December 29, 2015 • 40 mins
The Great Wall of China is one of the most visited tourist desinations in the world. How'd it get built? How old is it? What's the current condition? Learn this and more in today's episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, just the two
of us again. Fine, so the Lone Wolves, the pack
of the Lone Wolves. I'm just trying new stuff here. Yeah. Wolverines,
(00:29):
Yeah in Colorado blows my mind. Yeah. Where do you
think it was? Again? Michigan? Right, and all the mountain Rangers.
I just thought I hadn't been far enough north in
Michigan before, despite growing up an hour south of it.
I saw a little bit of the old Red Dawn
again the other night. How did you stop it ended? Okay,
(00:51):
that's all the end I saw from like Powers booth
on Okay. When he entered the picture, yeah, which I mean, like,
if you think about it, he did need to be there.
But his introduction was great. It was wonderful. I think
he played a vital role. I think they could have
done fine without him. He's a little creepy with the
young ladies, though with Leah Thompson he was sick. He
(01:15):
got what he deserved. I still haven't seen the remake,
No need, Nope, So Chuck, Yes, I have another question
about something you've seen. Have you ever seen the Great
Wall of China? Not in person? Let me ask you
something else. Have you ever seen the ten thousand lie
long Wall. I don't know what you speak. That's the
(01:38):
Great Wall of China, I'm just kidding. Also called the
long Wall of ten thousand Lee. It's another way to
put it l I. And that is a unit of
measurement in China. Apparently it's about one click. Yeah, no too,
two clicks, two clicks. This doesn't here. One kilometer now,
(01:58):
oh yeah, I'm sorry to Lee, being is equivalent to
one kilometer. I'm sorry you did one click? To Lee, man,
this thing. The wheels are falling off already, right. The
Western hemisphere is generally the folks who say the Great
Wall of China, right, And so if it's the ten
(02:20):
thousand Lee long Wall, and to Lee is one click,
then that means that it's the five thousand kilometer long Wall,
is what they would call it in China. And that's
actually way off. There was a very long time that
people thought that the Great Wall was maybe between kilometers
(02:42):
to sixty kilometers. I believe was the high end somewhere
in there. And um all over them app really Yeah.
And finally, at one point in two thousand seven, China said,
you know what, we're gonna take this seriously, after nearly
two thousand years, We're going to go measure this bag.
Who's got some rope? Yeah. Luckily by then GPS had
(03:03):
been developed and they used that a lot. But they
did they did a modern survey of the Great Wall,
and they found that it was not a five thousand,
five thousand kilometer long wall. No, they found Chuck, how
long was it? Over thirteen thousand miles? Over twenty one clicks?
It's a lot of clicks. That is a very long wall,
(03:26):
and it depends on who you ask, Like, that is
the ultimate length of the entire wall if you take
into account every bit of construction phase that was ever
done to it. Yeah, which we'll get into, but that
generally means pre Ming dynasty and post Ming dynasty. Preming
was about seventy seven hundred roughly miles. Uh, and in
(03:49):
really bad shape. Apparently the pr Preming sections only are
about eight percent hole. Yeah. Well, I mean some of
them were built back in two hundred b C. Long time. Yeah,
they weren't like what you think of as the wall
as we'll see. Uh. And I found I found this
interesting in the ming section or post ming section. Uh.
(04:09):
Five thousand out of the five thousand, four nine miles
um two hundred and twenty three miles or trenches, so
not a wall at all. That's like a reverse wall.
And about fourteen hundred little less were natural barreas right,
like they just took advantage of ridges or rivers or
(04:29):
you know, really things. Yeah, I didn't know about the
river thing, so uh, pretty interesting. And it's widest it
is thirty ft. At is highest it is twenty six ft,
and it goes through some rough terrain. And we should
mention stick around through this one. Because the wonderful Christen
Conger from stuff Mom Never told you has walked at
(04:51):
the Great Wall, not the whole thing, very small portion
kilometers of it. No, but she's we're gonna bring her
at the and uh and she said, I'm no expert,
she said, but I can say what it's like to
be there. And I said, that's all we need. So
we're gonna bring in Congor here right at the end.
So it was kind of surprising to everybody that, um,
(05:11):
the Great Wall is thirteen thousand miles long. It's way
longer than anybody ever thought. They're like, whoa, right, Um,
but that's not It's not like one unbroken wall even
when it was all solid. Even if it were all solid,
it wouldn't be one on broken wall. As a matter
of fact, the territory that it spans is about two
hundred and twenty thousand kilometers put the emphasis on the
(05:35):
wrong two hundred and twenty kilometers long, right, And the
wall is a bunch of series of overlapping walls and
embattlements and apparently rivers. And the reason that no one
knew how long the wall actually was is because for
hundreds of years, China kind of didn't like its wall.
(05:55):
It looked at it as a kind of a relic
of a backwards feudal era, and that it it had
a lot to be ashamed of. Yeah, there's in fact,
this one article I sent from the Smithsonian to you,
uh said that one of the great endangered What makes
it endanger today, which it is, um, is what they
call a paucity of scholarship. There is not one single
(06:18):
Chinese academic on the planet, or any anyone on the
planet who specializes in the Great Wall of China and
the whole planet hard to believe, it really is. In
the author of this article, brick Larmer Lamour, one of
those two um brock Landers, points out that, Um, that's
really surprising, Um, because this is a very old wall.
(06:42):
It's one of the seven New Seven Wonders, right. Um.
You can see it from outer space clear as day now,
from the from the moon, you can see the thing. Um,
and it just it deserves scholarship. But it really it
wasn't until the early two thousands that China actually it
was for that. I think it was the eighties when
(07:02):
Zeen Japing, the the chairman who came after Mao Um
said we need to preserve this well. And I think
some regions had here and there over the years. It
wasn't like the whole country. A lot of folks there
like people, and in fact, I think the same article
points out that just regular citizens in there, like small village,
(07:25):
some had reverence for the wall and would try and
you know, patrol it, patrol it or or repair it. Yeah,
it's led to some not so great repairs, you know.
The one that who againanders points out she says that
there's one, uh, there's one section of the Wall in
a province called Gion or a city called Gion, where
(07:46):
they repaired it with bathroom tiles. None the most authentic
building material you can use to restore the Great Wall,
but it does display a complete in a lot of cases,
change in attitude to the Great Wall. It was something
to be neglected and um mocked. Now it's something to
be preserved. And they've just recently passed laws saying like
(08:10):
you can't throw raves on the Great Wall of China anymore.
You can't drive on the Great Wall of China, which
is apparently a thing. Yeah uh and what we'll get
to that too later. But you mentioned something that is
not true, and we need to really point out that
you cannot see it from space. The old uh Wives
tales that has really stood the test of time. You
(08:32):
know who made that up? Robert Ripley. Oh really, yep,
what a jerk in like some thirties comic strip. He's
like he just completely fabricated. The Great Wall of China
is the only man made structure you can see from space.
It sounds like such a great little fact. Though it's great,
it's like a total Ripley, believe it or not a
thing right, and um, it wasn't until we got to
(08:54):
space in the fifties, Um, that people were able to
say like, no, you can't. You can see it from
lower Earth orbit, but that's not outer space, which is
what Robert Ripley I think he actually said, you can
see it from the moon. Yeah, so that's when we
found out for sure that you can't. Um. I think
they had the guys on the moon say can you
(09:16):
can you see the Great Wall? And they're like, no,
not at all. Yeah, they like said, you'd be able
to see every highway if you could see the Great Wall. Right.
So from lower Earth orbit you can see the Great
Wall depending on the conditions because again a lot of
it's made of like earthen clay and stuff from around it.
We talked about this before, but like when it snows
or something, you can kind of see some of it.
(09:37):
But you can also see the pyramids too, so big whoop. Yeah.
And you know what I was just thinking. I was
given Robert Ripley a hard time, but he he didn't
say believe it. He said believe it or don't you know?
Up to you good point chuck uh. And then lastly,
this sounds like an urban legend to me because I
don't know any Chinese people, um, anyone in China who
(10:00):
can verify or deny this, please let us know. But
from what I understand, the Chinese did not believe that
you couldn't see the Great Wall from space until their
own astronaut, the first Chinese astronaut I don't, went into
orbit and I think two thousand three and said no
you can't. And and that was a collective billions strong
(10:21):
uh yeah. Um, So the Great Wall, like you said,
was built in pieces over a couple of thousand years um,
starting with they believe the Western Han dynasty UM all
the way back in two oh six BC to a
D four Uh. They were followed by the Northern uh
(10:41):
We dynasty, the Northern Key Dynasty, the Sweet Sweet Sweet Dynasty,
Uh Sweat Dynasty, the Lao Dynasty, the Jin dynasty, and
finally that was all pre Ming and and it was
just a series of um not so great walls before
(11:06):
the Ming dynasty to keep out uh invaders and and
largely invaders from the north. Yeah. And remember in our
Terracotta Army episode, we talked a lot about um Chi
I think it was his name, um and he's the
guy who unified these six separate states into China, the
(11:27):
China we or most of the China we we know today. Um.
And even before him, there were these walls in these
six states to keep one another out. So there was
like this early like these proto walls. But Chi Showa,
I'm saying that like eight different ways. Um, Emperor Chi,
(11:48):
we'll call him. Uh, he was the first one to say, like,
we should connect some of these walls and make a
great wall. And I think that was the initial beginning
and the whole reason was he wanted to keep the
huns out. Yeah. The huns were not ice. Um. They
were fierce and feared and really great at two things. Um.
One is riding horses and two is shooting arrows. Yeah,
(12:12):
and doing them at the same time. Yeah. Because they
were not agricultural, so they did a lot of hunting
and that's why they were so good at at archery.
And they were to be feared and did a great
job at breaking havoc throughout Asia. Um. So the wall
was definitely necessary, uh, and it worked pretty well for
(12:32):
a while. I mean, like the Emperor Chi and his
dynasty were not like milk toasts themselves. The huns were
enough of a threat that they're like, we just need
to build a huge wall to keep out. I don't
want them hanging out anymore. Yeah. It was built by
basically three groups. Um, soldiers were about the second largest contributor,
(12:55):
Commoners was was the leading contributor, and then criminals. Back
in the day, when you would get in trouble, you
would be sentenced to four years on the wall. You
would guard it during the day, and you would build
it at night. Wow, when did you sleep in the afternoon.
I don't know, Like it's a good point in the evening.
That's why they call it hard labor, my friend. Yeah,
(13:15):
that is hard labor. And apparently thousands, thousands and thousands.
I didn't see any hard numbers, did you. I saw
up to a million, but that just sounds one of
those died. Yeah. Wow, well, I guess you think about
it's over two thousand years Yeah, possible, it's uh And
a lot of the bodies and bones are still in
that wall. At one point that was referred to as
(13:38):
the longest cemetery in the world. Wow, that's neat. Yeah,
not really haunting. Yeah that's what I mean. You know
me so, um not every single dynasty came along and said, oh, well,
let's do our bit to add to the Great Wall
of China, because in two thousand seven it will become
one of the seven Wonders of the modern world. We
want to be a part of that. Some dynasty's um
(14:00):
had it seemed it seemed to all rest in the motivation,
like how much of a threat was coming from the north,
because the thing runs from east to west, from the
Gobi Desert to the Yellow Sea, I believe right, and um,
so how much of a problem you had from the
barbarians to the north, to how much um fighting from uh,
(14:20):
like within the different cities, because remember it's not just
one unbroken east to west wall. There's like different areas
that are blocked off by the wall. So some dynasties
had more problems than others. And it seemed like if
you were really having a lot of trouble with outsiders,
you would spend a lot of your resources to building
the wall or enlarging it, or going back and rebuilding
(14:43):
some earlier stuff. And a lot of them did. But
it's like you said, about a little over half of
the wall was completed by all these other dynasties, and
then the rest was from the Ming dynasty. They just
went crazy on that thing. Uh yeah, and you know what,
let's stick a break here and we'll really get into
the Ming dynasty right after this. We'll go crazy on
(15:03):
that all right. Here we are in thirteen sixty eight.
The Ming Dynasty is in action and they are killing
it on the Great Wall. Um. They are not just
(15:25):
building a wall. Sometimes they're building two walls in three
walls to confuse people trying to enter. I don't know
if it's confusing frustrating, but well you would well, yeah,
good point. I would just think, yeah, you climb over
the wall, and you're like, ah, there's another wall, right,
But I wouldn't think like, whoa did I just climb
into the wall that I just climbed? Like how which
(15:47):
side of my right? Yeah, yeah, you're right. It's a
good points turn around and solve that conundrum. Well, maybe
in uh, in fourteenth century China, it was a little
more confusing. Maybe maybe UH they built it higher and
wider than ever before, and UM did a bunch of
other things to the wall, specifically, UH guard towers and
(16:11):
places to UM put military supplies, bunkers, things like that lights, yes,
which is a big one they apparently, and I think
we're going back to brock Lander's brooke armor. Um. She
says that at one point, thanks to using either smoke
or fire, smoke during the day, um and fire at night,
(16:31):
they could travel. They could send messages all up and
down the wall. It's something like twenty six Yeah, that's
like broadband Internet of the day. Um. And it was
all because the Mean came in and started they put
up guard posts and apparently the Ming also were very
progressive and had a big problem with desertion. But they said, well,
(16:53):
you know what, how about this, If you have to
man this guard post for years at a time, bring
your family and as a matter of if you do
a really good job, we'll name this guard post after
your family. And there's still plenty of guard posts today.
Said bear the family names of the people who live
in the region and didn't sell out their own people. Yeah,
well that was a big thing, because if you put
people on a wall, you definitely open yourself up for
(17:16):
people to let people you don't want in through the
wall if they give them money, exactly. And that's what
happened to um. The wall worked pretty great until the
seventeenth century, and finally the man Chu invaded successfully into China,
brought down the Ming dynasty, and they said, yeah, this
(17:37):
wall kind of snakes. We got through it just fine,
so why put forth a lot more effort into this thing.
And from that point forward, construction on it pretty much stopped. Yeah,
And starting in sixteen they made it through the wall
and that was that. That was that so um for
the next few hundred years, I believe the man Chu
(17:59):
they set up the key the Ching Ching dynasty right um.
And so for this time I think it went up
to like nineteen thirteen or something like that. There there
was this that that definitely is where the roots of
scorn towards the wall was set up. The people, the
ruling class had made it through this wall. It had
been set up to keep them out. It hadn't. So
(18:21):
this wall is stupid is basically the prevailing sentiment in China.
And then when Chairman Mao came into power, um, he
was all about the cultural revolution. Now looking backward, going
forward right, yes, and so what better way to get
rid of the past and the backwards history of China
um but then literally disassemble the wall this huge symbol
(18:44):
of old China, so he called. He was the founding
father of the People's Republic of China, and he basically
said all the way up until like the nineteen fifties,
do you want to build a house. I know where
you can get some brick. Yeah, it's just outside your
front door, and uh, go go take what you need.
And that was responsible for a large part of the
(19:05):
early uh non natural erosion of the wall, people just
taking it apart pretty much. Um, there's also zero protection
of the wall. Not only was it being disassembled, but
nobody was really trying to safeguard it at all. So
cattle would be moved across it. Um, they'd be allowed
(19:28):
to graze right up on it. Um. There would be
natural stuff too, like the freeze thaw cycle. It's really
hard on mortar joints, right yeah, And just exposure to
the elements period over that long it's gonna damage it.
And then also like if people are cutting down trees
for firewood, that of stuff that's holding the soil in
place along the wall. When that tree goes, the soil
(19:51):
loosens too. When the soil loosens beneath it, the wall
topples itself. So when you factor in the human element
and the lack of well, well, I guess government encouragement
of disassembling the wall, and then the natural elements too.
You've got a wall it's in serious, serious disrepair, especially
considering some of this stuff is like almost two thousand
(20:12):
years old by now. Yeah. This one article I think
it was from the Smithsonian again, talked about the desertification,
which we had a great podcast on desertification. Um. And
and apparently inn ninja x i A. I'm so bad
with the Chinese words. Well, hold on, let me try
to figure this out. I'm gonna go with nin Jia
(20:34):
for now. Stop me if you x i A. Right. Um,
but desertification is a big problem there because and this
is super interesting when they constructed the wall and this
part of the country policy was burned down all the
trees and all the grass within sixty miles on the
other side of the wall, the bad side. Uh, and
(20:55):
then on our inside, we're let's clear the land to farm.
All great ideas, right, yeah, but what happens is, um,
it's an environmental disaster. Is what is what modern Uh?
What geologists, geographers, geographers, sandographers, sand people, Uh? It's what
the Tuscan raiders they say, it's an environmental disaster. So basically,
(21:19):
the northern desert in China is expanding at one million
acres a year at this point, and the Great Wall
is right in the middle of that path. And what
happens is sand dunes will just completely covered up in places.
Or remember we talked about flash flooding being a big
problem in desertification, and that's gonna crumble the base and
(21:40):
it just eroads it. Yeah, so it's that whole area
because of desertification, is losing its wall. I remember that
from our desertification episode, that the Gobi Desert is just
growing immensely every year, is it? Nina, did you get
an answer on that? It is? You did it? Ya?
It is? That's it, Nina, that's you man. You have
(22:01):
a side career in Chinese pronunciation. I don't know about that. Um.
All right, let's take another break. We'll talk about tourism
and then some of the new efforts to preserve the wall. Yeah, so, Chok,
(22:29):
we were talking about how like the human element is
huge on deteriorating the Great Wall of China. UM. And
not only is it people using bricks for their homes
which you can carry. You can hardly blame a subsistence
farmer for that kind of thing, especially apparently in the
more remote areas there they have no, um, no fondness
(22:52):
for the wall. They don't care about it, they don't
know that much about it. And a lot of times,
and especially in the remote areas, these are where like
the wall is most dilapidated. So it's like, yeah, why
wouldn't I grab this brick and make a house that
I need? Um? Or should I should I contribute to
the preservation of the wall? You tell me, guy from Beijing,
you know what I mean. Um. So those areas in
(23:15):
the or the parts of the wall in the more
rural areas are under the most threat, for sure, but
that the stuff in the very highly trafficed areas thanks
to tourists are equally under threat because people still just
take bricks. But a lot of times it's foreign tourists
taking bricks for souvenirs, that's right. Either that or they're
(23:35):
um carving things into the wall. And every time you
carve something into the wall, you're chipping away at it.
Of course, Uh, there are souvenir shops and cable cars
and sky cars, businesses and restaurants and billboards and all
kinds of things that scattered along the most populated parts
of the wall. Yeah, like right up on it. Yeah,
you never see those in pictures, people driving their cars
(23:58):
on the Great Wall of China having raves like you
talked about earlier. Yeah, it sounds like and apparently like
the raves were outlawed. But I saw online that they
still had one in two thousand fifteen, and it looked lame.
I really, I think they had two thousand people, which
is not enough, apparently because they like there was a
shot in this the trailer for this rave of people
(24:21):
just sitting there with their hands on their or their
chins on their hands, like looking bored. You mean it
wasn't one of those super awesome raves, right, it was
a lame rave. I was too old for raves, thankfully.
That was right in my wheelhouse. Yeah, that makes sense.
I uh. I lived over on the Um West side
of Atlanta in uh the right at the turn of
(24:42):
the millennium, and those big warehouses and you know the
big tower there um in the west End. If you
could drive in the West End, there's a big blue
tower that sticks up and that tower. Someone lived there
and they would have raves on the weekend, and people do.
People would drive from like Tennessee an Alba go to
these things for like a good rave. Yeah, and we
(25:03):
would sit around and make fun of them and actually
win in one time. You think, not my scene, not
my scene at all. Um, but uh yeah, I mean
my pants did not taper out to like two ft
at the bottom, you know what I mean. But um,
it was interesting. Yeah, it's a culture I wasn't familiar with.
(25:25):
I'm glad you wouldn't expose yourself. Yeah, well I didn't
exposed to check this out. Ravers your God, I thought
I was an old man back then, didn't it crazy?
Yeah in two thousand, that was fifteen years ago, it
was like thirty. Yeah, that's not I can I'm here
to tell you, Like if I went to a rave today,
(25:47):
people would they would call security? Yeah exactly, Uh where
were we? Oh? Yeah. The erosion of the wall, there's
a lot of estimates, but um, I've seen everything from
a third of it to half of it is gone. Yeah,
and um, it's it's probably hard to tell because the
same reason it's hard to measure. It's just so big. Yeah,
(26:09):
and a lot of it it's like, well, is that
river part of it? Do we count that? Who knows? Um?
But yeah, it is in big trouble and there are
some parts of it that are gone forever. Um. In
addition to tourists and raves and people driving cars and
driving their cattle across the um wall, construction companies will
(26:29):
build roads right through it, yeah, or just a big
factory or something right upon it. Yeah. So finally China
said uh. And again it was Danjo Ping. Who I
love that guy's name. It's a wonderful name. Um. He said, Uh,
I love China preserved the wall. He came up with
a slogan. I think you got to start with the slogan.
(26:50):
It really Yeah, slogans worked. This is proof positive of it.
And within fifteen twenty years, the Chinese government, well I
guess provincial governments were starting to enact their own laws
restricting what you could or couldn't do on the wall
with the wall to the wall right. And then finally,
and I think two thousand eight ish maybe two thousand seven, um,
(27:11):
the Chinese government, the federal government itself, said Um, okay,
we're gonna come up with our own walls or our
own laws regarding the wall, and they started to take
it seriously. And um part depending on who you talk to,
it is because it's a huge tourist attraction that brings
(27:31):
in ten million people and all their money every year.
Gotta protect that, or because it's part of China's heritage
and it shows like we're an ancient culture that could
do this with our eyes closed. Just watch us in
the century Chinese fever catch it, right, you know that
kind of Well? How about it's both probably probably, but
(27:53):
there are some real laws in place. UM now it
is uh illegal to take any bricks um or to
do things like build too close to it. I think
within any building within sixt feet five um is not
allowed anymore. I don't think um gathering firewood hurting your animals.
(28:14):
So here's so I have to stop. Do you have
any idea what's what's the gathering firewood thing? Is that
chopping down a tree? I don't know. I couldn't find
that anywhere like why they're in, I could not find
it anywhere else. So it has to just be chopping
down a tree that leads to erosion. That's the only
thing I can come up with that that I didn't know.
(28:35):
If you come across something, no, I just keep saying
it taking firewood, don't do it near the wall. Gathering firewood,
and that like a quaint, folasy thing to think about.
Gathering firewood. That's the first thing you do when you
go camping. Yeah, gathering firewood. And um, it's almost like
it sounds beautiful too, like cellar door gathering firewood. Agreed,
it is very relaxing unless you're in a survival situation
(28:57):
then you're that's a matter of life or exactly. But
the laws are punishable, um institutions up to sixty two thousand,
five dollars for individuals six thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars.
See what they did there, huh. But apparently from the
Smithsonian article they said that these laws are great, but
(29:17):
it's just really hard to enforce this. Again, because the
Great Wall is so huge, you can get away with
doing a lot to it without anyone around to see you.
But I would imagine in the metropolitan areas it's a
little easier to enforce. Like some yokel from from Kansas
taking some bricks. Yeah, you know, they take bricks everywhere.
(29:41):
They go Kansas's Kansans Kansanian nights. Yeah, Kansanian nights. Uh,
let's see. You want to get Kristen Congreen here is promised. Yeah,
I got no more facts, so I don't need that.
It's a great idea. UM. I do want to shout
out again to this awesome Smithsonian article from way back
in two thousand and eight. The Great Wall of China
(30:02):
is under siege by Brooke Larmer. Um, go check it out,
uh and hold tight and we'll go get Conger. All right,
as promised, we have congs Kristen Konger from Stuff Mom
(30:25):
Never told You, and she has, as I said in
the podcast, walked the Great Wall, but not all of it,
not all of it. A very small portion of the
Great Wall of China. I have walked, so we we
learned recently that it's twenty thousand kilometers long. Did you
know that they like did a survey of it and
found it's way longer than they thought. Yeah, it's massive,
(30:46):
and it's stunning to climbate because since the geography is
so sparse around it, you really can just see it
snaking as far as that I can see. That's awesome.
What part did you go to the heart um outside
of Beijing. I think it's one of the main tourist
destination like entrance spaces for the Great Wall. Did you
(31:07):
take a brick or drive your car on it or
have go to rave? Because those are illegal? Now, I
mean I did all of those things. I didn't. Who
doesn't go to a rave on the Great Wall? Uh?
Now you didn't doing those things? Kid, I didn't know.
I didn't. I was. I was struggling. So I went
in December and it was very, very cold. Um, so
(31:28):
there was the weather to deal with and also just
the sheer steepness of trying to to scale this thing.
It's not There were two ways we could go. To
the left was a more arduous path and to the
right was the little tourist friendlier path. And my fiance
and I were like, we're going to the left the
road not taken. Yes, So how do you actually this
(31:52):
is probably dumb question, how do you actually access it? Like?
Are there steps and entry points? I guess yeah. So
we pulled up to it was almost like a theme
park entrance, like they have a gate and a temple
there and you get like an admission ticket and then
they have bridges built to access the wall. So being
(32:12):
there when you finally saw it in person, what impressions
that you had of it before? We're just totally destroyed
or was it exactly like you thought it would be.
It was surreal being on it. I mean because I
think a lot of times you see the aerial photographs
of the Great Wall, so we have this bird's eye
perspective on it. But once you're on the wall, I
(32:34):
never considered how steep the stairs were, how um the
incline is also so steep. There were a couple of
times when climbing up, I was literally on my hands
and knees getting up. But I also have a terrible
fear of heights. Didn't know that would be an issue,
but it was. And you have winds kicking up because
you're kind of on the side of a mountain um
(32:55):
and then coming down having to kind of do the
butt scoot down a few airs. Wow, are you serious? Yeah?
And I'm pretty fit not to brig How high up
were you, like at the highest point, Like if you
if you had fallen or jumped off the side, how
how far would you have dropped? I would have messed
myself up big time. When is that the scientific answer.
(33:20):
I can't tell you altitude or anything. So earlier too,
in the office, you were saying that they like pipe
music out and stuff like that. Yeah, so um. At
pretty regular intervals along the wall, they have these lookout
towers and I think some of which were actually housing
for people who were building the wall and guarding the wall.
(33:41):
And the Chinese government has now installed these lovely speakers
that pipe like traditional Chinese music along the wall, so
you you have a little soundtrack to guide you along
your way. Did it add to it or detract? It
added to it in a way because it was just
such a bizarre experience. And we were also surrounded by
(34:02):
so many other Chinese tourists as well, who were coming
to the wall for the very first time. So you're
sharing this experience with people you know, who you you know,
can't verbally communicate with, but you're all kind of taking
in this one site together. Can you believe this? Wow face?
We were all agog So um. Was the general impression
like this is the Dollywood of China? Or did it
(34:24):
seem like reverent in like people have died here and
that kind of vibe. It was reverent aside from all
the cigarette butts on the stairs. That was a funny thing.
There was an older gentleman who passed me as I
was in my crawling face smoking a smoke heading on
up um. So there was a little bit of trash,
(34:44):
but it was very clear that you needed to otherwise,
like respect the space. They were actually a couple in
my group who were huge sports fans, I want to say,
of the Seahawks, and they were in all of their
gear and they want to take a photo of them
with their Seahawks flag. That got shut down very quickly. Really,
(35:04):
Oh yeah, So have they have people there minding the activity?
Oh yeah. If you're at a Chinese tourist attraction, people
are watching you. There is nothing wrong with Dollywood, by
the way, I want to put that on the record,
is a great place and conger something very special happened
to you on the Great Wall as well, correct aside
from scooting down on your on your fannie, aside from
(35:28):
an exotic fannie scoot yes, And to our English friends
here in America, that means but don't get all weird.
Uh So what happened? Tell us about your other experience.
My fiance proposed to me so we climbed to the
very to the highest point we could, and we were
looking out this lovely guard dour I suppose, and the
(35:52):
music hadn't the music would play an interval, so we
were in kind of a quiet lall and I was
just like looking out and then I turned around and
he was on one knee, and at that moment, as
he was proposing, the music swelled yet again, and it
was amazing, and all of these Chinese stores were up
there freaking out like so many cell phone photos, and
(36:14):
the Seahawks people were like, yeah, just throwing footballs at us.
That is totally awesome. I imagine that a lot of
people get engaged on the probably a lot of people,
but I don't know anyone that's got engaged. I don't
think anyone but meat Chuck. He's a very exclusive experience.
And then one other thing you mentioned, you alluded to
(36:34):
somebody almost not coming down. Was that you or was
there somebody else who almost fell off? That was a
guy named Barry who was part of my tour group,
and he was very ambitious and determined to climb as
far as he could, but we had to leave at
a certain time and he got stuck for a little while,
(36:56):
and no one knew that Barry was going to make
it down. Then Barry was or heard from again. Berry
finally made it, but he had to take a cab.
It took him so long to get down. He had
to take a cab rather than the tour bus to
the lunch restaurant, but then just spent lunch complaining about
how much the cab costs. Barry strikes me as one
of these guys who would be like God's missed out. Man.
(37:18):
You didn't see what I saw, Bengo, Kristen, do you
have anything else to share? Go to China? It was amazing.
I'm serious, Like, go to Beijing, see everything. It's incredible
and if you can get engaged on the Great Wall,
it's a good story. Nice Um. That is good advice
(37:39):
all around, Kristen. You tell everybody how to get in
touch with you with stuff. Mom never told you. Well,
you can simply head over to stuff. Mom never told
you dot com and everything's right there, podcasts, videos, social
media stuff. Mom never told you dot com. Wow, Yeah,
that was awesome. An drag and conger in here, boy, Barry,
(38:03):
he got in your crow, didn't I know that? Guy? Man?
There's one in every group. UM, let's see what did
we say? If you want to know more about the
Great Wall of China, I think you just did. Okay, Well,
if you want to know more about the Great Wall
of China, you can look those words up on the
search part how stuff works dot Com. And UM, since
I said search parts, time for the listener mail. I'm
(38:28):
gonna call this pretty serious stuff. Hello, Josh, Chuck and Jerry.
I just wanted to give you you all of sincere
thank you. I'm sure you're aware of the appreciation we
listeners have for the podcast. However, I hope you understand
the extent of it. About one year ago, I was
suffering from a very deep depression and tried to commit
suicide for obvious reasons we all know. I was not successful,
(38:48):
and she puts a little wink in there. I appreciated
that extra point. Agreed. In the attempt to gain focus
in my life, I started an old hobby of running
to summon what passions I used to have, and that
is where stuff you should know kicked in. I started
tuning into the show, uh and forgot how deeply passionate
I was about the world around me. Listening to the
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(39:11):
help those long workouts. I can say now with my
anniversary coming up, I'm in a much better place. I
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new goals and you guys really helped out in that
little unique way, and I'm forever thankful. Have a wonderful evening.
That is so wonderful? Isn't that nice? Yeah? Man? Uh?
And I think name redacted on that. Thank you, dear listener.
(39:35):
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Is it how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, just the two
of us again. Fine, so the Lone Wolves, the pack
of the Lone Wolves. I'm just trying new stuff here. Yeah. Wolverines,
(00:29):
Yeah in Colorado blows my mind. Yeah. Where do you
think it was? Again? Michigan? Right, and all the mountain Rangers.
I just thought I hadn't been far enough north in
Michigan before, despite growing up an hour south of it.
I saw a little bit of the old Red Dawn
again the other night. How did you stop it ended? Okay,
(00:51):
that's all the end I saw from like Powers booth
on Okay. When he entered the picture, yeah, which I mean, like,
if you think about it, he did need to be there.
But his introduction was great. It was wonderful. I think
he played a vital role. I think they could have
done fine without him. He's a little creepy with the
young ladies, though with Leah Thompson he was sick. He
(01:15):
got what he deserved. I still haven't seen the remake,
No need, Nope, So Chuck, Yes, I have another question
about something you've seen. Have you ever seen the Great
Wall of China? Not in person? Let me ask you
something else. Have you ever seen the ten thousand lie
long Wall. I don't know what you speak. That's the
(01:38):
Great Wall of China, I'm just kidding. Also called the
long Wall of ten thousand Lee. It's another way to
put it l I. And that is a unit of
measurement in China. Apparently it's about one click. Yeah, no too,
two clicks, two clicks. This doesn't here. One kilometer now,
(01:58):
oh yeah, I'm sorry to Lee, being is equivalent to
one kilometer. I'm sorry you did one click? To Lee, man,
this thing. The wheels are falling off already, right. The
Western hemisphere is generally the folks who say the Great
Wall of China, right, And so if it's the ten
(02:20):
thousand Lee long Wall, and to Lee is one click,
then that means that it's the five thousand kilometer long Wall,
is what they would call it in China. And that's
actually way off. There was a very long time that
people thought that the Great Wall was maybe between kilometers
(02:42):
to sixty kilometers. I believe was the high end somewhere
in there. And um all over them app really Yeah.
And finally, at one point in two thousand seven, China said,
you know what, we're gonna take this seriously, after nearly
two thousand years, We're going to go measure this bag.
Who's got some rope? Yeah. Luckily by then GPS had
(03:03):
been developed and they used that a lot. But they
did they did a modern survey of the Great Wall,
and they found that it was not a five thousand,
five thousand kilometer long wall. No, they found Chuck, how
long was it? Over thirteen thousand miles? Over twenty one clicks?
It's a lot of clicks. That is a very long wall,
(03:26):
and it depends on who you ask, Like, that is
the ultimate length of the entire wall if you take
into account every bit of construction phase that was ever
done to it. Yeah, which we'll get into, but that
generally means pre Ming dynasty and post Ming dynasty. Preming
was about seventy seven hundred roughly miles. Uh, and in
(03:49):
really bad shape. Apparently the pr Preming sections only are
about eight percent hole. Yeah. Well, I mean some of
them were built back in two hundred b C. Long time. Yeah,
they weren't like what you think of as the wall
as we'll see. Uh. And I found I found this
interesting in the ming section or post ming section. Uh.
(04:09):
Five thousand out of the five thousand, four nine miles
um two hundred and twenty three miles or trenches, so
not a wall at all. That's like a reverse wall.
And about fourteen hundred little less were natural barreas right,
like they just took advantage of ridges or rivers or
(04:29):
you know, really things. Yeah, I didn't know about the
river thing, so uh, pretty interesting. And it's widest it
is thirty ft. At is highest it is twenty six ft,
and it goes through some rough terrain. And we should
mention stick around through this one. Because the wonderful Christen
Conger from stuff Mom Never told you has walked at
(04:51):
the Great Wall, not the whole thing, very small portion
kilometers of it. No, but she's we're gonna bring her
at the and uh and she said, I'm no expert,
she said, but I can say what it's like to
be there. And I said, that's all we need. So
we're gonna bring in Congor here right at the end.
So it was kind of surprising to everybody that, um,
(05:11):
the Great Wall is thirteen thousand miles long. It's way
longer than anybody ever thought. They're like, whoa, right, Um,
but that's not It's not like one unbroken wall even
when it was all solid. Even if it were all solid,
it wouldn't be one on broken wall. As a matter
of fact, the territory that it spans is about two
hundred and twenty thousand kilometers put the emphasis on the
(05:35):
wrong two hundred and twenty kilometers long, right, And the
wall is a bunch of series of overlapping walls and
embattlements and apparently rivers. And the reason that no one
knew how long the wall actually was is because for
hundreds of years, China kind of didn't like its wall.
(05:55):
It looked at it as a kind of a relic
of a backwards feudal era, and that it it had
a lot to be ashamed of. Yeah, there's in fact,
this one article I sent from the Smithsonian to you,
uh said that one of the great endangered What makes
it endanger today, which it is, um, is what they
call a paucity of scholarship. There is not one single
(06:18):
Chinese academic on the planet, or any anyone on the
planet who specializes in the Great Wall of China and
the whole planet hard to believe, it really is. In
the author of this article, brick Larmer Lamour, one of
those two um brock Landers, points out that, Um, that's
really surprising, Um, because this is a very old wall.
(06:42):
It's one of the seven New Seven Wonders, right. Um.
You can see it from outer space clear as day now,
from the from the moon, you can see the thing. Um,
and it just it deserves scholarship. But it really it
wasn't until the early two thousands that China actually it
was for that. I think it was the eighties when
(07:02):
Zeen Japing, the the chairman who came after Mao Um
said we need to preserve this well. And I think
some regions had here and there over the years. It
wasn't like the whole country. A lot of folks there
like people, and in fact, I think the same article
points out that just regular citizens in there, like small village,
(07:25):
some had reverence for the wall and would try and
you know, patrol it, patrol it or or repair it. Yeah,
it's led to some not so great repairs, you know.
The one that who againanders points out she says that
there's one, uh, there's one section of the Wall in
a province called Gion or a city called Gion, where
(07:46):
they repaired it with bathroom tiles. None the most authentic
building material you can use to restore the Great Wall,
but it does display a complete in a lot of cases,
change in attitude to the Great Wall. It was something
to be neglected and um mocked. Now it's something to
be preserved. And they've just recently passed laws saying like
(08:10):
you can't throw raves on the Great Wall of China anymore.
You can't drive on the Great Wall of China, which
is apparently a thing. Yeah uh and what we'll get
to that too later. But you mentioned something that is
not true, and we need to really point out that
you cannot see it from space. The old uh Wives
tales that has really stood the test of time. You
(08:32):
know who made that up? Robert Ripley. Oh really, yep,
what a jerk in like some thirties comic strip. He's
like he just completely fabricated. The Great Wall of China
is the only man made structure you can see from space.
It sounds like such a great little fact. Though it's great,
it's like a total Ripley, believe it or not a
thing right, and um, it wasn't until we got to
(08:54):
space in the fifties, Um, that people were able to
say like, no, you can't. You can see it from
lower Earth orbit, but that's not outer space, which is
what Robert Ripley I think he actually said, you can
see it from the moon. Yeah, so that's when we
found out for sure that you can't. Um. I think
they had the guys on the moon say can you
(09:16):
can you see the Great Wall? And they're like, no,
not at all. Yeah, they like said, you'd be able
to see every highway if you could see the Great Wall. Right.
So from lower Earth orbit you can see the Great
Wall depending on the conditions because again a lot of
it's made of like earthen clay and stuff from around it.
We talked about this before, but like when it snows
or something, you can kind of see some of it.
(09:37):
But you can also see the pyramids too, so big whoop. Yeah.
And you know what I was just thinking. I was
given Robert Ripley a hard time, but he he didn't
say believe it. He said believe it or don't you know?
Up to you good point chuck uh. And then lastly,
this sounds like an urban legend to me because I
don't know any Chinese people, um, anyone in China who
(10:00):
can verify or deny this, please let us know. But
from what I understand, the Chinese did not believe that
you couldn't see the Great Wall from space until their
own astronaut, the first Chinese astronaut I don't, went into
orbit and I think two thousand three and said no
you can't. And and that was a collective billions strong
(10:21):
uh yeah. Um, So the Great Wall, like you said,
was built in pieces over a couple of thousand years um,
starting with they believe the Western Han dynasty UM all
the way back in two oh six BC to a
D four Uh. They were followed by the Northern uh
(10:41):
We dynasty, the Northern Key Dynasty, the Sweet Sweet Sweet Dynasty,
Uh Sweat Dynasty, the Lao Dynasty, the Jin dynasty, and
finally that was all pre Ming and and it was
just a series of um not so great walls before
(11:06):
the Ming dynasty to keep out uh invaders and and
largely invaders from the north. Yeah. And remember in our
Terracotta Army episode, we talked a lot about um Chi
I think it was his name, um and he's the
guy who unified these six separate states into China, the
(11:27):
China we or most of the China we we know today. Um.
And even before him, there were these walls in these
six states to keep one another out. So there was
like this early like these proto walls. But Chi Showa,
I'm saying that like eight different ways. Um, Emperor Chi,
(11:48):
we'll call him. Uh, he was the first one to say, like,
we should connect some of these walls and make a
great wall. And I think that was the initial beginning
and the whole reason was he wanted to keep the
huns out. Yeah. The huns were not ice. Um. They
were fierce and feared and really great at two things. Um.
One is riding horses and two is shooting arrows. Yeah,
(12:12):
and doing them at the same time. Yeah. Because they
were not agricultural, so they did a lot of hunting
and that's why they were so good at at archery.
And they were to be feared and did a great
job at breaking havoc throughout Asia. Um. So the wall
was definitely necessary, uh, and it worked pretty well for
(12:32):
a while. I mean, like the Emperor Chi and his
dynasty were not like milk toasts themselves. The huns were
enough of a threat that they're like, we just need
to build a huge wall to keep out. I don't
want them hanging out anymore. Yeah. It was built by
basically three groups. Um, soldiers were about the second largest contributor,
(12:55):
Commoners was was the leading contributor, and then criminals. Back
in the day, when you would get in trouble, you
would be sentenced to four years on the wall. You
would guard it during the day, and you would build
it at night. Wow, when did you sleep in the afternoon.
I don't know, Like it's a good point in the evening.
That's why they call it hard labor, my friend. Yeah,
(13:15):
that is hard labor. And apparently thousands, thousands and thousands.
I didn't see any hard numbers, did you. I saw
up to a million, but that just sounds one of
those died. Yeah. Wow, well, I guess you think about
it's over two thousand years Yeah, possible, it's uh And
a lot of the bodies and bones are still in
that wall. At one point that was referred to as
(13:38):
the longest cemetery in the world. Wow, that's neat. Yeah,
not really haunting. Yeah that's what I mean. You know
me so, um not every single dynasty came along and said, oh, well,
let's do our bit to add to the Great Wall
of China, because in two thousand seven it will become
one of the seven Wonders of the modern world. We
want to be a part of that. Some dynasty's um
(14:00):
had it seemed it seemed to all rest in the motivation,
like how much of a threat was coming from the north,
because the thing runs from east to west, from the
Gobi Desert to the Yellow Sea, I believe right, and um,
so how much of a problem you had from the
barbarians to the north, to how much um fighting from uh,
(14:20):
like within the different cities, because remember it's not just
one unbroken east to west wall. There's like different areas
that are blocked off by the wall. So some dynasties
had more problems than others. And it seemed like if
you were really having a lot of trouble with outsiders,
you would spend a lot of your resources to building
the wall or enlarging it, or going back and rebuilding
(14:43):
some earlier stuff. And a lot of them did. But
it's like you said, about a little over half of
the wall was completed by all these other dynasties, and
then the rest was from the Ming dynasty. They just
went crazy on that thing. Uh yeah, and you know what,
let's stick a break here and we'll really get into
the Ming dynasty right after this. We'll go crazy on
(15:03):
that all right. Here we are in thirteen sixty eight.
The Ming Dynasty is in action and they are killing
it on the Great Wall. Um. They are not just
(15:25):
building a wall. Sometimes they're building two walls in three
walls to confuse people trying to enter. I don't know
if it's confusing frustrating, but well you would well, yeah,
good point. I would just think, yeah, you climb over
the wall, and you're like, ah, there's another wall, right,
But I wouldn't think like, whoa did I just climb
into the wall that I just climbed? Like how which
(15:47):
side of my right? Yeah, yeah, you're right. It's a
good points turn around and solve that conundrum. Well, maybe
in uh, in fourteenth century China, it was a little
more confusing. Maybe maybe UH they built it higher and
wider than ever before, and UM did a bunch of
other things to the wall, specifically, UH guard towers and
(16:11):
places to UM put military supplies, bunkers, things like that lights, yes,
which is a big one they apparently, and I think
we're going back to brock Lander's brooke armor. Um. She
says that at one point, thanks to using either smoke
or fire, smoke during the day, um and fire at night,
(16:31):
they could travel. They could send messages all up and
down the wall. It's something like twenty six Yeah, that's
like broadband Internet of the day. Um. And it was
all because the Mean came in and started they put
up guard posts and apparently the Ming also were very
progressive and had a big problem with desertion. But they said, well,
(16:53):
you know what, how about this, If you have to
man this guard post for years at a time, bring
your family and as a matter of if you do
a really good job, we'll name this guard post after
your family. And there's still plenty of guard posts today.
Said bear the family names of the people who live
in the region and didn't sell out their own people. Yeah,
well that was a big thing, because if you put
people on a wall, you definitely open yourself up for
(17:16):
people to let people you don't want in through the
wall if they give them money, exactly. And that's what
happened to um. The wall worked pretty great until the
seventeenth century, and finally the man Chu invaded successfully into China,
brought down the Ming dynasty, and they said, yeah, this
(17:37):
wall kind of snakes. We got through it just fine,
so why put forth a lot more effort into this thing.
And from that point forward, construction on it pretty much stopped. Yeah,
And starting in sixteen they made it through the wall
and that was that. That was that so um for
the next few hundred years, I believe the man Chu
(17:59):
they set up the key the Ching Ching dynasty right um.
And so for this time I think it went up
to like nineteen thirteen or something like that. There there
was this that that definitely is where the roots of
scorn towards the wall was set up. The people, the
ruling class had made it through this wall. It had
been set up to keep them out. It hadn't. So
(18:21):
this wall is stupid is basically the prevailing sentiment in China.
And then when Chairman Mao came into power, um, he
was all about the cultural revolution. Now looking backward, going
forward right, yes, and so what better way to get
rid of the past and the backwards history of China
um but then literally disassemble the wall this huge symbol
(18:44):
of old China, so he called. He was the founding
father of the People's Republic of China, and he basically
said all the way up until like the nineteen fifties,
do you want to build a house. I know where
you can get some brick. Yeah, it's just outside your
front door, and uh, go go take what you need.
And that was responsible for a large part of the
(19:05):
early uh non natural erosion of the wall, people just
taking it apart pretty much. Um, there's also zero protection
of the wall. Not only was it being disassembled, but
nobody was really trying to safeguard it at all. So
cattle would be moved across it. Um, they'd be allowed
(19:28):
to graze right up on it. Um. There would be
natural stuff too, like the freeze thaw cycle. It's really
hard on mortar joints, right yeah, And just exposure to
the elements period over that long it's gonna damage it.
And then also like if people are cutting down trees
for firewood, that of stuff that's holding the soil in
place along the wall. When that tree goes, the soil
(19:51):
loosens too. When the soil loosens beneath it, the wall
topples itself. So when you factor in the human element
and the lack of well, well, I guess government encouragement
of disassembling the wall, and then the natural elements too.
You've got a wall it's in serious, serious disrepair, especially
considering some of this stuff is like almost two thousand
(20:12):
years old by now. Yeah. This one article I think
it was from the Smithsonian again, talked about the desertification,
which we had a great podcast on desertification. Um. And
and apparently inn ninja x i A. I'm so bad
with the Chinese words. Well, hold on, let me try
to figure this out. I'm gonna go with nin Jia
(20:34):
for now. Stop me if you x i A. Right. Um,
but desertification is a big problem there because and this
is super interesting when they constructed the wall and this
part of the country policy was burned down all the
trees and all the grass within sixty miles on the
other side of the wall, the bad side. Uh, and
(20:55):
then on our inside, we're let's clear the land to farm.
All great ideas, right, yeah, but what happens is, um,
it's an environmental disaster. Is what is what modern Uh?
What geologists, geographers, geographers, sandographers, sand people, Uh? It's what
the Tuscan raiders they say, it's an environmental disaster. So basically,
(21:19):
the northern desert in China is expanding at one million
acres a year at this point, and the Great Wall
is right in the middle of that path. And what
happens is sand dunes will just completely covered up in places.
Or remember we talked about flash flooding being a big
problem in desertification, and that's gonna crumble the base and
(21:40):
it just eroads it. Yeah, so it's that whole area
because of desertification, is losing its wall. I remember that
from our desertification episode, that the Gobi Desert is just
growing immensely every year, is it? Nina, did you get
an answer on that? It is? You did it? Ya?
It is? That's it, Nina, that's you man. You have
(22:01):
a side career in Chinese pronunciation. I don't know about that. Um.
All right, let's take another break. We'll talk about tourism
and then some of the new efforts to preserve the wall. Yeah, so, Chok,
(22:29):
we were talking about how like the human element is
huge on deteriorating the Great Wall of China. UM. And
not only is it people using bricks for their homes
which you can carry. You can hardly blame a subsistence
farmer for that kind of thing, especially apparently in the
more remote areas there they have no, um, no fondness
(22:52):
for the wall. They don't care about it, they don't
know that much about it. And a lot of times,
and especially in the remote areas, these are where like
the wall is most dilapidated. So it's like, yeah, why
wouldn't I grab this brick and make a house that
I need? Um? Or should I should I contribute to
the preservation of the wall? You tell me, guy from Beijing,
you know what I mean. Um. So those areas in
(23:15):
the or the parts of the wall in the more
rural areas are under the most threat, for sure, but
that the stuff in the very highly trafficed areas thanks
to tourists are equally under threat because people still just
take bricks. But a lot of times it's foreign tourists
taking bricks for souvenirs, that's right. Either that or they're
(23:35):
um carving things into the wall. And every time you
carve something into the wall, you're chipping away at it.
Of course, Uh, there are souvenir shops and cable cars
and sky cars, businesses and restaurants and billboards and all
kinds of things that scattered along the most populated parts
of the wall. Yeah, like right up on it. Yeah,
you never see those in pictures, people driving their cars
(23:58):
on the Great Wall of China having raves like you
talked about earlier. Yeah, it sounds like and apparently like
the raves were outlawed. But I saw online that they
still had one in two thousand fifteen, and it looked lame.
I really, I think they had two thousand people, which
is not enough, apparently because they like there was a
shot in this the trailer for this rave of people
(24:21):
just sitting there with their hands on their or their
chins on their hands, like looking bored. You mean it
wasn't one of those super awesome raves, right, it was
a lame rave. I was too old for raves, thankfully.
That was right in my wheelhouse. Yeah, that makes sense.
I uh. I lived over on the Um West side
of Atlanta in uh the right at the turn of
(24:42):
the millennium, and those big warehouses and you know the
big tower there um in the west End. If you
could drive in the West End, there's a big blue
tower that sticks up and that tower. Someone lived there
and they would have raves on the weekend, and people do.
People would drive from like Tennessee an Alba go to
these things for like a good rave. Yeah, and we
(25:03):
would sit around and make fun of them and actually
win in one time. You think, not my scene, not
my scene at all. Um, but uh yeah, I mean
my pants did not taper out to like two ft
at the bottom, you know what I mean. But um,
it was interesting. Yeah, it's a culture I wasn't familiar with.
(25:25):
I'm glad you wouldn't expose yourself. Yeah, well I didn't
exposed to check this out. Ravers your God, I thought
I was an old man back then, didn't it crazy?
Yeah in two thousand, that was fifteen years ago, it
was like thirty. Yeah, that's not I can I'm here
to tell you, Like if I went to a rave today,
(25:47):
people would they would call security? Yeah exactly, Uh where
were we? Oh? Yeah. The erosion of the wall, there's
a lot of estimates, but um, I've seen everything from
a third of it to half of it is gone. Yeah,
and um, it's it's probably hard to tell because the
same reason it's hard to measure. It's just so big. Yeah,
(26:09):
and a lot of it it's like, well, is that
river part of it? Do we count that? Who knows? Um?
But yeah, it is in big trouble and there are
some parts of it that are gone forever. Um. In
addition to tourists and raves and people driving cars and
driving their cattle across the um wall, construction companies will
(26:29):
build roads right through it, yeah, or just a big
factory or something right upon it. Yeah. So finally China
said uh. And again it was Danjo Ping. Who I
love that guy's name. It's a wonderful name. Um. He said, Uh,
I love China preserved the wall. He came up with
a slogan. I think you got to start with the slogan.
(26:50):
It really Yeah, slogans worked. This is proof positive of it.
And within fifteen twenty years, the Chinese government, well I
guess provincial governments were starting to enact their own laws
restricting what you could or couldn't do on the wall
with the wall to the wall right. And then finally,
and I think two thousand eight ish maybe two thousand seven, um,
(27:11):
the Chinese government, the federal government itself, said Um, okay,
we're gonna come up with our own walls or our
own laws regarding the wall, and they started to take
it seriously. And um part depending on who you talk to,
it is because it's a huge tourist attraction that brings
(27:31):
in ten million people and all their money every year.
Gotta protect that, or because it's part of China's heritage
and it shows like we're an ancient culture that could
do this with our eyes closed. Just watch us in
the century Chinese fever catch it, right, you know that
kind of Well? How about it's both probably probably, but
(27:53):
there are some real laws in place. UM now it
is uh illegal to take any bricks um or to
do things like build too close to it. I think
within any building within sixt feet five um is not
allowed anymore. I don't think um gathering firewood hurting your animals.
(28:14):
So here's so I have to stop. Do you have
any idea what's what's the gathering firewood thing? Is that
chopping down a tree? I don't know. I couldn't find
that anywhere like why they're in, I could not find
it anywhere else. So it has to just be chopping
down a tree that leads to erosion. That's the only
thing I can come up with that that I didn't know.
(28:35):
If you come across something, no, I just keep saying
it taking firewood, don't do it near the wall. Gathering firewood,
and that like a quaint, folasy thing to think about.
Gathering firewood. That's the first thing you do when you
go camping. Yeah, gathering firewood. And um, it's almost like
it sounds beautiful too, like cellar door gathering firewood. Agreed,
it is very relaxing unless you're in a survival situation
(28:57):
then you're that's a matter of life or exactly. But
the laws are punishable, um institutions up to sixty two thousand,
five dollars for individuals six thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars.
See what they did there, huh. But apparently from the
Smithsonian article they said that these laws are great, but
(29:17):
it's just really hard to enforce this. Again, because the
Great Wall is so huge, you can get away with
doing a lot to it without anyone around to see you.
But I would imagine in the metropolitan areas it's a
little easier to enforce. Like some yokel from from Kansas
taking some bricks. Yeah, you know, they take bricks everywhere.
(29:41):
They go Kansas's Kansans Kansanian nights. Yeah, Kansanian nights. Uh,
let's see. You want to get Kristen Congreen here is promised. Yeah,
I got no more facts, so I don't need that.
It's a great idea. UM. I do want to shout
out again to this awesome Smithsonian article from way back
in two thousand and eight. The Great Wall of China
(30:02):
is under siege by Brooke Larmer. Um, go check it out,
uh and hold tight and we'll go get Conger. All right,
as promised, we have congs Kristen Konger from Stuff Mom
(30:25):
Never told You, and she has, as I said in
the podcast, walked the Great Wall, but not all of it,
not all of it. A very small portion of the
Great Wall of China. I have walked, so we we
learned recently that it's twenty thousand kilometers long. Did you
know that they like did a survey of it and
found it's way longer than they thought. Yeah, it's massive,
(30:46):
and it's stunning to climbate because since the geography is
so sparse around it, you really can just see it
snaking as far as that I can see. That's awesome.
What part did you go to the heart um outside
of Beijing. I think it's one of the main tourist
destination like entrance spaces for the Great Wall. Did you
(31:07):
take a brick or drive your car on it or
have go to rave? Because those are illegal? Now, I
mean I did all of those things. I didn't. Who
doesn't go to a rave on the Great Wall? Uh?
Now you didn't doing those things? Kid, I didn't know.
I didn't. I was. I was struggling. So I went
in December and it was very, very cold. Um, so
(31:28):
there was the weather to deal with and also just
the sheer steepness of trying to to scale this thing.
It's not There were two ways we could go. To
the left was a more arduous path and to the
right was the little tourist friendlier path. And my fiance
and I were like, we're going to the left the
road not taken. Yes, So how do you actually this
(31:52):
is probably dumb question, how do you actually access it? Like?
Are there steps and entry points? I guess yeah. So
we pulled up to it was almost like a theme
park entrance, like they have a gate and a temple
there and you get like an admission ticket and then
they have bridges built to access the wall. So being
(32:12):
there when you finally saw it in person, what impressions
that you had of it before? We're just totally destroyed
or was it exactly like you thought it would be.
It was surreal being on it. I mean because I
think a lot of times you see the aerial photographs
of the Great Wall, so we have this bird's eye
perspective on it. But once you're on the wall, I
(32:34):
never considered how steep the stairs were, how um the
incline is also so steep. There were a couple of
times when climbing up, I was literally on my hands
and knees getting up. But I also have a terrible
fear of heights. Didn't know that would be an issue,
but it was. And you have winds kicking up because
you're kind of on the side of a mountain um
(32:55):
and then coming down having to kind of do the
butt scoot down a few airs. Wow, are you serious? Yeah?
And I'm pretty fit not to brig How high up
were you, like at the highest point, Like if you
if you had fallen or jumped off the side, how
how far would you have dropped? I would have messed
myself up big time. When is that the scientific answer.
(33:20):
I can't tell you altitude or anything. So earlier too,
in the office, you were saying that they like pipe
music out and stuff like that. Yeah, so um. At
pretty regular intervals along the wall, they have these lookout
towers and I think some of which were actually housing
for people who were building the wall and guarding the wall.
(33:41):
And the Chinese government has now installed these lovely speakers
that pipe like traditional Chinese music along the wall, so
you you have a little soundtrack to guide you along
your way. Did it add to it or detract? It
added to it in a way because it was just
such a bizarre experience. And we were also surrounded by
(34:02):
so many other Chinese tourists as well, who were coming
to the wall for the very first time. So you're
sharing this experience with people you know, who you you know,
can't verbally communicate with, but you're all kind of taking
in this one site together. Can you believe this? Wow face?
We were all agog So um. Was the general impression
like this is the Dollywood of China? Or did it
(34:24):
seem like reverent in like people have died here and
that kind of vibe. It was reverent aside from all
the cigarette butts on the stairs. That was a funny thing.
There was an older gentleman who passed me as I
was in my crawling face smoking a smoke heading on
up um. So there was a little bit of trash,
(34:44):
but it was very clear that you needed to otherwise,
like respect the space. They were actually a couple in
my group who were huge sports fans, I want to say,
of the Seahawks, and they were in all of their
gear and they want to take a photo of them
with their Seahawks flag. That got shut down very quickly. Really,
(35:04):
Oh yeah, So have they have people there minding the activity?
Oh yeah. If you're at a Chinese tourist attraction, people
are watching you. There is nothing wrong with Dollywood, by
the way, I want to put that on the record,
is a great place and conger something very special happened
to you on the Great Wall as well, correct aside
from scooting down on your on your fannie, aside from
(35:28):
an exotic fannie scoot yes, And to our English friends
here in America, that means but don't get all weird.
Uh So what happened? Tell us about your other experience.
My fiance proposed to me so we climbed to the
very to the highest point we could, and we were
looking out this lovely guard dour I suppose, and the
(35:52):
music hadn't the music would play an interval, so we
were in kind of a quiet lall and I was
just like looking out and then I turned around and
he was on one knee, and at that moment, as
he was proposing, the music swelled yet again, and it
was amazing, and all of these Chinese stores were up
there freaking out like so many cell phone photos, and
(36:14):
the Seahawks people were like, yeah, just throwing footballs at us.
That is totally awesome. I imagine that a lot of
people get engaged on the probably a lot of people,
but I don't know anyone that's got engaged. I don't
think anyone but meat Chuck. He's a very exclusive experience.
And then one other thing you mentioned, you alluded to
(36:34):
somebody almost not coming down. Was that you or was
there somebody else who almost fell off? That was a
guy named Barry who was part of my tour group,
and he was very ambitious and determined to climb as
far as he could, but we had to leave at
a certain time and he got stuck for a little while,
(36:56):
and no one knew that Barry was going to make
it down. Then Barry was or heard from again. Berry
finally made it, but he had to take a cab.
It took him so long to get down. He had
to take a cab rather than the tour bus to
the lunch restaurant, but then just spent lunch complaining about
how much the cab costs. Barry strikes me as one
of these guys who would be like God's missed out. Man.
(37:18):
You didn't see what I saw, Bengo, Kristen, do you
have anything else to share? Go to China? It was amazing.
I'm serious, Like, go to Beijing, see everything. It's incredible
and if you can get engaged on the Great Wall,
it's a good story. Nice Um. That is good advice
(37:39):
all around, Kristen. You tell everybody how to get in
touch with you with stuff. Mom never told you. Well,
you can simply head over to stuff. Mom never told
you dot com and everything's right there, podcasts, videos, social
media stuff. Mom never told you dot com. Wow, Yeah,
that was awesome. An drag and conger in here, boy, Barry,
(38:03):
he got in your crow, didn't I know that? Guy? Man?
There's one in every group. UM, let's see what did
we say? If you want to know more about the
Great Wall of China, I think you just did. Okay, Well,
if you want to know more about the Great Wall
of China, you can look those words up on the
search part how stuff works dot Com. And UM, since
I said search parts, time for the listener mail. I'm
(38:28):
gonna call this pretty serious stuff. Hello, Josh, Chuck and Jerry.
I just wanted to give you you all of sincere
thank you. I'm sure you're aware of the appreciation we
listeners have for the podcast. However, I hope you understand
the extent of it. About one year ago, I was
suffering from a very deep depression and tried to commit
suicide for obvious reasons we all know. I was not successful,
(38:48):
and she puts a little wink in there. I appreciated
that extra point. Agreed. In the attempt to gain focus
in my life, I started an old hobby of running
to summon what passions I used to have, and that
is where stuff you should know kicked in. I started
tuning into the show, uh and forgot how deeply passionate
I was about the world around me. Listening to the
banter and filing away new information from the podcast really
(39:11):
help those long workouts. I can say now with my
anniversary coming up, I'm in a much better place. I
finished my degree and animation, and uh, I'm working towards
new goals and you guys really helped out in that
little unique way, and I'm forever thankful. Have a wonderful evening.
That is so wonderful? Isn't that nice? Yeah? Man? Uh?
And I think name redacted on that. Thank you, dear listener.
(39:35):
We appreciate you for letting us know that we're glad
we could be part of the whole jam, the whole
road to recovery. Man, until you're doing better. Uh, If
you want to let us know how we have been
a part of your life, for good or for ill,
probably preferably for good. Sure, you can tweet to us
at s Y s K Podcast. You can join us
(39:55):
on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You
can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how
stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot
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