Great Wall of China
By: Justin Chen
In what ways might the Great Wall of China be symbolic of both strengths and weaknesses of China?
The Great Wall of China is a symbol for a plethora of things. For one, the Great Wall stands for the hard work, unification, and effort of the Chinese, all of which are evident in the following statistics: the building of the Great Wall included 300,000 soldiers and 500,000 commoners (as well as many people who died building), and it took approximately 20 years to build. It’s extremely difficult to even imagine the magnitude of the amount of work put into building this. It says a lot that so many of the Chinese were able to come together to build the Great Wall, despite any other external problems going on. The Great Wall was known as the northern border, which indicates that it was important politically as well as culturally. On top of all of this, the construction of the Great Wall showed the wealth and dominion of the emperor of China. These days, the Great Wall is a major tourist attraction and remains a big part of the chinese culture.
Though it was a great symbol for the unification and power of China, the Great Wall of China symbolized China’s isolation as well. By putting up the wall, China gave the signal that it did not want to be bothered by the rest of the world, and that they may have even been scared of another country invading it. And though it was a sign of the unification of China as a whole, there were still many people that believed that the Great Wall was an injustice and that it was a sign of an unfair system.
Was it successful in its purpose?
Because the Great Wall of China means so much to the chinese people and it is such a big part of their culture today, it’s hard to call it a “failure”. However, many people today forget about how disappointing it was and how it didn’t do the job it was made to do. The Great Wall was made to show the rest of the world China’s superiority and domination. Just hearing the words “Great Wall of China” was supposed to invoke fear into every other country, but this was far from the truth. But once the Qing Dynasty fell, it was not protected as heavily and enemies took advantage. Though it proved to be a useful piece during enemy raids, it never lived up to the lofty expectations that were set. It was estimated that the Great Wall failed to do its job almost 2,500 times, as enemies were able to simply maneuver around it.
Map of the Great Wall
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