Five myths about the Great Wall of China

It’s a structure that President Trump must dream about and the Great Wall of China is nothing if not spectacular. Said to be around 13,000 miles long, and dating back 2,300 years, the Unesco World Heritage site, the world’s longest monument, is the setting for another of BBC Four’s ‘slow’ films – A Slow Odyssey: The Great Wall of China, on Sunday (February 3). It follows similarly structured documentaries that have captured a sleigh ride in Norway, a trip along the Kennett & Avon Canal and a portrait of the National Gallery.

Shot over seven weeks using a 4K drone, this unprecedented aerial journey is free of narration and music and has just the natural sound of the surroundings (the murmur or tourists far below, or the chatter of birds). The result is an evocative, rhythmic and almost lyrical adventure that runs along the length of the wall, from the Yellow Sea to the Gobi Desert. Watch the video below for a preview.

From people swimming in the Yellow Sea and martial arts practitioners performing their rituals on one of the hundreds of fortifications to the tourist wall at Badaling (seen by more the 500 heads of state) and the spectacular view of a river roaring through Qilian Gorge, the film aims to show the wall’s hidden beauty, but also to raise awareness of the need to protect it for future generations. The team behind it included producer William Lindesay, a Liverpudlian and something of a Great Wall obsessive: he’s run the length of it and been honoured as a “protector of the wall” by the Chinese government. Married to a Chinese wife, his two sons operated the drone.

Aside from the spectacular scenery and vivid colours (so many shades of green), one noticeable feature is the differences in how the wall is built, using variations of stone, earth, and timber, with the various parts representing different dynasties and eras. It’s striking too to see the blend of ancient and modern with the most current being the construction of the Badaling tunnel beneath the wall in preparation for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The tunnel, part of which will be 435 metres below the surface making it the deepest in the world, forms a section of a super-sleek new railway linking two of the host cities, Beijing and Zhangjiakou.

Even today the Great Wall of China is creating new wonders.

A Slow Odyssey: The Great Wall of China is on BBC Four on Sunday February 3 at 8.00pm.

Five myths about the Great Wall

By Ed Peters

1. You can see it from space

Robert Ripley’s tag-line – “Believe It or Not!” – was a great way of trundling out alluring half-truths, and it was this American amateur anthropologist who widely publicised the notion in 1932 that the Great Wall “would be” the only man-made structure visible from the moon. His assertion became an instant urban myth, re-spun by a generation of commentators and Sinologists who should have known better.

Debunked

The moon is 384,400 kilometres from Earth, and space travel didn’t become a reality until quite some time after Ripley’s demise in 1949. So while being able to discern continents and oceans, despite craning their necks astronauts – including China’s official “Space Hero” Yang Liwei – have been unable to pick out a wavy line of piled-up rocks.

2. It's called the Great Wall

Folklore has it that another American, President Richard Nixon, purportedly stuck for words during his 1972 visit, declared that he reckoned the Great Wall certainly was a great wall. Few English-language guide books call the structure anything else, and like Eiffel Tower or Empire State Building, it’s an iconic term that requires little explanation.

Debunked

It’s not called Great Wall, leastways not by 1.3 billion-plus Chinese, a few dozen tour guides excepted. Most refer to it as Chang Cheng, or Long Wall, which can also be translated as Long City. Some records mention (erroneously) The Ten Thousand Mile Long Wall. Chinese poets go for The Purple Wall or The Earth Dragon. Bonus trivia: Great Wall wine is an acquired taste.

3. It's ancient

Scour the history books and references to the Wall start popping up as early as 771 BC. China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, was a terrific fan, building from Gansu as far as Manchuria, and subsequent dynasties pushed it further west, especially the Qi, who had added some 1,600 kilometres by 574AD.

Debunked

The Wall as it appears today – a sort of Oriental Hadrian’s – dates from the 15th century. Earlier efforts were no more than earth ramparts and dykes. And much of the original Wall has disintegrated. Tourist spots such as Badaling, northwest of Beijing, were rebuilt in recent years to attract visitors. A now-defunct tourist board scheme inviting foreigners to physically help with reconstruction is believed to have been an elaborate practical joke.

4. It was impenetrable

Safeguarding the northern reaches of China, lined with battlements and intersected by strategically placed turrets, up to nine metres thick and eight metres high, garrisoned by crack infantry and cavalry regiments, supplied with enough food and arms to repel a lengthy siege, the Wall was an impassable barrier which kept the marauding hordes at bay down the centuries.

Debunked

That’s all well and good, unless a traitor decides to open one of the gates, as happened at the far eastern outpost of Shanhaiguan in 1644. The Manchu armies swarmed though, marking the start of a dynasty that was to hold sway over China until 1912. Moral – stone walls do not a fortress make.

5. It's filled with bodies

Whatever the date in history, the clarion call for volunteer masons, bricklayers or indeed common-or-garden wielders of pick and shovel met with little response. Forced labour was the solution, up to a million at a time according to some estimates, and if some of them pegged it on the spot, there was one obvious and handy site for interment.

Debunked

No bones or indeed other indication of human remains have been found in the Wall. The most likely source of the rumour is a historian with a grudge against the previous regime. Still, it’s a cracking story to make attention-wavering tourists sit up and take notice.