The Great Wall

Abstract

In the wake of a devastating attack on the Pentagon, ruins of the Great Wall are disinterred throughout the United States. Visiting restored sections of the Wall throughout the United States, a Chinese tourist meditates on the civilizational significance of this monument of engineering and human toil. Originally published in 2003, contemporary readers may find “The Great Wall” to be an eerily prophetic satire of contemporary American politics, where such a project is considered by some to be a national necessity, and by others to be economically unfeasible. Han Song’s story ties the discourse of the “end of history” into a Gordian knot, confounding questions of the origins of human civilization—Eastern and Western—and who its modern-day stewards are.