Feature: A Englishman's dreams of Great Wall

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Feature: A Englishman's dreams of Great Wall

(Xinhua) 15:35, November 06, 2013

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William Lindesay walks on the grassland of Mongolia in search of a previously unknown section of the Great Wall. (China Daily/James Lindesay)

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>> William Lindesay: A life by the Great Wall

When William Lindesay completed two and half thousand kilometers unescorted on the Great Wall, he probably didn't expect the rest of his life to be defined by its battlements nor spent in the nation which it evokes.

Twenty-seven years ago, when he was 30 years old, the Englishman spent 160 days tramping on the Great Wall from the west at Jiayu Pass in the Gobi till it disappeared into the Bohai Sea at Shanhaiguan Pass.

Lindesay's Great Wall Dream began when he was 11, just as China was building a "Great Wall of Ideology" during the Cultural Revolution, a tumultuous decade that ended in 1976.

His headmaster had told him that he should have three books on his bedside table: the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer and an atlas.

"On the map of China, I saw the beautiful sawtooth wave of the Great Wall, and I thought that would be a great adventure for a few weeks or months on the wall -- the longer, the better," Lindesay recalled.

However, when little William said he wanted to go to China, the headmaster told him there was a revolution in China and he didn't know anyone who had visited the country.

Most people abandon their dreams too early, but Lindesay was lucky enough to be reunited with his "China Dream" as he turned 20. His brother Nicolas suggested the two of them run on Hadrian's Wall, a 118 km defense that once divided Scotland from England, built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian nearly 2,000 years ago.

"It was a good time to be reminded of my dream because politics in China had changed," he said.

More than 2,200 years ago, Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang began connecting fortresses along the northern frontier to prevent invasion and protect his territory.

Three decades ago Chinese people started to tear down the other "wall" that separated them from the outside world.

When Deng Xiaoping, chief designer of China's reform and opening up, decided to renovate the Great Wall in the 1980s, Lindesay was inspired. "For me, the year of 1987 was not only an outdoor exploration, but also a political adventure," Lindesay said.