Home in the Great Wall
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A popular Chinese saying goes: "If one man guards the pass, ten thousand won't be able to get through."
Two generations of a family in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region have been keeping that spirit alive, by staying at a section of the Great Wall and fighting to keep it intact.
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A tower once stood on top of the southern gate of Xiamaguan , where American journalist Edgar Snow interviewed general Xu Haidong in 1936. |
Yang Guoxing, 36, and his family live in a cave house in Xiamaguan, a small town in Ningxia. It stands at the foot of a tower of the ancient city wall, part of the Great Wall, since the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
"We live in the Great Wall," even Yang's younger daughter, 6, announces proudly to visitors.
Yet, "it is a tedious defensive war," says Yang, referring to the nearly 60 years his family has spent trying to preserve the Wall, beginning with his father, now dead, and Yang himself, who is the father of two school-age daughters.
Xiamaguan, which means a fortification where military officers rested in ancient times, once had a city wall built with rammed earth and bricks, like parts of the Great Wall.
The tower, where the Yangs of the Hui ethnic group reside, was once the South Gate of Xiamaguan.
Over the past four centuries, however, most of the town's city walls have been reduced to rubble, as nature has taken its course and locals have used the bricks to build their own houses. In the 1980s, smugglers got in on the action by selling parts of the wall as relics.
To keep people at bay from the tower, Yang's father, Yang Qinglu, built a fence in 1955, three years after he moved into the cave house turned from the gate entrance and provided by his employer.
Yang Guoxing, the youngest of the family's five children, has been living in the cave house since birth. He remembers as a child how he would climb to the top of the city gate and enjoy watching the sun set over the ancient town.
But he also remembers the times when his father would fight with brick snatchers.
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Yang Guoxing, his two daughters and his mother in their cave house at the foot of a tower of the ancient Xiamaguan city wall, which is part of the Great Wall. |
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