On some history documentary (possibly on the All Hitler, All the Time channel) a claim was alluded to, if not outright stated, that the Great Wall was unknown outside of China for most of its history. In fact, the Chinese tried to keep its existance hidden, as a sort of embarassment. It was not until Nixon opened up relations that the Wall became known to the west. It was around this time that Ripley’s listed the Wall as a little-known curiosity.
This would mean, among other things, that the putative only man-made structure that can be seen form space was in fact not seen at the time of the Apollo missions.
I find this all a little hard to believe. Is it possible that no one in the west had any inkling of the structure through most of the 20th century?
Actually, that’s an Urban Legend. You cannot see the Great Wall from space. I believe Snopes has something on that.
In fact, despite that Urban Legend having been thorughly debunked for years, it was not until China put its own man into orbit, and he returned and verified it was true, that you cannot see it from space, that it was finally given heavy media coverage in China, debunking the myth.
Well, you can, if by “space” you mean “low Earth orbit”. The urban legend part is that you can see it from the Moon (not with the naked eye), or that it’s the only man-made thing visible from space (lots of things are easier).
Wikipedia pegs the claim that the Great wall can be seen from space as a Ripley’s Believe It or Not mention in May 1932, so it’s been known at least that long.
Astronaut William Pogue thought he had seen it from Skylab but discovered he was actually looking at the Grand Canal of China near Beijing. He spotted the Great Wall with binoculars, but said that “it wasn’t visible to the unaided eye.” US Senator Jake Garn claimed to be able to see the Great Wall with the naked eye from a space shuttle orbit in the early 1980s, but his claim has been disputed by several US astronauts. Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei said he could not see it at all.
I can certainly believe that the wall’s existance was not widely known about in the West until perhaps the 19th Century. Prior to this, very few Western travellers made it to China and even fewer went back to the West. I wouldn’t say that NO ONE knew about it, but this being before the age of photography and mass media, why would people on the street believe you even if you were one of the few people who had seen it?
The Russians would have had contact with the Manchus in the late 15th Century, but in Manchuria, no where near the Ming Wall, so it’s unlikely that they would have any extensive knowldedge of it. Imperial China in the 16th Century was a lot bigger than China is today, and present day China’s borders still extend some ways past where the Great Wall stands. From the 16th to teh 19th Century, the Wall would have been deep in the interior of the empire.
That would be my guess as well. The mid 19th century saw a huge influx of Chinese into the US. Surely at least a few of them talked about it.
So what of China, in general, being ashamed of the Wall? The documentary mentioned in the OP said that they thought of it as a monument to class oppression. That’s an idea contrary to communist ideals, no?
Well, I don’t know about the All Hitler, All the time Channel, since I don’t watch television, but a quick glance at the Chinese national anthem should dissuade you of any truth in that ridiculous claim.
Waldron’s book - cited in the Wikipedia entry - discusses the development of western knowledge and myths about the Wall in detail.
There are scattered early vague stories of a large wall somewhere in eastern Asia, such as the one imprisoning Gog and Magog, which may ultimately derive from rumours about it. He notes a much more definite reference from 1559 and then western mentions of the Wall start to come in thick and fast in the 17th century. It features heavily in Athanasius Kircher’s influential 1667 book about China.
By the 18th century knowledge of it was a commonplace, though as an exotic distant wonder, as illustrated by Johnson jokingly suggesting that Boswell aspire to the fame of travelling to see it. But you also get people suggesting that the stories about it were exaggerated.
Where there may be a grain of underlying truth is that - as Waldron also discusses - Chinese attitudes towards the Wall in the 19th and 20th centuries were much more ambivalent, when not outright indifferent. Some saw it as having been a waste of life and effort. Waldron’s argument is that it only becomes a simple symbol of national pride following the Japanese invasion in WWII.
I’ve never seen the great wall, but I have read that there’s a very heavy Marxist interpretation at the tourist sites…that the wall was built by oppressed and suffering peasants by orders of the bloodsucking aristocracy and their running dogs. Which isn’t too far from the truth.
One has to wonder what Nixon had to do with anything, other than possibly making it possible for westerners to see the thing for the first time in a long time. I also have to wonder why The History Channel (or whoever) thinks that facts are optional.
