Humpty Dumpty, Peking-Style

The Great Wall, which snakes across some 4,100 miles of northern China, has long been a symbol of national unity. Today the world's longest man-made structure also symbolizes disintegration. According to the Peking Evening News, more than half of the 100-mile segment within Peking's municipal limits is in ruins. One 19-mile stretch in Miyun county has virtually disappeared. The collapse is due partly to erosion and neglect through the ages; much damage was also done by peasants who expressed their contempt for tradition during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) by ripping off pieces to build houses and pigpens. Local authorities are now promising to compensate citizens who return pieces of the pilfered masonry.

Five Peking newspapers have mounted a fund-raising campaign to help put the wall back together again. The drive has already attracted around $250,000 in contributions. The project will not be completed for several years. Until then, the Great Wall will continue to look, as Peking Journalist Su Wenyang puts it, "like a great sleeping dragon covered with cuts and bruises."