriorate, and might have totally disappeared had it not been for the tourist industry.

            What an awesome day! We had a delightful lunch at the base of the wall in a small restaurant. The ride through the countryside was mostly traffic free once we left the city. It was truly awesome to walk the wall and learn all its history.