Great Wall of China

Martial Media, Culture and Other Arts Off Topic
21

wild

[URL=“https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54350842”]
China clamps down on climbing ‘wild Great Wall’
9 hours ago


The Great Wall stretches for thousands of kilometres, and many parts are restored
As China’s busiest holiday season approaches, Beijing has warned that it will punish those who climb the “wild Great Wall”.

The term is often used to describe parts of the famous landmark that are not restored and closed to tourists.

Fines will be enforced more strictly over Golden Week, with thousands of domestic tourists expected to visit.

China is banking on the holiday to boost its badly hit tourism industry.

“This year’s National Day holiday lasts eight days and the number of visitors to explore the ‘wild Great Wall’ is bound to increase,” Yu Hankuan, director of the Yanqing District Cultural Relics Administration told the Global Times.

Beijing reminded the public that trespassers on these parts of the Great Wall could be fined between 200 and 30,000 yuan (£3,430; $4,404).

It will also be stepping up security, with a Beijing Daily report saying that all 131 guards usually stationed along the Great Wall would be on duty over Golden Week.

Authorities are also proactively scouring social media to see if any “wild Great Wall” expeditions are being organised.

Mr Yu said that some sections of the Great Wall are very steep - and it is possible for tourists to get lost or fall off. Authorities also said climbing these parts can cause damage to the historic site.

The parts of the Great Wall that are open to tourists are just a small section of the famous landmark, which stretches for thousands of kilometres.

GETTY/COLLAGE
The ‘wild’ parts of the Great Wall (L) and the restored parts (R)
Other parts of the structure are left in their original state, though China had earlier announced that a restoration project was in the works.

Hundreds of millions of Chinese people are expected to travel over Golden Week - fuelled by a pent-up demand after months of coronavirus restrictions.

Typically, hundreds of thousands of Chinese tourists travel abroad over the eight-day holiday period - but this year, with travel restrictions in place, its likely that domestic tourism will soar.

China appears to have largely stopped the spread of the virus, and most restrictions have been lifted.

That virus…:frowning:

22

Hopefully, it will open soon. Our plans to spend our holidays there were derailed by the virus.

23

biocrusts

Biocrusts is the word of the day :slight_smile:

The Great Wall of China is being held together by ‘biocrusts’
News
By Jennifer Nalewicki published December 08, 2023

Ancient workers used a blend of organic materials such as mosses and lichen to build the architectural marvel and help protect it from erosion.


A close-up image of “biocrusts” growing on the Great Wall of China. (Image credit: Bo Xiao)
Large swaths of the Great Wall of China are held together thanks to “biocrusts,” thin layers of organic materials that have helped protect the architectural marvel from erosion.

Scientists made the discovery while analyzing segments of the Great Wall of China, which spans more than 13,000 miles (21,000 kilometers) and was built over the course of many centuries, beginning in 221 B.C., as a way to protect the country’s empires from the outside world.

During construction, ancient workers often used rammed earth, which included a mix of organic materials like soil and gravel that are compacted together, to build the massive wall. While these materials may be more susceptible to erosion than other materials, such as solid stones, they often help promote the growth of “biocrusts.”

This living stucco is made up of cyanobacteria (microorganisms that are capable of photosynthesis), mosses and lichens that help reinforce the construction, especially in arid and semi-arid parts of the country, according to a study published Friday (Dec. 8) in the journal Science Advances.

“Ancient builders knew which materials could make the structure more stable,” study co-author Bo Xiao, a professor of soil science in the College of Land Science and Technology at China Agricultural University in Beijing, told Live Science in an email.

“To enhance the mechanical strength, the rammed earth of the wall was always constructed with clay, sand and other adhesive[s] like lime by the original builders,” he said. These ingredients provide fertile ground for the organisms that build “biocrusts.”


Sections of the Great Wall of China are strengthened due to being built with organic materials. (Image credit: Bo Xiao)

To test the strength and integrity of the Great Wall, researchers collected samples at eight different sections built between 1368 B.C. and 1644 B.C. during the Ming Dynasty. They found that 67% of the samples contained “biocrusts,” which Xiao called “ecosystem engineers.” Using portable mechanical instruments, both on site and back at the laboratory, they measured the samples’ mechanical strength and soil stability and compared that data to wall segments containing only bare rammed earth, according to a statement.

They found that the “biocrust” samples were sometimes three times stronger than the plain rammed earth samples. Samples containing moss were particularly hearty, according to the study.

This is because the cyanobacteria and other life forms within the biocrust secreted substances, such as polymers, that would “tightly bind” together with the rammed earth particles, helping to “strengthen their structural stability” by creating what was essentially cement, Xiao said.

“These cementitious substances, biological filaments and soil aggregates within the biocrust layer finally form a cohesive network with strong mechanical strength and stability against external erosion,” Xiao said.

Jennifer Nalewicki
Live Science Staff Writer
Jennifer Nalewicki is a Salt Lake City-based journalist whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, Scientific American, Popular Mechanics and more. She covers several science topics from planet Earth to paleontology and archaeology to health and culture. Prior to freelancing, Jennifer held an Editor role at Time Inc. Jennifer has a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from The University of Texas at Austin.

24

Commune by the Great Wall

A hotel with one-of-a-kind access to the Great Wall of China
By Lilit Marcus, CNN
4 minute read
Updated 9:24 PM EST, Sun December 17, 2023

—
Every day, thousands of tourists from around the world plan their bucket-list trips to the Great Wall of China.

Despite the wall’s 5,500-odd miles of terrain, stretching from east to west across the country, most travelers find themselves at either the Badaling or Mutianyu sections, the two areas closest to Beijing.

These visitors rise early from their downtown hotels, cram themselves into vans and wait in multi-hour queues to see the magnificent structures that comprise the Great Wall, navigating around groups of camera-toting tourists in hopes of snapping their own Instagram-worthy shot.

But what if there was another way?

An hour-long drive north of the jam-packed capital is Commune by the Great Wall, a popular weekend getaway for Beijingers where a series of modernist buildings comprise a luxury hotel, with award-winning design amid yellow-leaved gingko trees.

Beyond the usual amenities – an expansive breakfast buffet, cozy bed linens – Commune by the Great Wall provides a rare opportunity to simply walk to the Wall.

Just 20 minutes by foot from the hotel reception is the Shuiguan section of the wall.

Here, there are no long lines, no tour guides shouting into microphones and no sea of buses in the parking lot.

Tucked amid the mountains, the views from the highest turrets of the wall are breathtaking – and, even more importantly, unobstructed.


Shared House by Thai architect Kanika R’kul is one of the options for solo travelers.
Courtesy Hyatt

A hotel that’s its own destination

It isn’t only the bucolic surroundings that lure travelers to the town of Yangqing.

Commune by the Great Wall is an albergo diffuso, or diffused hotel, where guests stay in one of a collection of buildings rather than one central structure.

This can be confusing to a taxi driver or first-time visitor, as they seem to have driven from the Chinese countryside directly into a luxury neighborhood development.

However, there is one central building that serves as the reception area as well as being home to the hotel’s restaurants. Bellhops will drive guests from check-in to their accommodations in golf carts around the sprawling property.

The hotel was the brainchild of husband-and-wife developers Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, who previously co-founded the Chinese real estate firm Soho. Originally intended to be a group of upscale country houses for Beijing’s elite, the project evolved into a hotel.

Pan and Zhang hired a best-in-class crop of architects and designers to leave their mark in Yangqing. A dozen boldface names from around Asia were brought in to design one dwelling each: think of it as The Avengers, architecture edition.

The couple urged architects to use local materials and to make the villas blend in with the environment as much as possible.


Korea’s Seung H-Sang designed the clubhouse, which is home to the swimming pool.
Courtesy Hyatt

Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban designed “Furniture House,” where chairs and tables are integrated into the structure of the home, as his first ever project in China. The house was inspired by what Ban witnessed in his native Japan following an earthquake – often, heavy furniture survived intact while home foundations didn’t.

Hong Konger Gary Chang created the “suitcase house” inspired by the micro-flats in his native city. Someone walks into the dwelling, which looks like a plain wooden cabin with no furniture, only to pull up sections of the floor a la opening a suitcase and discover bedrooms, a bathroom, and living spaces neatly packed underneath.

And no less than Ai Weiwei – one of the most famous Chinese artists of his generation – served as the landscape designer.

Commune by the Great Wall won a special commendation at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2002, the year the 12 core buildings were completed.

Additional structures have been added in the years since. Kengo Kuma’s iconic bamboo house has been copied over, so guests now need to specify whether they’re sleeping in Bamboo House 1, 2 or 3.

There are also communal buildings with single rooms for individual travelers who can’t afford to rent an entire villa.

Guests can ask to see any unoccupied building, with an English-speaking concierge available to give on-the-spot architecture tours.

Commune by the Great Wall became part of Hyatt’s Unbound Collection in 2021, so points loyalists have even more incentive to visit.

In 2024, upgrade and renovation work will begin on the original 12 buildings.

Some have simply suffered from the wear and tear of years’ worth of guests and their wheelie suitcases. Others experienced damage during the floods that ravaged the Beijing area in summer 2023 and are currently not habitable.

Commune by the Great Wall, The Great Wall Exit No.53, Yangqing, China, 102102; +86 10 81181888

Interesting…

25

Kissing Beast

Rare carving dragon-shaped discovered along Great Wall of China. See the beast
BY IRENE WRIGHT JUNE 10, 2024 12:15 PM


A rare carving was discovered at the site of a collapsed tower along the Great Wall of China, researchers said. William Olivieri via Unsplash

As the longest ever built, the Great Wall of China dominates the landscape with towering pathways and guard posts lining the top of the mountain range. Its massive size would suggest researchers, archaeologists and historians would know a lot about each section of the wall, but the ancient construction still holds secrets. On May 30, researchers walking along a section of the wall lined by dense forests discovered a collapsed platform that would have been used by border soldiers to defend the wall, according to a June 4 news release from Beijing Daily, a government-controlled news outlet. The platform was left as it had been when it first collapsed, researchers said, so the team was hopeful there may be historical relics buried under the rubble. They began to dig layer by layer through the collapsed tower. Then, they noticed a carved scale on one of the stones. It was soon followed by a tail, claws and legs, according to the release. It was the carving of a dragon and its rare.


Beijing Daily

The carving is called a kissing beast, and finding it in such well-preserved condition surprised the researchers. This beast in particular was larger than others found in the past, making it even more unique. Researchers said the carving was a decorative ornament that would sit along the ridge that ran on the top of the towers house at both ends, known as the kiss. The tower was once tall and magnificent, according to the release, but when it fell, it took the beast down with it, along with three other smaller roof figurines with open mouths. The kissing beast was dated to the Ming Dynasty, and the tower likely was used by a relatively low-ranking officer focused on defense of the wall, researchers said. The Ming Dynasty lasted from 1368 to 1644, during the end of when the Great Wall was maintained. Along with the decorative features, researchers also discovered a weapon and artillery used to defend the wall. Researchers said these elements, along with personal items like tools, door rings, spoons and shovels, show a glimpse into the lives of soldiers living along the border. Baidu Translate was used to translate the news release from Beijing Daily.

Great-Wall-of-China
aye-here-there-be-Dragons

26