GREAT WALL BLUES

Chinese local authority ‘vandalism’ goes viral on the Net

Last week the Internet buzzed with reports from China concerning the concreting over of a mile-long section, dating from 1381, of the historic Great Wall.

The dubious ‘restoration’ was carried out on the orders of the Cultural Relics Bureau of Suizhong, a county forming part of northeast China’s Liaoning Province.

One observer complained that what had previously been ‘an unkempt, haunting 700-year stretch of the wall’ now resembled ‘a cement skateboarding lane dumped in the wilderness’.

Ding Hui, chairman of the Cultural Relics Bureau, acknowledged that the changes to the wall were aesthetically ‘not ideal’, adding that ‘the repairs really don’t look good’.

Park officer Liu Fusheng, who first alerted the public and media to what the Bureau had done, called it ‘an act of vandalism carried out in the name of preservation.’ 

He told an interviewer that even little children could see that the work had been botched.

‘It’s like a head that’s lost its nose and ears’, Mr. Liu said.  He explained that the Bureau was supposed to have restored original features of the wall, like fallen stone carvings and crenellations, but had chosen instead to save money by using new bricks and concrete and ‘tossing the carvings aside’.

 

Photo: Shanghaiist.com

Unrepentant

Despite the furor that erupted on national and social media, some local officials remain unrepentant about the Suizhong Bureau’s decision.

Bureau CEO, Wei Hupo, was the most outspoken, describing complainers as ‘idiots and scoffers’ who should reflect on the quality of their lives and ‘either shut up or expect a visit from the municipal ranger’.

Local business identity and former member of the Bureau’s governing committee, Ah Wonwa, refused to be fazed by criticism that the work had ruined a piece of China’s history. 

‘History isn’t for Suizhong’, he said.  ‘It’s only for silk scrolls and embroidered fans’.

An equally dismissive response came from Suizhong celebrity chef and Bureau committee member Wang Delti when he was asked about the likely impact on tourism of the Bureau’s action, which contravened its own policy of restoring historical monuments to their pristine state. 

‘People need to remember that Suizhong isn’t a big city like Shanghai or Shenzhen’, Mr. Wang told a reporter from the Liaoning Gazette and Communist Party Calendar. 

‘It’s in the country, so we have to take a flexible approach to this sort of thing.  Tourists like to walk on our section of the Great Wall, but now and then they used to slip on the ancient bricks.  Any fool knows it’s safer to walk on concrete. 

I anticipate millions of safety conscious tourists coming here, not to mention skateboarders eager for a new and unusual challenge’.

Told that some local residents were up in arms over unsightly damage done to the Great Wall, Mr. Wang replied that he wasn’t interested in the views of such people because they were known to be newcomers to Suizhong. 

‘I think they should be run out of town,’ he said. ‘And my friend and political adviser, Pa Hupa, agrees with me.  If your family hasn’t lived in Suizhong since Confucius invented prawn crackers and dim sums, you don’t count for much around here.

Those troublemakers can bugger off back to Beijing.’

http://shanghaiist.com/2016/09/26/great_wall_of_concrete_investigation.php

http://epaper.bjnews.com.cn/html/2016-09/26/content_653617.htm?div=-1