Wonder Wall?
Posted: Friday, June 15, 2007 1:22 PM
Filed Under:
Beijing, China
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
SHUIGUAN, China –
In the midst of all the Chinese blog chatter about investing in the stock market, the new compulsory dance curriculum due out in schools this autumn (parents debating whether "little girls and boys be allowed to touch"), and the college entrance exams recently endured by over 10 million students, one thread has been slowly gathering steam over the weeks: Will China’s Great Wall be a Seventh Wonder of the World?
In two weeks, we’ll see the results of a
global electronic campaign to choose the new
Seven Wonders of the World, and concern here over whether the Chinese perennial favorite will in fact make the cut has grown so much that the Academy of the Great Wall of China has been running a campaign to get out the Chinese vote.
The Great Wall: past and present
The wall is no slouch of a candidate. Parts of it were built in 300 B.C. to keep out nomadic herds from the north, but it wasn’t until much later – during the dynasty that first unified China, the Qin (221-206 B.C.) – that the fragments were connected into one single arrangement. Portions have been rebuilt over the years, with the most recent dating from the Ming (1368-1644).
Some estimates say the wall runs about 4,500 miles across the northern flank of China. But conservationists and historians fear it’s diminishing – from environmental degradation, tourism, and even trucking companies trying to dodge toll fares by digging holes in the Wall to drive through their vehicles.
But there are valiant efforts to police and protect the structure, too. Back in 1998, English geographer William Lindesay brought attention to the Great Wall’s deteriorating conditions. He has since established the International Friends of the Great Wall to work with China’s Bureau for Cultural Relics on preserving the site.
More recently, conservation groups have given way to eco-tourism designed to cast the Great Wall as art. Chinese property giant Soho commissioned a dozen Asian architects to build twelve contemporary-style houses designed to fit into the landscape, which in 2002 won a special prize at the Venice Biennale. The homes have since been converted to an upscale boutique hotel managed by the Kempinski Hotels, but the place still retains a certain artsy aura.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| The Airport House, one of 11 original villas that make up Commune by the Great Wall, an ambitious eco-architectural art project on the outskirts of Beijing. |
The 'New' Seven Wonders of the World
The new Seven Wonders of the World campaign was launched in 2000 by the Swiss-based New 7 Wonders Society. The not-for-profit organization has been trying to fund restoration projects of other major monuments around the world. One undertaking is to recreate one of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan, destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.
The campaign’s original list of 77 contenders was whittled down to just 21 in 2005. Some 50 million people around the world so far have voted to select the final seven – to be announced on July 7.
Until recently, visitors to the website could check up the latest rankings. But information from the site’s "rankings" page has now been removed, "due to a large increase in voting volume, which is causing frequent changes in candidate positions."
The last publicly released grading, on June 7th, however, showed that the Great Wall was still one of the top 10 sites at the time – alongside the Acropolis and the Eiffel Tower.
Not in the bottom ten
In fact, the Great Wall’s popularity might be greater than its fans think, and a quick trawl through international media coverage suggests that supporters of other monuments are fretting, too, if not more.
Newspapers in India have been urging people to get online to vote for the Taj Mahal. In the U.K. the Guardian newspaper ran an article saying, "It’s all looking a bit Eurovision for Stonehenge." (Eurovision is an annual European song contest, which the U.K. never wins.)
At least Stonehenge is keeping good company. Latest results show it’s rounding out the bottom 10 – next to the Sydney Opera House and the Statue of Liberty.
