The Great Wall of China: Symbol, Identity, and Culture

Introduction

The whole world is well aware of the Great Wall of China. It is an iconic symbol that represents the face of China in terms of culture, history, political views, attitudes, and national character in general. Mao Zedong, the father of modern China, is quoted as saying that one is not man enough if they have not visited the Great Wall (Hayford, 103). Indeed, the phrase has been widely adopted by the media and by tourist promoters. The Wall itself is an iconic set of permanent structures that have withstood the harshness of the elements over thousands of years — much like the Chinese culture, which largely remains intact despite the passage of time.

The Great Wall of China is now an important ingredient in the heritage of the Chinese people. It is a source of pride for the nation, and other countries view it with admiration (Huang, 65–6). The wall has become synonymous with China and defines Chinese character in modern society. What many people do not know is that there is no single wall. The Great Wall is a series of walls built over time by several separate dynasties for varying intentions. The central question this paper addresses is how the Great Wall of China has become such a significant national symbol.

The Great Wall and Artistic Symbolism

As opposed to a static, conceptualized symbol, the Great Wall of China has evolved over time and continues to do so. According to the philosophers Gu Yanwu and Sima Qian, who wrote about Chinese history at different times, the wall was a symbol of the cruel ways of the first emperor and his ambitions in the pre-modern era. Such a notion was reflected in one of the common legends of the time (Gao, 773). By the end of the 19th century, however, the negative implications had subsided, and in their place came positive nationalistic views of consolidated identity and national power. The wall featured prominently in Chinese art forms during the 1930s. When the Chinese army used the wall to rout Japanese attackers during the 1937 Sino-Japanese War, the wall acquired a symbolic meaning of resistance against foreign invasion and consequently found favor with artists during the war.

The grandeur with which the wall is viewed today is informed in part by the reality of military activity at the time and by media coverage during the war, as opposed to earlier, more abstract significance. Sun Yat-sen, regarded as the father of modern China, popularized the wall as a symbol of the unity and identity of the Chinese people. It signified resistance to foreign invasion in the first part of the 20th century (Gao, 774). It is worth noting that despite all efforts to popularize the wall beforehand, it was during the Japanese invasion of the 1930s that the wall gained the true symbolic significance we recognize today.

Works making use of the Great Wall for symbolic purposes were scarce during the Mao era (1949–76). The Wall was portrayed alongside features such as industries, reservoirs, and other modern developments to signify the contrast between the old and the new — an impression of the inferiority of the past versus the present, albeit a temporary framing (Gao, 774). After the death of Mao, near the end of the Cultural Revolution, and following the reforms instituted by Deng Xiaoping in the latter part of the 1970s, avant-garde artists such as those of the 85 Movement began portraying the image of the Great Wall to demonstrate aesthetic concerns rather than concerns of the state. These artists ushered in the post-Tiananmen avant-garde art movement of the 1990s. The artists of the 1980s and 1990s attempted to reshape the collective historical significance of the Great Wall into a utilitarian icon capable of addressing the complex and ambiguous contemporary demands placed on their artistic practice.

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