Comments on: How editorial madness could cost Great Wall ‘wonder’ tag

By: Chris O'Brien

Chris O'Brien — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 08:09:26 +0000

rty: cheek, tongue ..

Mike: I find myself in agreement with you. A strange sensation.

By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 03:27:26 +0000

I don’t know about the Eifel Tower, but I would definitely say that the Three Gorges Dam is more wonder-worthy than the Great Wall. You might even be able to put the Qinghai-Tibet railway up there either. What about the Meglev Train?

By: rty

rty — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 05:08:11 +0000

This kind of online “public vote” is just a joke, if you know anything about survey methodology or even “democratic voting”. You are just as laughable as anyone else (including the academy) to talk seriously about it.

By: Wiss

Wiss — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 02:52:56 +0000

Just because the Eiffel Tower has been replicated elsewhere, like Tokyo, doesn’t mean it wasn’t an incredible feat of engineering. Not only was it a triumph of iron-frame building, but it was a daring, spectacular work of art. There wasn’t anything like it in any European city in 1890, except maybe the Crystal Palace in London, and that burned down in the 1930’s.

A measure of its success has been how often it’s been replicated. But Eiffel deserves recognition for the beauty and daring of his design.

Just because the Great Wall is long, doesn’t mean it’s interesting from an engineering perspective. I’ve been on it half a dozen times in the last year (to simitai and places more remote), and it’s very beautiful, but it’s a lot like Chinese city walls all over the country. I’m certain hauling stone blocks up the mountainside was tough, and it does look nice on a wine bottle or satellite photo, but it’s not a “feat”. The building itself is rather mundane. It just doesn’t seem to stop.

In other words, just because you can enslave millions of Chinese peasants to build you a really long wall doesn’t mean that you should. It’s the engineering equivalent of making the world’s longest hotdog by splicing a million normal hotdogs together. Not that cool.

And even less cool for all the people killed in its construction. Spectacular waste isn’t generally considered a positive trait in engineering. The whole thing may as well be made from human skulls. If anything, the Wall stands for the great problem of Chinese history- ordinary people repeatedly crushed by irrational tyrants.

The Chinese people have done many, many better things than that.

By: mike

mike — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 05:44:19 +0000

the Eiffel tower a greater engineering feat than the great wall? hmmm. suggest you take a journey to simtai and take a few minuted to suck in the sheer grandeur of the wall. then hop on a plane to paris and do the same for the blackpool, sorry, eiffel tower.

you will see that comparing the two is like comparing apples and carrots, albeit a very splendid apple (in parts, the great wall) and a rather dull, workmanlike carrot.

By: Wiss

Wiss — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 03:23:10 +0000

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but for hundreds of years, the Great Wall was a symbol of Imperial tyranny and waste, right? Hated by the peasants who were forced to build it or die trying, sucking the treasury dry, and not preventing a single damn invasion.

From an engineering perspective, it’s not even that cool. The Chinese even whipped its ass with Three Gorges. The Eiffel tower, the Parthenon, the Pyramids, and Machu Piccu all beat it to hell as engineering feats. Probably the Taj Mahal too, but I don’t know anything about it…

I’m tired of the Wall, frankly. I think Chinese people should take pride in their real cultural accomplishments- their incredibly good food, their remarkable writing system, 2000 years of poetry, art and philosophy?

Sorry, I’m feeling grumpy today…

Anyway, how come the Statue of Liberty is on the list, but not the Brooklyn Bridge?