“One who has never been to the Great Wall is not a true man.”
Sure, a true man must be so desire to witness such a mighty work of human begins that wriggles almost nine thousands kilometers from Jiayuguan in the Desert of western China to Liaoning province in the eastern China. And this Great Wall is also one of the seven wonders on earth.
< President Reagan at Great Wall
< President Nixon at Great Wall
< President Clinton and his family
The Great Wall was firstly built during the Qin dynasty (221 – 207BC), when China was unified under the Emperor Qin Shi Huang. And the wall was set to function as a defence system against invasions from the north. And the construction continued up to the Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644).
One of the widely-spread legends is about Meng Jiang Nv, whose husband was taken to build the Great Wall and never returned home. She was so worried that she set for the construction site far from home to see her husband. However, she only got to know that her husband had died and his body was built into the Great Wall. She cried night and day by the side of the Wall and her sorrow was so deep that the Great Wall broke down and exposed the bones and bodies of many deceased workers. Meng cut her fingers and dripped her blood on the dead until her blood flowed into one. Knowing that this was her husband, she buried him and ended her life jumping into a river.
How true is the legend we may not know, but we do know that many people did give their lives building and more often defending the Wall. With a history of over 2,000 years, the Great Wall witnessed the changes of time, the lives of people, the happening of events, and the stories of many individuals. So much laughter, so many tears, the Great Wall all put through with calm and peace.
