The Tears of the Great Wall
Hui Sin Hang Ph
y name is Great Wall. Why I am called the Great Wall? That’s because I have a body totaling
13,300 kilometers long, just like a giant dragon crouching on the mountains that stretches across
eight provinces in China. I am over two thousand years old and well-known to people that
outnumbered the stars in the sky. But, hardly any of these people understood and knew me well.
oenix, Group 1: Non-Fiction, Marymount Primary School
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Every day, people as numerous as the grains of sand on the beach came to visit me. Some of them admired
that I was grandeur and magnificent; and some of them said I am the most spectacular man-made structure in
human history. Some parents even taught their children that I symbolised the greatness of the Chinese Nation.
Nevertheless, whenever I heard such laudatory expressions, I felt shameful deep in my heart. My consciousness
tells me that I don’t live up to such praises.
My “birth” in Qin Dynasty originates from a rather ridiculous reason.
the First Emperor of
China (“Emperor Qin”), wrongly believed the prophecy that Qin Dynasty would be extinguished by the
people from the north (the “Xiongnu People”). To protect the empire against intrusions by the
People and to ensure Qin Dynasty will subsist throughout the ages, Emperor Qin then ordered millions of
peasants to commence the construction work on me.
I was built along lofty, cragged mountains. Peasants were forced to work continuously day and night. Eventually,
innumerable people either died of exhaustion and disease or killed by fallen rocks. Many precious lives came to
an end because of me; countless families were forced to part - parents lost their children, wives lost her
husbands, children lost their fathers…..
Despite how
I looked, I am drenched with the blood and tears of numerous people who had
given their lives to make me who I am. The wind at late night whispers the tearful pleas of the departed souls
and sky often quietly weeps for them silently at night. The rain showered over me ceaselessly, like the tears of
the departed souls banging mercilessly on my body, penetrating like a sharp blade deep into my heart which had
sent me into many sleepless nights.
Despite countless people had been sacrificed for me with the hope to defense against the destruction of the Qin
Dynasty, it was the seething discontent from years of relentless and weary construction of me that had
ultimately led to the extinction of Qin Dynasty.
I often asked myself: have I ever brought the people about stability, peace, warmth and satiation? Have I
ever protected them well? Sadly, the answer is no……I still remember when successions of Eight-Nation
Alliance and Japanese soldiers marched over me, taking commemorative photos as the hero. How I wished I
was just a plain enclosure in an ordinary dwelling. I would still be able to safeguard peasants, to keep out wind
and rain, instead of the spectacular Great Wall that had not protected its nation from intrusions.
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