China Series #5: Great Wall

The Great Wall was an impressive sight. The most impressive thing to me was what you couldn't see. Almost 4,000 miles of wall. That's an amazing distance. I used to fly about 2500 miles from San Francisco to NYC every Sunday. That took about four and a half hours. Of course, some parts of the wall are in much better shape than others. In some locations, it is almost rubble and is very dangerous to traverse. In other places, farmers stole bricks from the wall for their building projects. Who can blame them though? They're so poor that they'll do anything they can to improve their lives. The historical importance of the Great Wall pales beside the importance of improving their everyday lives. I would probably have done the same as them if my family didn't have enough money to purchase building materials. It's easy to criticize the poor for their theft from history when you're sitting in your Levi's having a Starbuck's in Beijing. I know our tour guide criticized them. I disagreed, but I kept it to myself.