To allow its residents to "touch history", Beijing has begun
protecting its ancient walls.
One of the projects is to renovate the 1,600-meter long city
wall of Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). As the largest cultural relic
protection project of Beijing in the past 50-odd years, this
project will relocate over 2,600 households, dismantle more than
6,000 buildings of various types and lay 120,000 square meters of
greenbelts so that residents can fly kites at the foot of the
ancient city wall again and "touch history".
Common Beijing citizens gave positive support to the protection
of the city wall. According to the department undertaking the Ming
Dynasty city wall renovation project, the entire project took about
two million bricks, one-fifth being old bricks, and a considerable
proportion of them were donated by Beijing citizens.
Every few days, an old man in his 70s would bicycle to send the
department two old bricks. He is said to have been donating old
bricks for ten years.
"Beijing's ancient city wall has witnessed the history of this
city. Pigeon whew at the city wall has left a deep mark in the
memory of old Beijing residents. The city wall renovation project
aims to enable today's people to once again touch the ancient
Beijing," said a relevant official of Beijing's city planning
department.
(Chinanews.cn June 14, 2006)
