The Thammasat Library has newly acquired a book about one of the world’s most renowned constructions. A History of the Great Wall of China is shelved in the general stacks of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus. It is about a series of fortifications that were built over many years, although most were constructed from the 1300s to the 1600s. This was done during the time known in China as the Ming Dynasty. In the Chinese language, the word Ming means bright, so the leaders of that dynasty believed that they were bringing brightness or light to the people and saving them from darkness. Part of saving people from darkness was protecting them with a wall built from stone, brick, pressed down earth, wood, and other materials. Most of the Great Wall runs from east to west across what were then the northern borders of China. In addition to keeping out nomadic groups from other regions, the Great Wall was meant to make border controls easier as well as taxing merchandise carried along the Silk Road. As students of history know, the Silk Road was the term for trade routes connecting Asia with the Middle East and southern Europe. At some places along the Great Wall, observation towers were built, along with places for housing soldiers, and other defense supports. According to archaeologists, during the Ming dynasty, almost 9000 kilometers of the Great Wall were constructed, while the whole wall measures over 20,000 kilometers.

In Chinese history, the Great Wall was not always known as the Great Wall. In the Historical Records by Sima Qian, who is considered the father of Chinese historiography, it is called the Long Walls. Chinese people today usually refer to it as the Long Wall. The Thammasat University Library owns a copy of the Historical Records of Sima Qian, which is also known as the Records of the Grand Historian. Other Chinese sources refer to it as the Ten-Thousand Mile Long Wall or the long wall of 10,000 miles. It could also be translated as the immeasurable wall. In the West, it was referred to in travel literature as the Chinese wall. By the 1800s, the name Great Wall of China was used in English, French, and German, although in other countries, it was still known as the Chinese wall. By then, much of it had been reconstructed, since the original wall had fallen apart long before. In 2012 an official government report stated that only just over eight percent of the original wall survives in good condition. Since 1987, it has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Stories of the Great Wall

Among the many legends of the Great Wall is that it can be seen from the moon. Astronomers have proved that this is not true. At its widest, the Wall is just over 9 meters wide or almost 30 feet, made of material the same color as the ground that is near it. It cannot be seen by someone standing on the moon who is not looking through a powerful telescope. To be seen on the moon without a telescope, the Great Wall would have to be over ten times wider than it is. To see the Great Wall as it is now from such a distance would be like seeing a single human hair from 3 kilometers or two miles away. None of the astronauts who have traveled to the moon have claimed to be able to see the Great Wall from there. Even when orbiting close to earth, no astronaut has been able to make a convincing argument that the Great Wall is visible to someone looking from space. Another legend about the Great Wall is that no invader could get past it. Students of Chinese history know that during the Battle of Shanhai Pass in 1644 at the eastern end of the Great Wall, the Manchus and others got through to conquer Beijing and replace the Ming dynasty. Tribes from northeastern China, known as Manchuria, were called Manchus. The Qing Dynasty controlled by Manchus would rule China from the 1600s into the 1900s.

Inspirations from the Great Wall

Among the many books and other writings inspired by the Great Wall is the short story The Great Wall of China written in 1917 by Franz Kafka. This story is in the collection of the TU Library. It is shelved in the general stacks of the Puey Ungphakorn Library, Rangsit Campus. In the story, Kafka (1883 – 1924) offers a description of how the wall was built. Some of the workers were depressed if they were far from their homes and felt that they might never see the wall completed, since it was such a gigantic task. Also, they are aware that building a wall may not provide all the security that is wished for. Only after their section of the wall is done do these builders feel better. The story concludes with the idea that the way the wall is planned and constructed says a lot about the people of China and their rulers:

I guard against generalizations, and do not assert that in all the ten thousand villages in my province it is so, far less in all the five hundred provinces of China. Yet perhaps I may venture to assert on the basis of the many writings on this subject which I have read, as well as from my own observation — the building of the wall in particular, with its abundance of human material, provided a man of sensibility with the opportunity of traversing the souls of almost all the provinces — … there is also involved a certain feebleness of faith and imaginative power on the part of the people, that prevents them from raising the empire out of its stagnation in Peking and clasping it in all its palpable living reality to their own breasts, which yet desire nothing better than but once to feel that touch and then to die. This attitude then is certainly no virtue. All the more remarkable is it that this very weakness should seem to be one of the greatest unifying influences among our people; indeed, if one may dare to use the expression, the very ground on which we live. To set about establishing a fundamental defect here would mean undermining not only our consciences, but, what is far worse, our feet. And for that reason I shall not proceed any further at this stage with my inquiry into these questions.

Modern technology and interpretations

Earlier this month, it was reported that a restoration project for the Great Wall of China will use drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Some of the land covered by the wall includes rocky terrain, difficult to travel over. Using drones, three dimensional scans of parts of the wall will be made to assess which need repairs most urgently.

Thai movie fans are familiar with The Great Wall, a 2016 monster film directed by Zhang Yimou, with Matt Damon leading an international cast of actors. Shot in Qingdao, China, The Great Wall tells a story of monsters and other legendary beings, such as European professional soldiers who supposedly travel to China almost 1000 years ago in search of the secret of how to make gunpowder. The director described it as an action blockbuster with Chinese elements. The production team had to build three artificial walls since they could not use the real Great Wall for filming.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)