The Wall's Buried Builders
The terrain ruffles like the scaly back of an amphibian – a dragon’s back propelling itself through the water, rhythmically. It pops out of seeming nothingness like a hunter surprising its prey. Deep crevices mark the buckled and folded terrain falling into the horizon like an endless and infinite Origami design. Sinister yet playful. Hypnotic yet rational.
Cutting across and over the hills, the wall undulates – up and down, up and down – like a wave. It crashes into one hill before ricocheting off into another like a wayward bullet. Some parts of this stone and brick wall are twenty-two hundred years old. It has been lengthened, destroyed, rebuilt and refortified countless times since the birth of Christ. Its broken and sometimes parallel parts run an estimated twenty-two thousand kilometers. Not visible from space, but the unquestionable marker, and historic protector, of Chinese civilization, the Great Wall looks like a giant eel the way it moves smoothly over the tops of China’s northern rugged mountains. It is undoubtedly one of the most impressive architectural achievements.
