Again go to the great wall (fragment).
Author: ground (Peter Hessler).
Translator: Zhang Ling. .
1. a..
When the weather is fine, or I'm tired of facing seven million neighbors, I will drive north from downtown Beijing away. One and a half hour later, can be Sancha, a quiet little village. Where I rented dwellings. It in a small village road to the end of the trail leading to the mountain but there be. There are two paths fork, full of walnut and oak forest along the steep slope straight, after about a mile away at the foot of the Great Wall of China. .
Once I took up the tent, from small village, in the wall to the East, to travel for two days, did not see a figure. Visitors rarely involved here, the walls above the highest Ridge, isolated. Walls made of stone, brick and mortar of the wall was built; the top forts and arrows, and towering over twenty feet hollow jammed. The highest mountain is called the "East building", there is a child near carved with the text of the tablet. Similar monument worked a lot, but at present on the great wall in Beijing only 20 seats, this is one of them. Bei Shang read: Wanli 40 years (AD 1615), 2 400 soldiers built walls of this paragraph, long 50 Hachijo zero Wucun (about 650 feet). Bei Shang official text of the cold precision, in this forgotten corner of the even more lonely. .
In November 2005, and two New York friends hiking to the East building. To the floor, we are down to the South. This section of the road is dangerous after another, because many Office crib walls have collapsed. The fact that I carefully while stoned in something caught my eye. This white – it's not like Larix, brick; too large, nor may the mortar. I make it out to see the four lines of engraving text.
This is another monument of the fragments. I can only identify some of the words: seems to be "six feet high", there is no "twenty feet." I have not learned the whole in the classical languages, and the surface has been severely damaged, writing is difficult to identify. .
"Do you think it was buried in here?" asked a friend.
"No," I said. But I know personally may be able to tell me the answer. My friends and I cover up with loose bricks to live this monument, and remember this location. A month later, I Shibin Lun (David Spindler) back together. .
Dan Binlun height 67, tall and thin with a lot of men as less implicit statement. Over the years, I occasionally met him in Beijing on social occasions, each time he is secure in the sitting. His 30-year-old, light brown short hair, let a long face, eyes soft. Discretion when he spoke the word as appropriate sentence. Since 2002, he became the full time of the Great Wall of independent scholars. Although not part of any academic institution, and no foreign funds, he became one of the most outstanding researchers of the Great Wall. .
A cold December morning I start with stone-bun-LUN to find that piece of marble tablet. In Beijing city, dressed stone bin-LUN behavior, avoid a low-key. But in the mountains, he wore a red cell wool sweaters, a Hunter to SAG white Tilley brand Sun high-end professional La Sportiva card winning, Chicago J.. Edwards company for an outside line design of large deerskin gloves. He looks like by the special equipment consisting of scarecrows – parts ready to do hard physical labor and partly for the sake of pure relaxation. Years of lessons learned, Dan Binlun find this line of thorns around the head and the most suitable climbing the Great Wall. Mask it, he cut off a leg from Qiuku on, dig a round hole, set in the head. ("This can protect the neck.") He was wearing L. . L. . Bean hunting license with polyurethane coating pants, these pants also had cell tailor reinforcement. Dotted with patches of denim pants, such as the link of the Freeport City 【L. . L. . Bean headquarters in Maine, and Beijing City】 friendship is. .
We walked along the wall to the East. The walls every few hundred yards have a hollow jammed. The high arch ceiling and arrows window has become clings, still very spectacular. Stone-bun-LUN from time to time point out some of the details: the door has been closed, a niche has been stone mosaic.
"Enemy units and the wall is not built the same time," he said, "First take the brick floor, then use only rubble wall. Later they improved the wall. This is the floor looks a bit awkward son of the reasons." . .
He pointed out that a detail: a wall of forts and a jammed arrow Windows crashed--in this case you used two different construction team will occur. Near East Tower, part of the wall had completely collapsed. Stone-bun-LUN consider 1615, works to the edge of the cliff, near his house, son of steles data and actual measurement, proved this point. "These guys have built a team of people up the wall," he said, "they can do? from here begins the construction wall is too difficult. ”。.
We come to this dilapidated stone and he's in the cold bend over to finger touch the engraved words. He immediately recognized this four years of Wanli (1614 AD) as part of a stone. County Bureau of Cultural Relics in 1988, recorded these inscriptions, but not record it in the wall of the original location, since then it disappeared. By some persons about the destruction of stealing and selling artifacts. .
"It is the height of the wall, including the stack height of the wall," he explained, "there is also the name of these officials. Fortunately it destroyed before someone took it down. ”。.
Dan Binlun pieces with tape measure to calculate spacing between characters quickly to estimate the original size. He slowly extend back to the wall, looking for fragments of the resting-place once. He measured a niche with a brick edge: entirely appropriate. For this paragraph the wall, he now knows about the seventh century, a decade on behalf of the general situation the two repair the wall. Before leaving, we will be the pieces back in place. .
We are a member of the local people from the South. He was hunting wild; shoulder loosely under the wire in coils. In the face of this wear soft hat and large deerskin gloves or seven foreign giants, he collected. He asked if we have excess water, stone, Karen gave him a bottle. The following year, and I walked together with stone-bun-LUN several villages, almost every time the locals cannot distinguish between the two of us. Dan Binlun a friend, University of New South Wales in Australia (The University of New South Wales) the costs of teaching the history of China Jia Jiong (Andrew Field) has told me that a high extraordinary people in China than in the United States more comfortable. "In China, indeed, he is a monster," Fei Jia Jiong, "but we are all foreigners do not you?." .
221 BC, Qin Shi Huang became the first emperor in Chinese history the ruler. Consolidation of the regime, he ordered the construction of a 3,000 miles across the vast expanse of the Great Wall north. The word can be translated into "long wall" or "long walls" - the Chinese, regardless of singular and plural nouns - these barriers pose by the rammed earth. Over the next few centuries, Qin dynasties are facing the same challenges faced: a large open plain north so unbearable that they were inhabited by nomadic people here, such as Mongolia and Turkic tribes harassment.Nomadic threats in some times more tense, China through different policy responses. Since 618 to 907 year reign of the Tang dynasty of China, basically not the walls, because some of the Turkic origin of the Royal and Ministers meet the Central conflict and diplomacy. Even if some of the construction of the wall of the dynasty, who may not have called it "great wall" of these walls; call up to a dozen.
Ming Dynasty city wall is usually called them the "wall" - the dynasty of Chinese history who built the walls of the most compelling. Ming regime began in 1368, Kublai Khan established the Yuan dynasty, short-lived after the destruction. The vicinity of the Ming imperial court in Beijing, the construction of large masonry fortifications - the landmark building (part of the reconstruction and rehabilitation has been) in the tourists meandering winding unlimited photos. Ming is the only major engineering projects to the construction of durable material such walls dynasty, many parts of the city wall stretches for miles.But the "wall"-to-any connectivity into network instead of a simple structure, some regions have four lines of fortifications through.
1644, surging domestic uprising until the Imperial City, the Ming Emperor himself. Despair, a general stationed in the Northeast will be an important "wall" open gateway to the Manchu, hope they can restore the Royal defeat. Manchu people have established their own court - Qing dynasty, until 1912. These walls have lost significance for the Qing Dynasty, was quickly abandoned. .
The eighteenth century, Western explorers and preacher poured into the great wall of China, they visit the site, and the story of Qin Shihuang's great wall. These foreigners think Beijing brick fortifications around those who are in the vast northern stood two thousand years of continuous lines. 1793, the Englishman John and Barro (John Barrow) Jazz saw a section near Beijing Great Wall, according to their size, all the walls of stone used to build two around the equator is slightly smaller wall. (Rare in Western China to the West, where the majority of walls made by ramming soil. ) At that time, foreigners usually call it the "Chinese wall" (the Chinese Wall), but the turn of the century, exaggerations accumulate and eventually became "the Great Wall of China" (literally "the great wall of China") . February 1923, a "National Geographic" (National Geographic), wrote in the article, "according to astronomers said, the moon, the only visible piece of human work is the Great Wall of China." (In 1923 from the moon and can not see it, still stands today.)..
Ultimately, these misconceptions spread to China. The threat of a foreign power, Chinese leaders such as Sun and Mao Zedong's consciousness into one unified advocacy value of fortifications. "Great wall" become "the Great Wall" of, a covered all of Northern fortifications, regardless of region and dynasties. It essentially describes an imaginary construction – a thousand-year-old city wall.
Today, such a broad concept of the Great Wall can not be formally defined. I have met in Beijing, scholar or advocate for the protection wall of people, asked them to "Great Wall" how to be defined, I have never heard heavy kind of answer. Some say that if want to make sure a wall is part of the Great Wall, it must be at least 100 km long; others think that any section of the border fortifications can be seen as part of the Great Wall; Others stressed that it must be built by the Han Chinese; However, some built by the non-Han is also included in the Great Wall. No one can give a relatively precise length of the Great Wall, as has never been systematically measured and investigated.Last year, the China Daily (China Daily) description of the different articles of the great wall, respectively $ miles, miles and over a hundred miles long.
Anywhere in the world do not have a university scholar specializing in the Great Wall. In China, historians generally focus on the political system of research, and archaeologists are committed to digging tombs. Great Wall can not find in traditional academic fields his position, even for an independent project - such as the Ming Great Wall - rigorous academic research results are also rare. Neglect the protection of these fortifications, built in the past, many of the lower wall was removed to when the construction materials, especially during the Cultural Revolution.In the 1980s, named Lin (Arthur Waldron) Harvard PhD on Han Chinese and the relationship between nomadic tribes. "I went to the library that you can find a great wall all aspects of the knowledge of Chinese or Japanese big thick book," he recently told me, "but didn't. I find it very strange. So I started to compile a bibliography, but after a while I found this didn't give us the impression of being on the great wall to add anything. ”。.
In 1990, Lin Wei published "China's Great Wall: From History to Myth" (The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth). Lin Wei did not do field trips, but to use a lot of Ming literature. In the book he describes the construction of the wall of the Ming dynasty a few key points. He also mentioned the many modern misconceptions of the Great Wall, including "It is a single building itself." This is a breakthrough book, should have laid a foundation for further academic research.But since then except for an inspection team, wrote a book describes the areas in the eastern part of Chinese books (the "Simatai Great Wall), does not appear to other in archaeological and historical aspects of important academic value. (Another book was published last year: the great wall of China against the world, 1000 years BC to ad 2000 "(The Great Wall: China Against the World, 1000 .C B.. ? A。.D。. 2000), the author Zhuliyaluo Furr (Julia Lovell), a Cambridge University researcher, largely focused on the wall as the symbolism of the Chinese world view. She will present the ancient Great Wall and compared the government's Internet firewall. ). .
Dan Binlun first to climb the Great Wall in 1994, when he was the only United States Department of History, Peking University graduate student membership. He has always been good at sports - in Dartmouth (Dartmouth) school days, he attended the University rowing team and the cross-country ski team. He, as the hike in order to avoid the perfect swap city life. At Peking University, his master's thesis written in Chinese, paper is Dong - a second century BC, Western Han Dynasty philosopher. After a degree, Dan Binlun decided not to academia.His graduate studies before CNN Office as Assistant, and later became a Turner Broadcasting System (Turner Broadcasting), the Chinese market analyst. But the press and business seems to be not his interest, for many years the only unchanged interest is hiking the great wall.
In 1997, he was on the Harvard Law School. That is the real return to hometown - he was the Lincoln grew up in Massachusetts. Though in the home, his heart was in Beijing. He managed to distract the attention of children ("I hack a lot of firewood," he told me.) In the first holidays he went back to China to climb the Great Wall. At that time, he has spare time to write the book on the idea of the Ming Great Wall, and began to read history books.After graduation, he in McKinsey (McKinsey & Company) Beijing Branch do consulting work; every weekend leisure, he is not a hiking the great wall is studying the literature of the Ming dynasty. In McKinsey's work for over a year later, he left the consulting industry, put all their time doing research. His goal is to travel all over each period in Beijing Great Wall, write to the Ming dynasty and the construction of each expression.
Dan Binlun pay off law school loans, left 60 thousand U.S. dollars of savings. He plans to use one or two years to complete the fieldwork. He came to the sections of the wall, taking notes, recording details of the list. He often saw walls far away and more, he has written down their positions in order to visit again next time. The list with each visit and extended. In 1985 a Chinese satellite survey that there are 390 miles of Beijing Great Wall, but Dan Binlun found much longer than this figure. .
Four years after leaving McKinsey, Dan Binlun by occasional lectures earned 6,200 U.S. dollars. In 2003, he was to apply for grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Foundation sometimes funded research projects independent scholars. Application by a group of unnamed scholars of the results were not. Some wrote, "This applicant is not the humanities research background." Another commented that "the likelihood of completion of the project: unknown." The following year, has been a university professor's former classmates and pointing, Dan Binlun not submit applications. Like the reviews from the stereotyped view that this assessment is fairly positive.(Evaluation team member 1: "I think [the Book] will be the interpretation of the quality of the humanities. ") But this time for still being refused.
Dan Binlun had gone out in the law school to school, a girlfriend, a student at the time, Siemens is now working. "She supports me," he said, "I am very satisfied." But he continued to find more documentation section of the Ming wall and more; the end, they parted ways in 2005. He said, "breaking up one of the reasons is that her no end in sight.". .
We are the first to climb the great wall, stone, Karen has done a nine-year study, the last four years as a full-time. But he is not about a few of the great wall, nor does it have any formal with the academic community. He was very cautious, partly he had gradually been accustomed to work alone. He will be field trips and literature study in the context of such depth, so far no (for American and European scholars, impossible). His research methods and his mountaineering equipment like exception rigorous and unique. In his view, his schedule in 100 days of work is not yet complete, this time writing meaningless . .
These figures take up all his effort. We went to the East building, he said that this was the year he spent on the great wall of 80 days. In 2005, he has a new girlfriend, K.. C。. Steve Watson (K.. C。. Swanson), an American living in Beijing. The "stone-bun-LUN likes to climb the great wall in time reference," she said, "one day he told me, ' we know today is an anniversary, ' he said: we are in him a great trip two days after the start date, a bit like the original person according to the time to label the volcanic eruption dates. ”。.
In 2006, Dan Binlun started to do more talks - the main customers are Abercrombie & Kent, a high-end travel agency - and his income increased to 29 thousand U.S. dollars. He has no other hobby, book shelves of the Great Wall is almost entirely dedicated to the book. He was only 5 CD. Many of his close friends in the city, with Chinese and foreigners, but can understand his friends are few hobbies. He never romanticized the Wall, has been a lawyer and business management consulting division of the precision approach to tell its history.(Stone bin in the 16th century covered a series of attacks on the great wall, telling me that a Mongolian princes had adopted a "will be McKinsey Company known as the ' strategic ' follow tactic". ) "A few times I tried to ask him exactly why he's so obsessed with," Watson said, "perhaps from the emotional point of view it is easier to understand, but not the stone-bun-LUN. His unusual and rational, but doing something totally irrational. ”。.
