The Great Wall Crumbles

by Iva Skoch on

Following up on my recent blog regarding construction crews taking a bite out of the Great Wall of China, here’s an interesting piece from the NY Times about folks who are trying to preserve the Wall.

An official at the Great Wall Society thinks that most of the damage to the Wall was probably done in the 1950s and 1960s, since Mao encouraged farmers to use bricks from the Wall to build homes. A reservoir outside Beijing was built with bricks from the Wall.

Now, however, visits by millions of tourists are taking a toll too. One site near Beijing alone counted 4.5 million visitors last year.

New national regulations, effective December 1, will, hopefully, help to protect what remains.

Mr. Hu: Do NOT Tear That Wall Down!

by Iva Skoch on

Interesting news keeps flowing out of China, so we’ll keep relaying it. It turns out that a private contractor was building a new road, which destroyed a section of the Great Wall of China, as well as a large beacon tower.

The fine on the contractor, from the Cultural Relics Bureau of Inner Mongolia, was a tiny 500,000 yuan ($63,000 USD), for the destruction.

This took place in the Inner Mongolian village of Longsheng, near Fengzhen, north-west of Beijing.

I guess they figured they still have 4500 more miles of the Wall left.

Panda Spotting Becomes Easier

by Iva Skoch on

It just got a little bit easier to see Giant Pandas–there are more of them. The Chinese government reports that 2006 has been a banner year for panda cubs. According to China Daily, the government’s official English language newspaper, artificial insemination done at panda breeding centers around China has produced a record 27 healthy cubs, out of 30 born live. Scientists first started breeding them in 1960.

Only 1,590 are thought to live in the wild, while another 180 live in zoos or breeding centers worldwide.

We traveled to the Chengdu’s breeding facility last year, which is just outside the city of Chengdu, right in the center of China. It’s a beautiful park, and well worth the visit. If you choose to travel to see the pandas, be sure to also read up on the much larger Wolong Nature Preserve, further north of Chengdu. And don’t forget to sample the wonderful food of the Sichuan region!

Exploring Beijing’s Tunnels and Bomb Shelters

by Neil Woodburn on

As modern man advanced into the nuclear age, he ironically retreated deeper into caves at the same time.

Underground bunkers and tunnels have long been a haven for bombs dropped from the sky. As the bombs became more powerful, the tunnels were dug deeper into the earth and mountainsides to absorb the impact.

During the 1970s, China dug very deep and very far to prepare for Soviet or American attacks. In all, the Chinese built 62 miles of tunnels over a ten year period to serve as bomb shelters in case foreign bombers ever took flight over Red China.

Thankfully this never happened and in 2000 the Chinese government opened the tunnels up for tourism. Only a small portion can be seen but according to an informative travelogue on TravelChinaGuide.com, it is well worth a visit.

Guides claim that the overall network worms its way throughout the city, connecting government palaces with railway stations the airport and other strategic centers. The tunnels are damp, cold and best visited on a hot Beijing day. And, they are well off the beaten path. Few, if any guidebooks mention their existence, but directions can be found here.

Overweight China Threatens Globe

by Neil Woodburn on

Remember the old schoolyard theory that if all 1.3 billion people in China jumped at the same time, the world would be thrown off its axis when they landed?

I was concerned about this as a child, but now thanks to a recent news report, I’m even more concerned.

According to the Xinhua News Agency, 60 million Chinese are overweight. You know what this means! The accumulated mass of excess corpulence might be enough to finally get the job done.

A last second World Cup victory for China or perhaps a Gold Medal in the upcoming Winter Olympics might be the impetus for the entire country to spontaneously jump up in celebration. The resulting jolt of so many overweight Chinese would not only throw the planet off its axis, but would also push it out of orbit and send it hurtling towards the sun.

The cause of China’s recent world-threatening blubber explosion can be attributed to the recently diagnosed “Little Emperor Syndrome.” The LES, according to scholars, is the phenomenon by which China’s One-Child Policy has created a nation of spoiled children, each one of which is fawned over by six adults (two parents and four grandparents). The result is little Baby Mao spending far too much time at the Beijing Kentucky Fried Chicken as well-intentioned relatives dote over their prized, number-one son, plying him full of finger-lickin’ fast food.

Ack! For want of a deep-fried chicken wing and a child’s love, our poor planet is destined for a fiery death.