古北口|威廉司马台长城已经不再是当地的明星，她成了一个外来物的背景( 三 )

Having one’s photo taken alongside local officials, provincial officials— the higher ranking the better — is seen as some kind of green-light connection that goes beyond the more often than not real reason for the meeting, mere chance.
Generally speaking, the photo’s are treasured because they show the ordinary standing next to the famous. But who knows? Perhaps they are too treasured by the famous, who like to tout themselves standing next to the unknown, as a means of convincing their down-to-earth personalities.
So, last month on a glorious autumn day, as I drove along the Jing-Cheng expressway, the famous and the ordinary brought together was very much at the forefront of my mind. As usual, I was en route to see the famous, the Great Wall. But unusually, I was really focussing on the ordinary beside it. My destination was a new tourist development that lies 120 km northeast of Beijing, marketing itself as ‘Gubeikou Water Town’.
For those of you that are less in the know about Great Wall related goings on that myself, the name ‘Gubeikou Water Town’ has a strange ring to it. For various reasons.
Long time visitors to Gubeikou — and that includes me, who first went there in 1987 — will know that while the town has a trickle of water, it’s nothing remarkable. Like most of North China, surface water is little and far between. When I walked into Gubeikou I took a photo of the Wall snaking away and up the Crouching Tiger Mountain, with the narrow channel of the Chao River in the foreground.
In fact, ‘Gubeikiou Water Town’ is not in Gubeikou — its about 20 km to the east as the crow flies, at what is more widely known as Simatai.
Now, that a name that disappeared off the face of the map in recent years. Until about the year 2010, it was the destination for one of the most popular walks on the Great Wall, starting at Jinshanling and concluding at Simatai.
Then rumours spread that ‘Simatai’ was closed.
Closed? How can a section of the Great Wall be ‘closed’. Moreover, given there was a village called Simatai at the foot of the Wall, how could that be closed?
It was rumoured that ‘Simatai village was being redeveloped”.
To me, as a conservationist with a geographical, historical, archeological and social view of what constitutes ‘The Great Wall’, the news was grim.
In my eyes, the majesty of the Great Wall goes beyond the actual building. but extends to the surrounding land, to include the slopes and valleys, where the materials for the Wall were sourced and made, to the villages. Those, I aways considered, are vital to the continued existence of the Great Wall as a living part of China. For that is where ‘Great Wall people’ live, have lived, and sometimes have lived for a very, very, long time. Their experiences, their knowledge, their way of life, their oral histories, their views are a human — living — part of the Great Wall landscape of China. They keep the Great Wall alive.
I had heard of Simatai’s “redevelopment” and I’d heard of “Gubeikou Water Town”, but I didn’t connect the two — because Simatai is 20km away from Gubeikou.

古北口|威廉司马台长城已经不再是当地的明星，她成了一个外来物的背景( 三 )

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