China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Preserving the Great Wall no easy task
Meandering on mountain ridges across northern China, the Great Wall, one of the world’s man-made wonders, has for thousands of years protected residents from invasion. Gone are the beacons and soldiers on the mountaintops, but another group of rangers has appeared, protecting the ancient landmark from a new kind of invasion.
In Yanqing district, on the northern outskirts of Beijing, home to a 179-kilometer section of the Great Wall, a team of more than 60 government rangers and some 200 volunteers are ensuring that destruction of the wall by humans is halted once and for all.
Mei Jingtian, 73, is the oldest of them. He lives near Bad a ling, where the oldest sections of the Great Wall date back to the Nor the rnQi Dynasty (550-557). “I grew up at the foot of the Great Wall. It was an important part of my childhood,” he said.
Mei remembers the imposing wall of his youth, before it suffered massive destruction during the “cultural revolution” (1966-76). At the time, it was considered a remnant of feudal history that needed to be pulled down. Some residents even took bricks from the wall to build their houses.
The Great Wall, a symbol of China, is actually not just one wall, but many interconnected walls built between the third century BC and the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). It was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987, but its preservation faces long-term challenges.
According to the Yanqing cultural relics authority, only 10 percent of the Great Wall in the district has been protected, and 15 percent has disappeared. The rest is in ruins.
Mei became a volunteer ranger in 1983. Carrying a bottle of water and a sickle, he leaves home at dawn, humming an old song while picking up garbage and pulling weeds around the foot of the Great Wall.
He walks about 20 kilometers each day. Over the decades, he has worn out more than 200 pairs of shoes.
“I feel reassured standing on the mountain,” he said. “The Great Wall is unique. If we don’t do anything, I think one day it might disappear completely.”
Human activity once posed the greatest threat to the Great Wall, and was hard to stop. Mei was often told “don’t meddle in others’ business”.
Stopping vandalism
Once he approached a group of men inscribing characters on the bricks with a knife. When he objected, they tried to intimidate him.
“I explained the importance of protecting the Great Wall and was able to make them leave,” he recalled.
In 2007, Mei founded an association for Great Wall protection with 40 members.
“Now the number has doubled,” he said, adding that activities are run year-round, mobilizing Communist Party members and even primary school students to take part in mountain patrols, picking up garbage and checking for geological changes along the wall.
His story has inspired many others. Liu Huijun, 43, from Hubei province, who was stationed in Shixia village near the Great Wall as a soldier in 1993, became a ranger in 2007.
“Public awareness of Great Wall protection has increased ,” said Liu, now a police officer. On important festivals, activities are held at the foot of the wall. In Shixia, about one-third of the villagers have joined the protection efforts.
Although the human destruction has virtually stopped, the process of natural erosion has picked up speed.
“Some Great Wall sections have brick walls and stairs. However, most stretches of the wall were built with rock-andearth foundations,” said Yu Haikuan of the Yanqing cultural relics authority.
“Rainwater is very corrosive to dilapidated wall sections,” he said, adding that repairs are difficult as they require a lot of money and manual labor.
“Not even a mule can climb up some of the steepest mountainsides. One can only carry three bricks at a time, 15 kilograms each, around 18 bricks a day at the most,” Yu said.
Rebuilding a 1-meter section of the Great Wall costs approximately 10,000 yuan ($1,450).
The government approved a Great Wall repair fund of 60 million yuan in 2016, with one-third designated for repairs to the Badaling section, the tourist area commonly seen on television and printed on postcards.
“The most pressing task is to renovate a 7-kilometer section along the route to the 2022 Winter Olympic venue and the 2019 World Horticultural Exhibition site,” Yu said.
Yu has mixed feelings about the wall. To protect views of the wall, building height is limited in nearby areas. That led to the termination of an innovation program about 5 kilometers away.
“We will suffer some losses, but every coin has two sides,” Liu said.
“The Great Wall is a treasure left by our ancestors. We can seek different development paths, but if the Great Wall landscape is ruined, the damage will last forever.”
We can seek different development paths, but if the Great Wall landscape is ruined, the damage will last forever.” Liu Huijun, police officer and Great Wall ranger