WEBVTT - Walls 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.960 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.560 Works dot com. Hey, wasn't the stuff to blow your mind? 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:16.880 My name is Robert Lamb and on Julie Teglass And 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:18.880 if all goes according to plan, I will be in 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:21.200 China abound the time this is published. I will be 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:23.800 with my wife, will be picking up our son and 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:28.520 returning home. So fittingly, we're going to replay our episode 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:31.440 on walls, which concerns a little bit of the Great 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:35.600 Wall of China as well as just our ideas about walls. 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:40.640 What are walls from a cultural symbolic uh level of thinking? Yeah, 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:43.960 I mean we'll talk about sort of subtle mental walls, 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:48.159 like political maps, sriven as walls, even the walls of yourselves. Right. 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:53.040 Plus there's podcast Gold because I believe that Robert will 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:58.560 mention loving a disease cow over enemy lines in order 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:02.520 to gain some faction in the wall. Awesome stuff. Yeah, 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:09.240 all right, so let's roll it this episode. We're talking 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:13.520 about walls, which sounds a little big, and it is 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.240 a big topic because we live in this world of 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.360 walls all around us. We have walls that we've erected, 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:22.399 walls that are physical walls that are made of stone, 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:26.560 that are made of wood, Walls that are legal walls, 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.240 walls that are are mental, walls that are that are 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:34.319 composed of ideas, ideas of legacy, ideas of division, hidden walls, 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:39.840 walls naked to the eye, firewalls, censorship, and and with 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:43.319 any situation with the wall, you have an outsider and 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:47.360 you have an insider. Generally, when we're contemplating walls were 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:49.200 on one side of the other, I guess it's possible 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:51.240 to stand on the top of the wall, but that's 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:55.600 a that's a different situation, a precarious position to be in. Yeah, right, 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:57.240 you want to strad at the wall. But this is 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:00.200 one of the oldest ideas really in human civilization. We've 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:04.640 been building physical walls to protect cities and towns for ages. 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.400 Walled cities are one of the earliest symbols of civilization. 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.720 How do you protect the settlement against marauders who were 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:16.519 using their horses to try and steal your agricultural excess. 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:20.000 And in fact, the Chinese word for city and walls 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:22.840 is the same chain, which I found was interesting because 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.560 that's how that's how important walls were in the emergence 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:29.240 of cities in Chinese history. Yeah, and if you guys 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.560 haven't already figured out, we are seriously talking about walls today, 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:35.639 like the actual physical structures. One of the things that 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:38.760 I was thinking about is that walls are these concrete 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.359 abstractions of what I think of as maps. Right this 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.320 this way to delineate territory, to try to say my 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:49.520 power base is going to be here. And it's kind 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:51.600 of like, it's a very interesting way that we took 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:55.880 this abstract notion of ownership and then said, ah, we'll 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.280 show you. We'll put up a wall right from our points. 0:02:58.280 --> 0:02:59.720 It's like when you're in your back seat with your 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:01.639 sister are on a long car ride as a kid. 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:04.320 You each have a side of the back seat that 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:06.600 you're supposed to stay on, and your stuff is supposed 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:09.960 to stay on those sides. But during borders disputes, it 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:13.280 becomes necessary then to point out exactly where the line is. 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.959 It may become necessary to put some tape down that 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.600 line to market in the physical world, and maybe even 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:24.480 construct a barrier out of luggage or pillows. Yeah, and 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:27.160 from time to time, though, one might want to show 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:31.280 their might by crossing that border and knocking down luggage 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.600 and making a political statement really about how they feel 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:37.800 about you humming for three hours in the car, right, Yeah, 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.080 And then of course you end up with everything that 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:43.480 has a symbolic power and human culture. Walls take on 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.320 multiple purposes, and I found this particularly telling. In ancient 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:51.600 Chinese tradition, you have these city gods ching Hung who 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.160 protect the moats and walls of towns, so that they're 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:58.760 important because they're helping protect your very livelihood. Your very 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:02.000 life and everything you hold dear is protected by these 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:04.720 walls and moats and therefore by the deity that attends 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.800 to them. But the chiang Hung also make sure that 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:10.080 the king of the dead doesn't take any souls away 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:14.000 without his permission, and so not only is he a 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.640 lord of walls and moats, he's also a lord of death. 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.640 And I find that's an interesting just symbolic economy there. 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:23.240 What I like about this is that this city god, 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.160 or these lords of walls and moats, that's another name 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.680 for them. Uh. There's a bit of bureaucracy involved with this, 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.240 and that they're usually considered to be the reincarnation of 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:35.679 a human being who had been an official in earlier times, 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.480 and the city god was thought to change every three years, 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.880 just like a living magistrate would change office every three years, 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:47.360 and both the magistrate and the gods hold sway over 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:51.200 the same administrative area. So as you say, you know 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:55.640 there's some supernatural areas there, but there's this expectation that 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:59.040 there's formal reverence paid to the city god. So and 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.080 that you see both Chinese efficiency but also this very 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:06.479 important notion of venerating your ancestors culture combined in this 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.440 idea that that someone was dispatching their souls to the 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:12.200 underworld realm. Speaking of China, this brings us, of course 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.080 to the Great Wall of China, which is when you 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.160 when you talk about walls, there are various examples that 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:19.719 come to mind. There's the Whaling Wall, There's the Berlin Wall, 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.159 There's Hadrian's Wall. There are plenty of examples, but the 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.000 big one the mainlanders of the world is the Great 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.120 Wall of China. And the history of the wall is 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:31.480 really fascinating because it's easy to just sort of are 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:33.279 You've seen a picture of it, you know what it 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:35.640 looks like. You know, it's a something to see if 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:38.279 you're a tourist in China, But what is it? What 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:42.080 is its history? How is it conceived. And the wall 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:46.240 dates back more than two thousand years to a time 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.280 of unification in China, and this is when you had 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:53.720 the Tin dynasty uniting seven warring kingdoms, that's including itself. 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:55.520 And as they do that, they have all these separate 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.640 walls that were built by independent kingdoms and so the 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.400 Jin dynasty being slenk them together and the idea is 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:06.599 to protect against marauders, so they can script hundreds and 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:12.520 thousands of workers. We were talking groups of prisoners, politic onomies, peasants, soldiers, 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.320 and they work for ten years on this project. Thousands 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.560 upon thousands die, as tends to happen, and legend has 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.520 it that the bones of individuals who died constructing the 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.520 wall are then then become a part of the wall, 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:29.240 making it, in some people's words, the longest cemetery on earth. Yeah, 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:31.520 and much of this is because this is happening during 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.360 the Chin dynasty, right. And this is again you talked 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:38.559 about the neighboring territories that were finally united, these little 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.200 fiefdoms that had a lot of strife, but it was 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.200 united under what I guess you could say was China's 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.720 first emperor. Because China wasn't trying to until this this 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.080 guy united them. And when I say guy, I mean 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.640 thirteen year old and this thirteen year old is Chin 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.760 Chi Wong d He is I guess you could say 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.200 a bit of a megalomaniac. He begins to actually think 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:05.360 about this unification and becomes obsessed with this idea that 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:10.240 demons in these barbarians are going to take over China. 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.680 And so that's where he mandates this length of the 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.480 wall to be constructed. And again there are bits of 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:20.080 construction of these walls throughout these thousands of years, but 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:22.880 this is the guy who decides that it's really important 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.120 to have from the Gobi Desert to the Yellow Sea 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:28.920 this fortress. Yes, it's fascinating the idea that the wall 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:32.560 is protecting not only against actual barbarians, but also it 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:36.080 against demons, so that it's not just a a military barrier, 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.440 it's a it's a spiritual barrier as well. Again, keep 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:41.400 in mind with all of this is two thousand years ago, 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:45.920 so this is a time when spiritualism, megalomania, and abuse 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.720 of the peasantry we're pretty much in vogue everywhere. So 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.040 so this is, you know, not unique to China by 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.200 any stretch of the imagination. But the idea that that 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.880 you're you're protecting against not only things, but against ideas. 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:01.720 I think it's very telling because we see the symbolic 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.200 power of the wall rather overtly, as we'll see in 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:06.160 various examples of the walls we look at here too. 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:09.280 When when humans build walls, they're almost always thinking of 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.440 that symbolic power as well, not only to the outsider 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:14.560 and to the outside or the wall is a clear 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:17.400 statement of hey, you're not welcome here. You stay on 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:19.640 your side of the back seat and I'll stay on mine. 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.120 And then to the insider, the wall says I have 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.400 built you a wall. You were protected, you were safe. 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.040 You know. It is saying there is a physical barrier 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.080 between you and the things that you were afraid of, 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:34.800 and you can thank me for it. Well, I mean yeah, 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.120 it's very much like the Boogeyman, right. And to this point, 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:42.720 this emperor decided that he wanted the circuitous wall built 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.440 and not a straight path. And the reason is because 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:49.200 a straight line in demonology is great for demons because 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.240 they're able to navigate only on straight lines and not 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:55.040 on curves. So he's gonna make it even more difficult 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:59.200 for these demons by making this this serpentine wall that's 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:01.360 twenty ft high. And certainly that's one of the things 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.319 that's amazing about examples of the wall today and again, 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.080 examples of the wall today, as we'll discuss fees are 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:10.160 the wall has been added to and renovated numerous times 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.559 throughout history, so we're not necessarily talking about the same 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.680 physical wall in the same bricks. But you still see 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:18.640 that shape. It's like a serpent lying across the hills. Yeah, 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:20.200 and it is fascinating because it's one of those things 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.400 that people had long assumed was one big, coherent, linked 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:25.600 up wall, but in fact it's not. That was one 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.520 of the myths another methods that you could see this 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.400 from the moon. Yeah, I see it from space, and 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:34.240 it's it's just not so No, it's not so lovely story, 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:37.120 but it is lovely. But to go back to this 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.920 emperor and talk a little bit about Schinchu Wangdi and 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.839 how he treated peasants. You refer to this as the 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:46.199 world's longest cemetery. At least some people have talked about 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:48.600 this the Great Wall of trying to being this again, 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.400 he's sort of indulged in sooth saying and a little 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:56.679 bit of paranoia, And it is said that his soothsayer 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.280 told him that the wall would actually never be built, 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.320 which he was mortally frightened of right, because the barbarians 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:05.360 were going to come get him in the demons unless 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.199 ten thousand men were entombed in the wall. Wow, what 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:11.680 a sous can you imagine being that guy being on 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.080 the payroll that takes a lot of comments relate to 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:16.840 you know, this is the message ten thousand You gotta 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:20.239 you gotta execute them, throw them in there. So Shinchu 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.160 Wandi decides, you know what, he's the ruler. He realizes 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.079 that he full well can't just spare that many men. 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.080 So he finds a loophole in the form of one 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.840 guy who has the word or the character for ten 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:34.760 thousand in his name. I guess what his fate is. 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:37.679 He is killed and buried in the wall. Yeah, he's 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:41.200 tossed into the wall. But again there's this idea that 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:45.200 this wall begins to take on meaning of forced labor 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:49.640 being subjugated. As you can start to see peasants are 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.480 not really digging this wall, right. The symbolic power to 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.280 the insider is not just an idea of protection, but 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:57.880 an idea of This is the kind of thing that 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:02.320 governments and rulers create out of your blood right. It 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.559 becomes a symbol of oppression and actually is very much 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:07.960 a symbol of that for a long time until we 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:09.959 get to the twentieth century. And we'll talk about that 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.280 in a moment. But let's talk about this as being 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.880 an imperfect barrier. That's the thing. Obviously, the wall is important, 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:17.959 like we said, as an idea of protection, but does 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.800 it actually offer protection on one level, You're building these 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:24.120 walls often at the on the extremes there on the 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:29.280 frontier there between civilization and the barbarians and the demons, 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.760 So you're having to basically establish colonies there. I mean, 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:34.720 think of it in almost in terms of like an 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.000 off world colony kind of a situation. You're having to 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:40.000 have soldiers there that are also growing their own food, 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:43.760 and they are more a part of the frontier than 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.320 they are of the homeland, so they actually end up 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.920 having some sort of rapport with the local populations with 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:55.560 the barbarians, and as such are susceptible to bribes. Just 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:57.440 you know, here's there are a few bucks look the 0:11:57.440 --> 0:11:59.560 other way. Uphon we march an army through and join 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.040 our army or join our army, then that happens as well. 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:05.840 So it becomes very difficult just to to man and 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:08.560 protect it. And then you're gonna have gaps as well. Yeah, 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:10.480 for instance, just in terms of the wall itself, the 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:12.480 wall is not You might think of the wall as 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:15.280 being in this NonStop wall that actually snakes across the 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:17.320 entire country. But there are gaps in it, and there 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.920 are places where just natural barriers are depended on to 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:23.679 to serve as the wall well, and it has been maintained, 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:25.880 so there are there are parts of it that are 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.160 in ruins. So you have Genghis Khan or Jengis Khan 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:34.560 see sometimes refer two K, the Big g K. He 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:38.080 brings with him a huge army and martial arts and 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:44.560 a flair for psychological terror, and he reaches the wall right, 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:48.000 and for a good hundred years, the rule of China 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.760 comes under Mongol. Yeah, they were the ones in charge 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.080 when Marco Polo visited. That's right, that's right, and so 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:57.760 Mongols are really taking over. But then in thirteen sixty eight, 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.840 a Chinese peasant leads a rebellion against Mongol rule, and 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.320 this helps to establish the Ming dynasty. I only mention 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:06.080 this because the Ming dynasty is really important in actually 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:09.520 giving a lot of shoring up to the wall. Yeah, 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.320 this was thirty eight, and the Ming dynasty looks at 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:15.000 the wall and says, you know, this is something we 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:16.640 need to fix up. You need to get it going 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.319 because we don't want to be conquered by the barbarians again. Right, 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:23.760 and with it, they actually are responsible for architectural embellishments 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.240 on it and beginning to document various points in history. 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:29.440 So you really begin to see more of a coherent 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:33.080 picture of the Wall with the Ming dynasty. But then 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.920 here's another thing that happens under man to rule, the 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:38.439 wall no longer matters since the land on both sides 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.600 just ruled by man Chow. When China is invaded yet again, Yeah, 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:44.600 this is seventeen hundreds, the Manchew invade the Ming dynasty, 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:46.360 the man a number of changes to it. They added 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:48.920 to its length, to its width, double and triple walls 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.480 in some places to really reinforce it. But then when 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.840 the Man Choos invade in seventeen hundreds, it's largely abandoned 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.760 as a military priority. It kind of stays that way 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.480 for a while, pretty much the until very recent times. 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:05.360 During that time, the wall crumbles, the wall is looted 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.320 for building supplies because you have all these stones right 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.120 there are ready to use, and so people carry it 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.600 off to build things that are of actual value to 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.280 their lives. Because the walls are sitting there, it's not 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.840 even a military factor anymore. And then when Mausadung comes 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.640 to power, he encourages Chinese people to use this, to 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:24.400 use the bricks, to use parts of the wall to 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:28.200 build things, and now brings in also this idea of 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:32.200 the modern you know, part of the cultural revolution, cultural revolution, 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:34.120 and a huge part of it is we're going to 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:36.400 focus on the modern China and the future China. Yeah, 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:38.560 we're going to obliterate the past. Right. The wall is 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.160 very much a piece of the past, and a piece 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:43.600 of the past that has still leaves a bad taste 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:45.440 in a lot of people's lives because it is this 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:47.840 thing build out of their blood. It is this symbol 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:52.320 of the domineering, violent rule. Yeah, it's not the one 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:54.120 of the wonders of the world that we now think 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:57.239 of it. But this it begins to to recast itself 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:02.240 in modern times right around are there's this idea that 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.400 the wall begins to take on national pride, and they 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:07.800 actually say, let us love our country and restore our 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.680 great Wall. This becomes a big mission for them. Yeah, 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.520 you have important foreign heads of state visit. Reagan visits, 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:15.320 Scorba Shop visits where they go, they go to the 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.360 Great Wall. Nixon visits, you know, And it was gonna 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:20.880 say Nixon, who wasn't he the person who said something 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:23.840 like only a great people could build this great wall, 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:28.200 which starts to even then recast its image. Yeah. Luckily 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.440 he was a wall enthusiast. He was all about putting 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:33.640 Floyd but this wall is in general, so yes, he 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:35.760 added to that vibe that this was something that was 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:39.000 important and worth celebrating. And so over the last few 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:43.040 decades you see this increasing restoration of portions of the wall, 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:46.880 increased commercialization of portions of the wall. I'm treating. In 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.920 the Lonely Planet China Guide, they point out that there 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:53.840 are sections of the wall that are just insanely populated. Really, 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.360 I mean, you just have tourists there almost all the time, 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.240 unless you go in the dead of winter. Their gift shops, 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:01.440 their tourists are people selling things, and I mean that's 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.080 just the way it goes with with popular locations. But 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.320 there are still plenty of portions of the wall that 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:10.480 are not super innovated, that are still beautiful and don't 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:13.600 have like a restaurant in them. Not that they're portions 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:14.800 of the wall, they have restaurants in them, but you 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:16.920 know what I'm saying, don't have ads in them. Yeah, 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:18.600 there are places in China where you can go if 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:20.440 you you look into and you do the research, where 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.080 you can get more of a serene via the wall 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.680 as opposed to a hyper commercialized version. But it's it's 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:28.960 still it's even if you go to those areas where 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:30.720 there are a lot of people and there's a lot 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.840 of commercialization, it's still a stunning site. Indeed, all right, 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:35.480 we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:37.560 we're going to move beyond the Great Wall of China 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:41.120 and discuss some more modern examples of walls in our lives, 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:53.200 including cosmic walls. Sow. All right, we're back. So um, 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.240 when you think beyond the Great Wall of China and 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:58.760 you think of modern walls, what comes to mind? Okay, well, 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:00.680 I mean, you know, I think about Berlin Wall. I 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:04.480 also think about the Atlantic Wall that Hitler was I 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:08.280 think it's like eight hundred miles of sea coast, at 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:12.359 least in France. Um that he had been constructing, um 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.840 as a barrier of and and a bit of military might. Yeah, 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:19.960 the stuff from saving brabt Ryan of everyone remembers that flicked. Yeah. 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:22.760 But of course, here in the US one of the 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:26.679 most strikingly obvious walls, it's more like a fence. The 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:29.199 US Mexico border. Well, we call it a fense, but 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:32.520 it sure as heck looks like a wall in many areas. 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.000 And it's been in the news a lot, especially with 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:38.200 the conservative primaries leading up to this year's presidential election. 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:40.439 You've had a lot of people touch on this as 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:42.399 a hot is a hot topic issue immigration in the 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:44.680 United States. A lot of our listeners are US based, 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:46.520 but a lot of you are based on other countries. 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:51.080 US Mexican migrations are very much on voters minds, especially 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.560 conservative voters. So you have people like Herman Kane, the 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.000 pizza mogul, who came out and said, We're going to 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:59.360 build an electric fence made out of pizza not made 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:01.679 out of pizza. He did not rule out alligators as 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:05.159 I remember, so moats and walls. And then there were 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.280 some other half cocked ideas that were thrown around by 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:09.520 some other candidates, But it all comes down to this 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:13.000 idea of the wall right sending this message to Mexico 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.720 saying Mexicans are not wanted here, and sending more importantly really, 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:20.360 because these are politicians talking about wall building, sending this 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:24.240 message to their constituents in the US to say, we 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.240 care about what you care about so much that we 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.200 built this thing. We're going to erect this giant symbol 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:33.560 of what we're talking about, even though their YouTube videos 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:35.919 of people scaling up these things up and over them 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.960 in seconds. And it's the same situations coming to play 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:40.760 that came into play with the Great Wall of China. 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:43.800 They're gonna be gaps, They're gonna be places where care 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.159 of the border is either less maintained or or it 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:49.879 is not maintained at all. Well, here's the thing. Last 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:54.439 year was the biggest sustained drop and immigration from Mexico 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:57.280 to the United States leave to be surpassed and scale 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.040 only by losses in the Mexican born US population and 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:04.119 during the Great Depression. So we're actually seeing a drop 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:09.480 in immigration to the United States from Mexico. And much 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.480 of this is because well, first of all, the Mexican 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:15.880 cartel are are acting as border agents on the Mexican 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.000 border and their demanding money and sometimes they actually use 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.240 immigrants as drug mules. So it's become far more dangerous 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:24.800 as if it weren't already to try to cross. But 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.720 also um on the U s side, it's become much 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:32.359 more difficult and rigorous in terms of trying to prosecute 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.480 people for for doing this. But of course there's been 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.439 an economic downturn as well, and also you can factor 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.800 in changes in legislation in some of the Southern states 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.879 that have cracked down on the use of migrant labor. Yeah, 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:47.240 so it is one of those things that we wanted 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:50.880 to point out because it is a huge symbolic effort 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:54.640 by the United States, but in terms of efficacy and 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.600 really getting at the what they think, or what the 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.160 United States politicians think is the root problem doesn't isn't 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.479 really solved by this fence, right, And and though some 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:06.919 people may have giggled at the idea of building a 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:09.159 wall to keep demons at bay. Like I said, that 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.880 is just an advert statement of what all walls ultimately symbolized, 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.399 Like even this wall is about keeping demons of the 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:18.119 mind at bay. To some people on the inside, it 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:20.480 is a demonization of the threats that in a simple 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:23.880 vocation of the threats that that lie outside and are 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.120 waiting to get in. It's also worth noting, though, that 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.880 when you build walls or fences of this nature, you're 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.639 building them in environments that did not previously have barriers, 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:36.399 So you're you're going to cut into not only the 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:40.199 migration of people, but the migration of animals. So there 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:41.879 have been a number of studies that have looked into 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:45.080 what effects order fences on the US Mexican border have 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.320 had on migrating animals. And it doesn't pay a pretty picture, no, 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:52.200 I mean, you're altering the psychic and the geographical landscape, right, Yeah. 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:54.560 And it's interestingly mentioned the psychic because that was one 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:56.200 of the things that has also been brought up about 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:59.200 the Great Wall of China and throughout China's history, that 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:01.440 there were people who out of it as a disruptor 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:05.000 of g you know, this is disrupt disrupting the earth energies, 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:08.760