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-- STORIES ON THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA --
There is a traditional story about Meng Jiangn.
Shortly after she and her husband were married he was conscripted
to work on the wall.
Meng Jiangn worried that he would suffer from the cold in the north
and began to make a padded cotton jacket. After it was sewn
she began the long walk from her home in the south to the site of
the Great Wall.  When
she got there and finally found the other men from her village,
she was told that her husband had died.
She went to the wall and began keening and mourning
with such pathos that 20 li of the wall collapsed and in the pit
at the center, she found the body of her husband. Meng Jinagn
threw herself into the sea to join her husband.
Her suicide personalizes the losses due to the
Great Wall. Beth had a dream, Ever since she was a girl, beth
had dreamed of being able to touch the Great Wall. It is a symbol
of China's greatness and of the ability of man to achieve. It functioned
for hundreds of years to spare the villages the random raids of
tribes from the north, lending a stability to life and continuity
to the culture and government.
It marked the boundary; China - not China and its
defense and maintenance for the common good united the feudal states
as well as costing them wealth and untold lives.
It is a wonderful dream Beth had - to touch history.
 
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