Stuff You Should Know - The Great Wall of China Episode

Episode Date: December 29, 2015

The Great Wall of China is one of the most visited tourist desinations in the world. How'd it get built? How old is it? What's the current condition? Learn this and more in today's episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, just the two of us again.

Fine solo, The Lone Wolves, The Pack of Lone Wolves. Errr, I'm just trying new stuff here today. Yeah, Wolverines. Yeah, in Colorado, blows my mind. Yeah, where'd you think it was again? Michigan. Right, in all the mountain ranges. Yeah, I just thought it hadn't been far enough

north in Michigan before, despite growing up an hour south of it. I saw a little bit of the old red dawn again the other night. How'd you stop? It ended. Oh, okay. I saw the end.

Man, that's a good movie. I saw it from, like, Powers Booth on. Okay. When he entered the picture. Yeah, which, I mean, like, if you think about it, he didn't need to be there, but his introduction was great. It was wonderful.

Oh, I think he played a vital role. You do? Sure. I think they could have done fine without him. He's a little creepy with the young ladies though. Yeah, for sure. With Leah Thompson. He was a sicko.

Yeah, he got what he deserved. Still haven't seen the remake. No need. Nope. So Chuck. Yes. I have another question about something you've seen. Have you ever seen the Great Wall of China?

Not in person. Let me ask you something else. Have you ever seen the 10,000 Lee Longwall? I don't know what you speak. That's the Great Wall of China. I'm just kidding. Also called the Longwall of 10,000 Lee. That's another way to put it.

Li, and that is a unit of measurement in China, apparently, it's about one click. Yeah, no, two. Two clicks? Two clicks. It says in here, one kilometer, no? Didn't click the kilometer. Oh yeah, I'm sorry.

Two Lee is being, is equivalent to one kilometer. I'm sorry. Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't have the wrong. I misheard you. Yeah. Oh, you did? One click, two Lee. Man, this thing, the wheels are falling off already.

That's easier. Right, the Western Hemisphere is generally the folks who say the Great Wall of China. Right, and so if it's the 10,000 Lee Longwall and two Lee is one click, then that means that it's the 5,000 kilometer Longwall, is what they would call it in China. And that's actually way off.

Yeah. There was a very long time that people thought that the Great Wall was maybe between 2,500 kilometers to 6,700 kilometers, I believe, was the high end. Somewhere in there. And all over the map, really. Yeah, and finally, at one point in 2007, China said, you know what?

We're gonna take this seriously after nearly 2,000 years. We're gonna go measure this bag. Yeah, who's got some rope? Yeah, luckily by then GPS had been developed and they used that a lot, but they did a modern survey of the Great Wall and they found that it was not a 5,000 kilometer Longwall.

No. They found Chuck, how long was it? Over 13,000 miles, over 21,000 clicks. Yeah, that's a lot of clicks. That is a very long wall. And it depends on who you ask, like that is the ultimate length of the entire wall if you take into account every bit of construction phase

that was ever done to it. Yeah, which we'll get into, but that generally means pre-ming dynasty and post-ming dynasty. Right. Pre-ming was about 7,700, roughly miles in really bad shape. Apparently the pre-ming sections

only are about 8% whole. Well, yeah, well, I mean, some of them were built back in 200 BCE. Long time. Yeah. And they weren't like what you think of as the wall, as we'll see. And I found this interesting in the Ming section

or post-ming section, out of the 5,499 miles, 223 miles were trenches, so not a wall at all. That's like a reverse wall. And about 1,400, a little less, were natural barriers. Right, like they just took advantage of ridges. Yeah, or rivers or, you know, really steep things, yeah.

I didn't know about the river thing. So, pretty interesting. And it's widest, it is 30 feet. It is highest, it is 26 feet. And it goes through some rough terrain. And we should mention, stick around through this one, because the wonderful Kristen Conger from Stuff Mom Never Told You

has walked the Great Wall, not the whole thing. A very small portion of it. She didn't walk all 20,000 kilometers of it? No, but we're gonna bring her at the end and she said, I'm no expert. She said, but I can tell you what it's like to be there. Right. And I said, that's all we need.

Yeah, so we're gonna bring in Conger here at the end. So it was kind of surprising to everybody that the Great Wall is 13,000 miles long. It's way longer than anybody ever thought it was. I'm sure they were like, woo! Right, but it's not like one unbroken wall. Even when it was all solid, even if it were all solid,

it wouldn't be one unbroken wall. As a matter of fact, the territory that it spans is about 220,000 kilometers. Yeah. I put the emphasis on the wrong. 220,000 kilometers long, right? Right. And the wall is a bunch of series of overlapping walls

and embattlements and apparently rivers. And the reason that no one knew how long the wall actually was is because for hundreds of years, China kind of didn't like its wall. Yeah. And it is kind of a relic of a backwards feudal era and that it had a lot to be ashamed of. Yeah, there's in fact this one article I sent

from the Smithsonian to you said that one of the Great Endangered, what makes it Endangered today, which it is, is what they call, Apostasy of Scholarship. There is not one single Chinese academic on the planet. Right. Or any anyone on the planet. Who specializes in the Great Wall of China. And the whole planet.

Hard to believe. It really is. And the author of this article, Brick Larmor, Larmor, one of those two. I'm from Brocklanders. It points out that that's really surprising. Yeah. Because this is a very old wall.

It's one of the new Seven Wonders. Right. You can see it from outer space, clear as day. No. From the moon you can see the thing. False. And it deserves scholarship. But it really wasn't until the early 2000s that China.

Actually, it was before that. I think it was the 80s when Zeng Xiaoping, the chairman who came after Mao, said, we need to preserve this. Well, and I think some regions had here and there over the years. It wasn't like the whole country. A lot of folks there. Like people.

And in fact, I think that same article points out that just regular citizens in their small village, some had reverence for the wall and would try and patrol it. Patrol it or repair it. Yes. It just led to some not so great repairs. No. The one that, who again?

Brocklanders. Brocklanders. Points out, she says that there's one section of the wall in a province called Jian, or a city called Jian, where they repaired it with bathroom tiles. None of the most authentic building material you can use to restore the Great Wall. But it does display a complete, in a lot of cases,

change in attitude toward the Great Wall. It was something to be neglected and mocked. Now it's something to be preserved. And they've just recently passed laws saying, you can't throw raves on the Great Wall of China anymore. You can't drive on the Great Wall of China, which is apparently a thing. Yeah, and we'll get to that too later.

But you mentioned something that is not true, and we need to really point out that you cannot see it from space. It depends. That is one of the old wives' tales that has really stood the test of time. You know who made that up? Al Gore.

Robert Ripley. Oh, really? Yep. What a jerk. In some 30s comic strip, he's just completely fabricated. The Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure you can see from space. It sounds like such a great little fact.

It's great. It's like a total Ripley, believe it or not, thing. And it wasn't until we got to space in the 50s that people were able to say, no, you can't. You can see it from lower Earth orbit, but that's not outer space, which is what Robert Ripley. I think he actually said you can see it from the moon. So that's when we found out for sure that you can't.

I think they had the guys on the moon say, can you see the Great Wall? And they're like, no, not at all. Yeah, they said you'd be able to see every highway if you could see the Great Wall. Right. So from lower Earth orbit, you can see the Great Wall, depending on the conditions.

Because again, a lot of it's made of Earth and clay and stuff from around it. I think we've talked about this before. But when it snows or something, you can kind of see some of it. But you can also see the pyramids, too, so big whoop. Yeah, and you know what? I was just thinking, I was given Robert Ripley a hard time, but he didn't say, believe it.

He said, believe it or don't. Yeah. Yeah, up to you. Good point, Chuck. And then lastly, this sounds like an urban legend to me, because I don't know any Chinese people. Anyone in China who can verify or deny this, please let us know.

But from what I understand, the Chinese did not believe that you couldn't see the Great Wall from space until their own astronaut, the first Chinese astronaut. I don't remember his name, went into orbit in, I think, 2003 and said, no, you can't. And that was a collective billion strong. Yeah.

Yeah. So the Great Wall, like you said, was built in pieces over a couple of thousand years, starting with, they believe, the Western Han Dynasty, all the way back in 206 BC to AD 24. They were followed by the Northern Wei dynasty, the Northern Qi dynasty, the Sui dynasty, the Liao dynasty, the Zhen dynasty.

And finally, that was all pre-ming. And it was just a series of not so great walls before the Ming dynasty to keep out invaders and largely invaders from the north. Yeah. And remember in our Terracotta Army episode, we talked a lot about Qi Xiaowang. Yeah.

Qi Xiaowang, I think, was his name. Yeah, nice job. And he's the guy who unified these six separate states into China. Yes. The China, or most of the China we know today. And even before him, there were these walls in these six states to keep one another out.

Yeah. So there was this early, like, these proto walls. But Qi Xiaowang, I'm saying it like eight different ways. Yeah. Emperor Qi, we'll call him, he was the first one to say, like, we should connect some of these walls and make a great wall. Yeah.

I think that was the initial beginning. And the whole reason was, he wanted to keep the Huns out. Yeah, the Huns were not nice. They were fierce and feared and really great at two things. One is riding horses, and two is shooting arrows. Yeah, and doing them at the same time. Yeah, because they were not agricultural. So they did a lot of hunting.

And that's why they were so good at archery. And they were to be feared and did a great job at wreaking havoc throughout Asia. So the wall was definitely necessary. And it worked pretty well for a while. I mean, Emperor Qi and his dynasty were not like milk toasts themselves. The Huns were enough of a threat that they're like,

we just need to build a huge wall to keep these dudes out. I don't want them hanging out anymore. Yeah. It was built by basically three groups. Soldiers were about the second largest contributor. Commoners was the leading contributor. And then criminals, back in the day when you would get in trouble, you

would be sentenced to four years on the wall. You would guard it during the day, and you would build it at night. Wow, when did you sleep? In the afternoon? I don't know. That's a good point. In the evening?

That's why they call it hard labor, my friend. Yeah, that is hard labor. And apparently, thousands and thousands. I didn't see any hard numbers, did you? I saw up to a million, but that just sounds one of those. Died? Yeah. Wow.

Well, I guess if you think about it, it's over 2,000 years. It's possible. It is possible. And a lot of the bodies and bones are still in that wall at one point that was referred to as the longest cemetery in the world. Wow, that's neat. Yeah, well, not really.

Haunting. Yeah. That's what I mean by that. I know what you mean by that. You know me. So not every single dynasty came along and said, oh, well, let's do our bit to add to the Great Wall of China. Because in 2007, it will become one of the seven wonders

of the modern world, and we want to be a part of that. Yes. Some dynasties had, it seemed to fall rest in the motivation, like how much of a threat was coming from the north, because the thing runs from east to west, from the Gobi Desert to the Yellow Sea, I believe, right? Yes. And so how much of a problem you had from the barbarians

to the north to how much fighting from within the different cities? Because remember, it's not just one unbroken east to west wall. There's different areas that are blocked off by the wall. So some dynasties had more problems than others, and it seemed like if you were really having a lot of trouble with outsiders, you would spend a lot of your resources to building the wall or enlarging it,

or going back and rebuilding some earlier stuff. Sure. And a lot of them did, but like you said, about a little over half of the wall was completed by all these other dynasties, and then the rest was from the Ming dynasty. They just went crazy on that thing. Yeah, and you know what, let's stick a break here,

and we'll really get into the Ming dynasty right after this. We'll go crazy on that. Stuff it should run. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slipdresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,

but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place,

because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael.

Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael, and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now.

If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, here we are in 1368. The Ming dynasty is in action, and they are killing it on the Great Wall.

They are not just building a wall. Sometimes they are building two walls and three walls to confuse people trying to enter. I don't know how it's confusing, frustrating. Well, you would, well, yeah, good point. I would just think, yeah, you climb over the wall, and you're like, ugh, there's another wall. Right, but I wouldn't think like, oh, whoa,

did I just climb into the wall that I just climbed? Like, how does this? Which side am I on? Right, yeah. Yeah, you're right. It's good points. Turn around and solve that conundrum. Well, maybe in 14th century China,

it was a little more confusing than it is today. They built it higher and wider than ever before, and did a bunch of other things to the wall, specifically guard towers and places to put military supplies, bunkers, things like that, lights. Yes, which is a big one. They apparently, and I think we're going back

to Brock Landers, Brook Larmor, she says that at one point, thanks to using either smoke or fire, smoke during the day and fire at night, they could send messages all up and down the wall. Oh, I'm sure. At something like 26 miles an hour. Man, that's awesome. Yeah, that's like broadband internet of the day.

Yeah. And it was all because the mean came in and started, they put up guard posts. And apparently, the Ming also were very progressive and had a big problem with desertion. But they said, well, you know what? How about this? If you have to man this guard post for years at a time,

bring your family. And as a matter of fact, if you do a really good job, we'll name this guard post after your family. Oh, really? And there's still plenty of guard posts today that bear the family names of the people who live in the region. And didn't sell out their own people. Yeah, well, that was a big thing.

Because if you put people on a wall, you definitely open yourself up for people to let people you don't want in through the wall if they give them money. Exactly. And that's what happened, too. The wall worked pretty great until the 17th century. And finally, the Manchu invaded successfully into China, brought down the Ming dynasty.

And they said, yeah, this wall kind of stinks. We got through it just fine. So why put forth a lot more effort into this thing? And from that point forward, construction on it pretty much stopped. Yeah, and starting in 1644, they made it through the wall. And that was that. That was that.

So for the next few hundred years, I believe the Manchu, they set up the Qing dynasty, right? OK. And so for this time, I think it went up to like 1913 or something like that. There was this that definitely is where the roots of scorn toward the wall was set up. The people of the ruling class had made it through this wall.

It had been set up to keep them out. It hadn't. So this wall is stupid. It's basically the prevailing sentiment in China. And then when Chairman Mao came into power, he was all about the Cultural Revolution. Now looking backward, going forward, right? Yes.

And so what better way to get rid of the past in the backwards history of China, but then to literally disassemble the wall, the huge symbol of old China? Yes. So he called. He was the founding father of the People's Republic of China. And he basically said, all the way up until like the 1950s,

you want to build a house? I know where you can get some brick. Yeah. It's just outside your front door. And go take what you need. And that was responsible for a large part of the early non-natural erosion of the wall. Right.

People just taking it apart pretty much. There's also zero protection of the wall. Not only was it being disassembled, but nobody was really trying to safeguard it at all. So cattle would be moved across it. Sure. They'd be allowed to graze right up on it. There would be natural stuff, too.

Like the freeze-thaw cycle is really hard on mortar joints. Yeah. And just exposure to the elements period over that long is going to damage it. And then also, like if people are cutting down trees for firewood of stuff that's holding the soil in place along the wall, when that tree goes, the soil loosens, too, when the soil

loosens beneath it, the wall topples itself. So when you factor in the human element and the lack of, well, I guess government encouragement of disassembling the wall, and then the natural elements, too, you've got a wall that's in serious, serious disrepair, especially considering some of this stuff is almost 2,000 years old by now. Yeah, this one article, I think it was from the Smithsonian,

again, talked about the desertification, which we had a great podcast on desertification. Yeah. And apparently in Ningjia, XIA, I'm so bad with the Chinese words. Well, hold on, let me see if I can figure this out. I'm going to go with Ningjia for now. Stop me if you.

XIA, right? But desertification is a big problem there because, and this is super interesting, when they constructed the wall in this part of the country, policy was burn down all the trees and all the grass within 60 miles on the other side of the wall, the bad side. And then on our inside, let's clear the land to farm. Right.

All great ideas, right? Yeah. But what happens is, it's an environmental disaster is what modern, what, geologists? Geographers. Geographers? Sandographers. Sand people.

It's what Tuscan raiders, they say it's an environmental disaster. So basically, the northern desert in China is expanding at 1 million acres a year at this point. Yeah. And the great wall is right in the middle of that path. And what happens is, sand dunes will just completely cover it up in places.

Or remember, we talked about flash flooding being a big problem in desertification. And that's going to crumble the base. It just erodes it. Yeah. So it's that whole area because the desertification is losing its wall. I remember that from our desertification

episode, that the Gobi Desert is just growing immensely every year. Was it Ningxia? Did you get an answer on that? It is Xia. You did it. Xia? It is.

That's it. Ningxia? That's you, man. You have a side career in Chinese pronunciation. Oh, I don't know about that. All right, let's take another break. And we'll talk about tourism and then some of the new efforts to preserve the wall.

Stuff is should and wrong. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips?

Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling

of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to

when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.

Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody,

about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So Chuck, we were talking about how, like, the human element is huge on deteriorating the great wall of China. Yeah.

And not only is it people using bricks for their homes, which you can hardly blame a subsistence farmer for that kind of thing, especially, apparently, in the more remote areas, they have no fondness for the wall. They don't care about it. They don't know that much about it. And a lot of times, and especially in the remote areas, these are where the wall is most dilapidated.

So it's like, yeah, why wouldn't I grab this brick and make a house that I need? Or should I contribute to the preservation of the wall? You tell me, guy from Beijing, you know what I mean? So those areas or the parts of the wall in the more rural areas are under the most threat, for sure. But the stuff in the very highly trafficked areas, thanks to tourists, are equally under threat.

Because people still just take bricks. But a lot of times, it's foreign tourists taking bricks for souvenirs. That's right. Either that or they're carving things into the wall. And every time you carve something into the wall, you're chipping away at it, of course. There are souvenir shops and cable cars

and skycars. Businesses and restaurants and billboards and all kinds of things that's scattered along the most populated parts of the wall. Yeah, like right up on it. Yeah, you never see those in pictures. People driving their cars on the Great Wall of China. Having raves, like you talked about earlier.

Yeah, it sounds like a cartoon. And apparently, the raves were outlawed. But I saw online that they still had one in 2015. And it looked lame. Oh, really? I think they had 2,000 people, which is not enough, apparently. Because there was a shot in the trailer for this rave

of people just sitting there with their hands on there or their chins on their hands looking bored. You mean it wasn't one of those super awesome raves? Right. It was a lame rave. I was too old for raves, thankfully. I was right in my wheelhouse. Yeah, that makes sense.

I lived over on the west side of Atlanta right at the turn of the millennium. And those big warehouses, and you know the big tower there? Sure. Which tower? In the west end. If you drive in the west end, there's a big blue tower that sticks up.

And that tower, someone lived there, and they would have raves on the weekend. And people would drive from Tennessee and Alabama to go to these things. For like a good rave? Yeah, and we would sit around and make fun of them. And actually went in one time. What did you think?

Not my scene. You're like, I'm going to live forever. Not my scene at all. But yeah, I mean, my pants did not taper out to like two feet at the bottom. Sure. You know what I mean? Yeah.

But it was interesting. Yeah. It's a culture I wasn't familiar with. I'm glad you went and exposed yourself. Yeah, well, I didn't expose you. You exposed yourself. Check this out, ravers. Here's your god.

I thought I was an old man back then. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, in 2000, that was 15-ish years ago. Yeah, it was like 30. Yeah. That is not old. I'm here to tell you. Like if I went to a rave today, people would call security.

You'd be like, who's the narc? Yeah, exactly. Where were we? Oh, yeah. The erosion of the wall. There's a lot of estimates. But I've seen everything from a third of it to half of it is gone.

Yeah. And it's probably hard to tell because the same reason it's hard to measure, it's just so big. Yeah, and a lot of it, it's like, well, is that river part of it? Do we count that? Who knows. Yeah, good point.

But yeah, it is in big trouble. And there are some parts of it that are gone forever. In addition to tourists and raves and people driving cars and driving their cattle across the wall, construction companies will build roads right through it. Yeah, or just a big factory or something right up on it. Yeah. So finally, China said, and again, it was Ding Xiaoping,

who I love that guy's name. It's a wonderful name. He said, love China, preserve the wall. He came up with a slogan, I think 1985. You've got to start with the slogan. Yeah, slogans work. This is proof positive of it. And within 15, 20 years, the Chinese government,

well, I guess provincial governments were starting to enact their own laws, restricting what you could or couldn't do on the wall, with the wall, to the wall. And then finally, and I think 2008-ish, maybe 2007, the Chinese government, the federal government itself said, OK, we're going to come up with our own laws regarding the wall.

And they started to take it seriously. And depending on who you talk to, it is because it's a huge tourist attraction that brings in 10 million people and all their money every year. Sure. Got to protect that. Or because it's part of China's heritage, and it shows like we're an ancient culture that

could do this with our eyes closed. Just watch us in the 21st century. Chinese fever, catch it. Right. You know that kind of thing. Well, how about it's both, probably? Probably. But there are some real laws in place.

And now it is illegal to take any bricks or to do things like build too close to it. I think within any building within 1,600 feet, 500 meters, is not allowed anymore, I don't think. Gathering firewood, herding your animals. So here's, I have to stop you. Do you have any idea? What's the gathering firewood thing?

Is that chopping down a tree? I don't know. I couldn't find it anywhere else on the internet. Like why that's a big deal? Yeah. I could not find it anywhere else. So it has to just be chopping down a tree that leads to erosion.

That's the only thing I can come up with. Yeah. OK. I didn't know if you'd come across something. No, I just keep saying it. Taking firewood. Don't do it near the wall. Gathering firewood, isn't that like a quaint, folksy thing

to think about? Oh, sure. Gathering firewood. That's the first thing you do when you go camping. Yeah, gathering firewood, yeah. And it's almost like it sounds beautiful too, like cellar door. Gathering firewood.

Agreed. It is very relaxing, unless you're in a survival situation, then you're It's a matter of life or death. Exactly. But the laws are punishable. Institutions up to $62,500 for individuals, $6,250. See what they did there?

Yeah, divided by 10. But apparently, from the Smithsonian article, they said that these laws are great, but it's just really hard to enforce this. Again, because the Great Wall is so huge, you can get away with doing a lot to it without anyone around to see you. But I would imagine in the metropolitan areas,

it's a little easier to enforce. Yeah. Like some yokel from Kansas taking some bricks. Yeah. They take bricks everywhere they go, don't they? Kansasans? Yeah. Kansans?

Kansanianites. Yeah. Kansanianites. Let's see. You want to get Kristin Congren here, as promised? Yeah, I got no more facts. I don't need it. That's a great idea.

I do want to shout out again to this awesome Smithsonian article from way back in 2008, The Great Wall of China is under siege by Brooke Larimer. Go check it out. And hold tight, and we'll go get Conger. All right, as promised, we have Kongs, Kristin Conger, from Stuff Mom Never Told You. And she has, as I said in the podcast,

walked The Great Wall, but not all of it. Not all of it. A very small portion of The Great Wall of China I have walked. So we learned recently that it's 20,000 kilometers long. Did you know that? They did a survey of it and found it's way longer than they thought. Yeah, it's massive.

And it's stunning to climb it, because since the geography is so sparse around it, you really can just see it snaking as far as I can see. That's awesome. What part did you go to? The part outside of Beijing, I think it's one of the main tourist destination, like entrance spaces for The Great Wall.

Did you take a brick or drive your car on it, or go to a rave? Because those are illegal now. I mean, I did all of those things. I didn't. Who doesn't go to a rave on The Great Wall? No, you didn't do any of those things. You're kidding me.

No, I didn't. No, I didn't. I was struggling. So I went in December, and it was very, very cold. So there was the weather to deal with, and also just the sheer steepness of trying to scale this thing. There were two ways we could go. To the left was a more arduous path,

and to the right was the little tourist-friendlier path. And my fiance and I were like, we're going to the left. The road not taken. Yes. So how do you actually, this is probably a dumb question, how do you actually access it? Like, are there steps and entry points, I guess? Yeah, so we pulled up to, it was almost like a theme park

entrance. Like, they have a gate and a temple there, and you get an admission ticket. And then they have bridges built to access the wall. So being there, when you finally saw it in person, what impressions that you had of it before were just totally destroyed? Or was it exactly like you thought it would be?

It was surreal being on it. I mean, because I think a lot of times you see the aerial photographs of the Great Wall. So we have this bird's eye perspective on it. But once you're on the wall, I never considered how steep the stairs were, how the incline is also so steep. There were a couple of times when climbing up,

I was literally on my hands and knees getting up. But I also have a terrible fear of heights. Didn't know that that would be an issue, but it was. And you have winds kicking up, because you're kind of on the side of a mountain. And then coming down, having to kind of do the butt scoot down a few stairs. Wow, are you serious?

Yeah. Holy cow. And I'm pretty fit, not to brag. How high up were you at the highest point? Like if you had fallen or jumped off the side, how far would you have dropped? I would have messed myself up big time. Is that the scientific answer?

I can't tell you altitude or anything. So earlier too, in the office, you were saying that they pipe music out and stuff like that? Yeah. So at pretty regular intervals along the wall, they have these lookout towers. And I think some of which were actually housing for people who were building the wall

and guarding the wall. And the Chinese government has now installed these lovely speakers that pipe traditional Chinese music along the wall. So you have a little soundtrack to guide you along your way. Did it add to it or detract? It added to it, in a way, because it was just such a bizarre experience.

And we were also surrounded by so many other Chinese tourists as well who were coming to the wall for the very first time. So you're sharing this experience with people who you can't verbally communicate with, but you're all kind of taking in this one site together. We guys all making the, can you believe this? Wow face kind of thing? We were all a gog.

So was the general impression like this is the dollywood of China? Or did it seem like reverent and like people have died here and that kind of vibe? It was reverent. Aside from all the cigarette butts on the stairs, that was a funny thing. There was an older gentleman who passed me

as I was in my crawling face, smoking a smoke, heading on up. So there was a little bit of trash, but it was very clear that you needed to otherwise respect the space. There were actually a couple in my group who were huge sports fans. I want to say of the Seahawks, and they were in all of their gear.

And they wanted to take a photo of them with their Seahawks flag, and that got shut down very quickly. Oh really? Oh yeah. So they have people there minding the activity? Oh yeah. If you're at a Chinese tourist attraction, people are watching you.

There is nothing wrong with dollywood, by the way. I want to put that on the record. It is a great place. And Konger, something very special happened to you on the Great Wall as well, correct? Aside from scooting down on your fanny. Aside from an exotic fanny scoot, yes. And to our English friends here in America, that means but.

Right. Don't get all weird. So what happened? Tell us about your other experience. My fiance proposed to me. So we climbed to the highest point we could, and we were looking at this lovely guard dower, I suppose. And the music, the music would play an interval.

So we were in kind of a quiet lull. And I was just like looking out, and then I turned around. And he was on one knee. And at that moment, as he was proposing, the music swelled yet again. Awesome. That's awesome. And it was amazing.

And all of these Chinese tourists were up there freaking out, like so many cell phone photos happening. And the Seahawks people were like, whoop, whoop, whoop. Just throwing footballs at us. That is totally awesome. I imagine not a lot of people get engaged on this. Well, probably a lot of people. But I don't know anyone that's got engaged.

I don't think anyone but me, Chuck. It's a very exclusive experience. And then one other thing you mentioned, you alluded to somebody almost not coming down. Was that you, or was there somebody else who almost fell off? No. That was a guy named Barry, who was part of my tour group. And he was very ambitious and determined

to climb as far as he could. But we had to leave at a certain time. And he got stuck for a little while, and no one knew Barry was going to make it down. Then Barry was never heard from again. Barry finally made it. But he had to take a cab. It took him so long to get down.

He had to take a cab rather than the tour bus to the lunch restaurant. But then just spent lunch complaining about how much the cab cost. Barry strikes me as one of these guys who would be like, you guys missed out, man. You didn't see what I saw. Bingo.

Kristen, do you have anything else to share? Go to China. It was amazing. I'm serious. Go to Beijing. See everything. It's incredible. Cool.

And if you can get engaged on the Great Wall, it's a good story. Nice. That is good advice all around, Kristen. Thank you. Tell everybody how to get in touch with you with Stuff Mom Never Told You. Well, you can simply head over to stuffmomnevertoldyou.com. And everything's right there.

Podcasts, videos, social media, blogs. Right there, where again? Stuffmomnevertoldyou.com. Wow. Yeah, that was awesome. Good thinking, Drake and Kong are in here. Boy, Barry. He got stuck in your craw, didn't he?

I know that guy, man, there's one in every group. Let's see, did we say, if you want to know more about the Great Wall of China? I think you just did. Oh, OK. Well, if you want to know more about the Great Wall of China, you can look those words up on the searchbar at howstuffworks.com.

And since I said search bar, it's time for a listener mail. I'm going to call this pretty serious stuff. Hello, Josh, Chuck, and Jerry. Just wanted to give you all a sincere thank you. Make sure you're aware of the appreciation we listeners have for the podcast. However, I hope you understand the extent of it. About one year ago, I was suffering

from a very deep depression and tried to commit suicide. For obvious reasons, we all know I was not successful. And she puts a little wink in there. I appreciated that extra point. Agreed. In the attempt to gain focus in my life, I started an old hobby of running to summon what passions I used to have.

And that is where stuff you should know kicked in. I started tuning into the show and forgot how deeply passionate I was about the world around me. Listening to the banter and filing away new information from the podcast really helped those long workouts. I can say now, with my anniversary coming up, I'm in a much better place. I finished my degree in animation

and I'm working towards new goals. And you guys really helped out in that little unique way. And I'm forever thankful. Have a wonderful evening. That is so wonderful. Isn't that nice? Yeah. Man, and I think name redacted on that.

Thank you, dear listener. We appreciate you for letting us know that. We're glad we could be part of the whole jam, the whole road to recovery. Man, unbelievable. Glad you're doing better. If you want to let us know how we have been a part of your life, for good or for ill, probably preferably for good.

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On the podcast, hey dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slipdresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends

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