The Great Wall of China Episode

I just thought I hadn't been far enough north in Michigan before, despite growing up an hour south of it. I saw a little bit of the old Red Dawn again the other night. How did you stop it ended? Okay, that's all the end I saw from like Powers booth on Okay. When he entered the picture, yeah, which I mean, like, if you think about it, he did need to be there. But his introduction was great. It was wonderful. I think he played a vital role. I think they could have

done fine without him. He's a little creepy with the young ladies, though with Leah Thompson he was sick. He got what he deserved. I still haven't seen the remake, No need, Nope, So Chuck, Yes, I have another question about something you've seen. Have you ever seen the Great Wall of China? Not in person? Let me ask you something else. Have you ever seen the ten thousand lie long Wall. I don't know what you speak. That's the Great Wall of China, I'm just kidding. Also called the

long Wall of ten thousand Lee. It's another way to put it l I. And that is a unit of measurement in China. Apparently it's about one click. Yeah, no too, two clicks, two clicks. This doesn't here. One kilometer now, oh yeah, I'm sorry to Lee, being is equivalent to one kilometer. I'm sorry you did one click? To Lee, man,

this thing. The wheels are falling off already, right. The Western hemisphere is generally the folks who say the Great Wall of China, right, And so if it's the ten thousand Lee long Wall, and to Lee is one click, then that means that it's the five thousand kilometer long Wall, is what they would call it in China. And that's actually way off. There was a very long time that people thought that the Great Wall was maybe between kilometers to sixty kilometers. I believe was the high end somewhere

in there. And um all over them app really Yeah. And finally, at one point in two thousand seven, China said, you know what, we're gonna take this seriously, after nearly two thousand years, We're going to go measure this bag. Who's got some rope? Yeah. Luckily by then GPS had been developed and they used that a lot. But they did they did a modern survey of the Great Wall, and they found that it was not a five thousand, five thousand kilometer long wall. No, they found Chuck, how

long was it? Over thirteen thousand miles? Over twenty one clicks? It's a lot of clicks. That is a very long wall, and it depends on who you ask, Like, that is the ultimate length of the entire wall if you take into account every bit of construction phase that was ever done to it. Yeah, which we'll get into, but that generally means pre Ming dynasty and post Ming dynasty. Preming was about seventy seven hundred roughly miles. Uh, and in

really bad shape. Apparently the pr Preming sections only are about eight percent hole. Yeah. Well, I mean some of them were built back in two hundred b C. Long time. Yeah, they weren't like what you think of as the wall as we'll see. Uh. And I found I found this interesting in the ming section or post ming section. Uh. Five thousand out of the five thousand, four nine miles um two hundred and twenty three miles or trenches, so not a wall at all. That's like a reverse wall.

And about fourteen hundred little less were natural barreas right, like they just took advantage of ridges or rivers or you know, really things. Yeah, I didn't know about the river thing, so uh, pretty interesting. And it's widest it is thirty ft. At is highest it is twenty six ft, and it goes through some rough terrain. And we should

mention stick around through this one. Because the wonderful Christen Conger from stuff Mom Never told you has walked at the Great Wall, not the whole thing, very small portion kilometers of it. No, but she's we're gonna bring her at the and uh and she said, I'm no expert, she said, but I can say what it's like to be there. And I said, that's all we need. So we're gonna bring in Congor here right at the end. So it was kind of surprising to everybody that, um,

the Great Wall is thirteen thousand miles long. It's way longer than anybody ever thought. They're like, whoa, right, Um, but that's not It's not like one unbroken wall even when it was all solid. Even if it were all solid, it wouldn't be one on broken wall. As a matter of fact, the territory that it spans is about two hundred and twenty thousand kilometers put the emphasis on the wrong two hundred and twenty kilometers long, right, And the wall is a bunch of series of overlapping walls and

embattlements and apparently rivers. And the reason that no one knew how long the wall actually was is because for hundreds of years, China kind of didn't like its wall. It looked at it as a kind of a relic of a backwards feudal era, and that it it had a lot to be ashamed of. Yeah, there's in fact, this one article I sent from the Smithsonian to you, uh said that one of the great endangered What makes it endanger today, which it is, um, is what they

call a paucity of scholarship. There is not one single Chinese academic on the planet, or any anyone on the planet who specializes in the Great Wall of China and the whole planet hard to believe, it really is. In the author of this article, brick Larmer Lamour, one of those two um brock Landers, points out that, Um, that's really surprising, Um, because this is a very old wall. It's one of the seven New Seven Wonders, right. Um. You can see it from outer space clear as day now,

from the from the moon, you can see the thing. Um, and it just it deserves scholarship. But it really it wasn't until the early two thousands that China actually it was for that. I think it was the eighties when Zeen Japing, the the chairman who came after Mao Um said we need to preserve this well. And I think some regions had here and there over the years. It

wasn't like the whole country. A lot of folks there like people, and in fact, I think the same article points out that just regular citizens in there, like small village, some had reverence for the wall and would try and you know, patrol it, patrol it or or repair it. Yeah, it's led to some not so great repairs, you know. The one that who againanders points out she says that there's one, uh, there's one section of the Wall in a province called Gion or a city called Gion, where

they repaired it with bathroom tiles. None the most authentic building material you can use to restore the Great Wall, but it does display a complete in a lot of cases, change in attitude to the Great Wall. It was something to be neglected and um mocked. Now it's something to be preserved. And they've just recently passed laws saying like you can't throw raves on the Great Wall of China anymore. You can't drive on the Great Wall of China, which is apparently a thing. Yeah uh and what we'll get

to that too later. But you mentioned something that is not true, and we need to really point out that you cannot see it from space. The old uh Wives tales that has really stood the test of time. You know who made that up? Robert Ripley. Oh really, yep, what a jerk in like some thirties comic strip. He's like he just completely fabricated. The Great Wall of China is the only man made structure you can see from space.

It sounds like such a great little fact. Though it's great, it's like a total Ripley, believe it or not a thing right, and um, it wasn't until we got to space in the fifties, Um, that people were able to say like, no, you can't. You can see it from lower Earth orbit, but that's not outer space, which is what Robert Ripley I think he actually said, you can see it from the moon. Yeah, so that's when we found out for sure that you can't. Um. I think they had the guys on the moon say can you

can you see the Great Wall? And they're like, no, not at all. Yeah, they like said, you'd be able to see every highway if you could see the Great Wall. Right. So from lower Earth orbit you can see the Great Wall depending on the conditions because again a lot of it's made of like earthen clay and stuff from around it. We talked about this before, but like when it snows or something, you can kind of see some of it. But you can also see the pyramids too, so big whoop. Yeah.

And you know what I was just thinking. I was given Robert Ripley a hard time, but he he didn't say believe it. He said believe it or don't you know? Up to you good point chuck uh. And then lastly, this sounds like an urban legend to me because I don't know any Chinese people, um, anyone in China who

can verify or deny this, please let us know. But from what I understand, the Chinese did not believe that you couldn't see the Great Wall from space until their own astronaut, the first Chinese astronaut I don't, went into orbit and I think two thousand three and said no you can't. And and that was a collective billions strong

uh yeah. Um, So the Great Wall, like you said, was built in pieces over a couple of thousand years um, starting with they believe the Western Han dynasty UM all the way back in two oh six BC to a

D four Uh. They were followed by the Northern uh We dynasty, the Northern Key Dynasty, the Sweet Sweet Sweet Dynasty, Uh Sweat Dynasty, the Lao Dynasty, the Jin dynasty, and finally that was all pre Ming and and it was just a series of um not so great walls before the Ming dynasty to keep out uh invaders and and

largely invaders from the north. Yeah. And remember in our Terracotta Army episode, we talked a lot about um Chi I think it was his name, um and he's the guy who unified these six separate states into China, the China we or most of the China we we know today. Um. And even before him, there were these walls in these six states to keep one another out. So there was like this early like these proto walls. But Chi Showa, I'm saying that like eight different ways. Um, Emperor Chi,

we'll call him. Uh, he was the first one to say, like, we should connect some of these walls and make a great wall. And I think that was the initial beginning and the whole reason was he wanted to keep the huns out. Yeah. The huns were not ice. Um. They were fierce and feared and really great at two things. Um. One is riding horses and two is shooting arrows. Yeah,

and doing them at the same time. Yeah. Because they were not agricultural, so they did a lot of hunting and that's why they were so good at at archery. And they were to be feared and did a great job at breaking havoc throughout Asia. Um. So the wall was definitely necessary, uh, and it worked pretty well for a while. I mean, like the Emperor Chi and his dynasty were not like milk toasts themselves. The huns were enough of a threat that they're like, we just need

to build a huge wall to keep out. I don't want them hanging out anymore. Yeah. It was built by basically three groups. Um, soldiers were about the second largest contributor, Commoners was was the leading contributor, and then criminals. Back in the day, when you would get in trouble, you would be sentenced to four years on the wall. You would guard it during the day, and you would build it at night. Wow, when did you sleep in the afternoon. I don't know, Like it's a good point in the evening.

That's why they call it hard labor, my friend. Yeah, that is hard labor. And apparently thousands, thousands and thousands. I didn't see any hard numbers, did you. I saw up to a million, but that just sounds one of those died. Yeah. Wow, well, I guess you think about it's over two thousand years Yeah, possible, it's uh And a lot of the bodies and bones are still in that wall. At one point that was referred to as the longest cemetery in the world. Wow, that's neat. Yeah,

not really haunting. Yeah that's what I mean. You know me so, um not every single dynasty came along and said, oh, well, let's do our bit to add to the Great Wall of China, because in two thousand seven it will become one of the seven Wonders of the modern world. We

want to be a part of that. Some dynasty's um had it seemed it seemed to all rest in the motivation, like how much of a threat was coming from the north, because the thing runs from east to west, from the Gobi Desert to the Yellow Sea, I believe right, and um, so how much of a problem you had from the barbarians to the north, to how much um fighting from uh, like within the different cities, because remember it's not just one unbroken east to west wall. There's like different areas

that are blocked off by the wall. So some dynasties had more problems than others. And it seemed like if you were really having a lot of trouble with outsiders, you would spend a lot of your resources to building the wall or enlarging it, or going back and rebuilding some earlier stuff. And a lot of them did. But it's like you said, about a little over half of the wall was completed by all these other dynasties, and then the rest was from the Ming dynasty. They just

went crazy on that thing. Uh yeah, and you know what, let's stick a break here and we'll really get into the Ming dynasty right after this. We'll go crazy on that all right. Here we are in thirteen sixty eight. The Ming Dynasty is in action and they are killing it on the Great Wall. Um. They are not just building a wall. Sometimes they're building two walls in three walls to confuse people trying to enter. I don't know if it's confusing frustrating, but well you would well, yeah,

good point. I would just think, yeah, you climb over the wall, and you're like, ah, there's another wall, right, But I wouldn't think like, whoa did I just climb into the wall that I just climbed? Like how which side of my right? Yeah, yeah, you're right. It's a good points turn around and solve that conundrum. Well, maybe in uh, in fourteenth century China, it was a little

more confusing. Maybe maybe UH they built it higher and wider than ever before, and UM did a bunch of other things to the wall, specifically, UH guard towers and places to UM put military supplies, bunkers, things like that lights, yes, which is a big one they apparently, and I think we're going back to brock Lander's brooke armor. Um. She says that at one point, thanks to using either smoke or fire, smoke during the day, um and fire at night,

they could travel. They could send messages all up and down the wall. It's something like twenty six Yeah, that's like broadband Internet of the day. Um. And it was all because the Mean came in and started they put up guard posts and apparently the Ming also were very

progressive and had a big problem with desertion. But they said, well, you know what, how about this, If you have to man this guard post for years at a time, bring your family and as a matter of if you do a really good job, we'll name this guard post after your family. And there's still plenty of guard posts today. Said bear the family names of the people who live

in the region and didn't sell out their own people. Yeah, well that was a big thing, because if you put people on a wall, you definitely open yourself up for people to let people you don't want in through the wall if they give them money, exactly. And that's what happened to um. The wall worked pretty great until the seventeenth century, and finally the man Chu invaded successfully into China, brought down the Ming dynasty, and they said, yeah, this

wall kind of snakes. We got through it just fine, so why put forth a lot more effort into this thing. And from that point forward, construction on it pretty much stopped. Yeah, And starting in sixteen they made it through the wall and that was that. That was that so um for the next few hundred years, I believe the man Chu they set up the key the Ching Ching dynasty right um. And so for this time I think it went up

to like nineteen thirteen or something like that. There there was this that that definitely is where the roots of scorn towards the wall was set up. The people, the ruling class had made it through this wall. It had been set up to keep them out. It hadn't. So this wall is stupid is basically the prevailing sentiment in China. And then when Chairman Mao came into power, um, he

was all about the cultural revolution. Now looking backward, going forward right, yes, and so what better way to get rid of the past and the backwards history of China um but then literally disassemble the wall this huge symbol of old China, so he called. He was the founding father of the People's Republic of China, and he basically said all the way up until like the nineteen fifties, do you want to build a house. I know where

you can get some brick. Yeah, it's just outside your front door, and uh, go go take what you need. And that was responsible for a large part of the early uh non natural erosion of the wall, people just taking it apart pretty much. Um, there's also zero protection of the wall. Not only was it being disassembled, but nobody was really trying to safeguard it at all. So cattle would be moved across it. Um, they'd be allowed to graze right up on it. Um. There would be

natural stuff too, like the freeze thaw cycle. It's really hard on mortar joints, right yeah, And just exposure to the elements period over that long it's gonna damage it. And then also like if people are cutting down trees for firewood, that of stuff that's holding the soil in place along the wall. When that tree goes, the soil loosens too. When the soil loosens beneath it, the wall

topples itself. So when you factor in the human element and the lack of well, well, I guess government encouragement of disassembling the wall, and then the natural elements too. You've got a wall it's in serious, serious disrepair, especially considering some of this stuff is like almost two thousand years old by now. Yeah. This one article I think it was from the Smithsonian again, talked about the desertification,

which we had a great podcast on desertification. Um. And and apparently inn ninja x i A. I'm so bad with the Chinese words. Well, hold on, let me try to figure this out. I'm gonna go with nin Jia for now. Stop me if you x i A. Right. Um, but desertification is a big problem there because and this is super interesting when they constructed the wall and this part of the country policy was burned down all the trees and all the grass within sixty miles on the

other side of the wall, the bad side. Uh, and then on our inside, we're let's clear the land to farm. All great ideas, right, yeah, but what happens is, um, it's an environmental disaster. Is what is what modern Uh? What geologists, geographers, geographers, sandographers, sand people, Uh? It's what the Tuscan raiders they say, it's an environmental disaster. So basically, the northern desert in China is expanding at one million acres a year at this point, and the Great Wall

is right in the middle of that path. And what happens is sand dunes will just completely covered up in places. Or remember we talked about flash flooding being a big problem in desertification, and that's gonna crumble the base and it just eroads it. Yeah, so it's that whole area because of desertification, is losing its wall. I remember that from our desertification episode, that the Gobi Desert is just growing immensely every year, is it? Nina, did you get

an answer on that? It is? You did it? Ya? It is? That's it, Nina, that's you man. You have a side career in Chinese pronunciation. I don't know about that. Um. All right, let's take another break. We'll talk about tourism and then some of the new efforts to preserve the wall. Yeah, so, Chok, we were talking about how like the human element is huge on deteriorating the Great Wall of China. UM. And not only is it people using bricks for their homes

which you can carry. You can hardly blame a subsistence farmer for that kind of thing, especially apparently in the more remote areas there they have no, um, no fondness for the wall. They don't care about it, they don't know that much about it. And a lot of times, and especially in the remote areas, these are where like the wall is most dilapidated. So it's like, yeah, why wouldn't I grab this brick and make a house that I need? Um? Or should I should I contribute to

the preservation of the wall? You tell me, guy from Beijing, you know what I mean. Um. So those areas in the or the parts of the wall in the more rural areas are under the most threat, for sure, but that the stuff in the very highly trafficed areas thanks to tourists are equally under threat because people still just take bricks. But a lot of times it's foreign tourists taking bricks for souvenirs, that's right. Either that or they're

um carving things into the wall. And every time you carve something into the wall, you're chipping away at it. Of course, Uh, there are souvenir shops and cable cars and sky cars, businesses and restaurants and billboards and all kinds of things that scattered along the most populated parts of the wall. Yeah, like right up on it. Yeah, you never see those in pictures, people driving their cars on the Great Wall of China having raves like you

talked about earlier. Yeah, it sounds like and apparently like the raves were outlawed. But I saw online that they still had one in two thousand fifteen, and it looked lame. I really, I think they had two thousand people, which is not enough, apparently because they like there was a shot in this the trailer for this rave of people just sitting there with their hands on their or their chins on their hands, like looking bored. You mean it wasn't one of those super awesome raves, right, it was

a lame rave. I was too old for raves, thankfully. That was right in my wheelhouse. Yeah, that makes sense. I uh. I lived over on the Um West side of Atlanta in uh the right at the turn of the millennium, and those big warehouses and you know the big tower there um in the west End. If you could drive in the West End, there's a big blue tower that sticks up and that tower. Someone lived there and they would have raves on the weekend, and people do.

People would drive from like Tennessee an Alba go to these things for like a good rave. Yeah, and we would sit around and make fun of them and actually win in one time. You think, not my scene, not my scene at all. Um, but uh yeah, I mean my pants did not taper out to like two ft at the bottom, you know what I mean. But um, it was interesting. Yeah, it's a culture I wasn't familiar with. I'm glad you wouldn't expose yourself. Yeah, well I didn't

exposed to check this out. Ravers your God, I thought I was an old man back then, didn't it crazy? Yeah in two thousand, that was fifteen years ago, it was like thirty. Yeah, that's not I can I'm here to tell you, Like if I went to a rave today, people would they would call security? Yeah exactly, Uh where were we? Oh? Yeah. The erosion of the wall, there's a lot of estimates, but um, I've seen everything from

a third of it to half of it is gone. Yeah, and um, it's it's probably hard to tell because the same reason it's hard to measure. It's just so big. Yeah, and a lot of it it's like, well, is that river part of it? Do we count that? Who knows? Um? But yeah, it is in big trouble and there are

some parts of it that are gone forever. Um. In addition to tourists and raves and people driving cars and driving their cattle across the um wall, construction companies will build roads right through it, yeah, or just a big factory or something right upon it. Yeah. So finally China said uh. And again it was Danjo Ping. Who I love that guy's name. It's a wonderful name. Um. He said, Uh, I love China preserved the wall. He came up with a slogan. I think you got to start with the slogan.

It really Yeah, slogans worked. This is proof positive of it. And within fifteen twenty years, the Chinese government, well I guess provincial governments were starting to enact their own laws restricting what you could or couldn't do on the wall

with the wall to the wall right. And then finally, and I think two thousand eight ish maybe two thousand seven, um, the Chinese government, the federal government itself, said Um, okay, we're gonna come up with our own walls or our own laws regarding the wall, and they started to take it seriously. And um part depending on who you talk to, it is because it's a huge tourist attraction that brings in ten million people and all their money every year.

Gotta protect that, or because it's part of China's heritage and it shows like we're an ancient culture that could do this with our eyes closed. Just watch us in the century Chinese fever catch it, right, you know that kind of Well? How about it's both probably probably, but there are some real laws in place. UM now it is uh illegal to take any bricks um or to do things like build too close to it. I think within any building within sixt feet five um is not

allowed anymore. I don't think um gathering firewood hurting your animals. So here's so I have to stop. Do you have any idea what's what's the gathering firewood thing? Is that chopping down a tree? I don't know. I couldn't find that anywhere like why they're in, I could not find it anywhere else. So it has to just be chopping down a tree that leads to erosion. That's the only thing I can come up with that that I didn't know. If you come across something, no, I just keep saying

it taking firewood, don't do it near the wall. Gathering firewood, and that like a quaint, folasy thing to think about. Gathering firewood. That's the first thing you do when you go camping. Yeah, gathering firewood. And um, it's almost like it sounds beautiful too, like cellar door gathering firewood. Agreed, it is very relaxing unless you're in a survival situation

then you're that's a matter of life or exactly. But the laws are punishable, um institutions up to sixty two thousand, five dollars for individuals six thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars. See what they did there, huh. But apparently from the Smithsonian article they said that these laws are great, but it's just really hard to enforce this. Again, because the Great Wall is so huge, you can get away with doing a lot to it without anyone around to see you.

But I would imagine in the metropolitan areas it's a little easier to enforce. Like some yokel from from Kansas taking some bricks. Yeah, you know, they take bricks everywhere. They go Kansas's Kansans Kansanian nights. Yeah, Kansanian nights. Uh, let's see. You want to get Kristen Congreen here is promised. Yeah, I got no more facts, so I don't need that. It's a great idea. UM. I do want to shout out again to this awesome Smithsonian article from way back

in two thousand and eight. The Great Wall of China is under siege by Brooke Larmer. Um, go check it out, uh and hold tight and we'll go get Conger. All right, as promised, we have congs Kristen Konger from Stuff Mom Never told You, and she has, as I said in the podcast, walked the Great Wall, but not all of it, not all of it. A very small portion of the Great Wall of China. I have walked, so we we

learned recently that it's twenty thousand kilometers long. Did you know that they like did a survey of it and found it's way longer than they thought. Yeah, it's massive, and it's stunning to climbate because since the geography is so sparse around it, you really can just see it snaking as far as that I can see. That's awesome. What part did you go to the heart um outside of Beijing. I think it's one of the main tourist

destination like entrance spaces for the Great Wall. Did you take a brick or drive your car on it or have go to rave? Because those are illegal? Now, I mean I did all of those things. I didn't. Who doesn't go to a rave on the Great Wall? Uh? Now you didn't doing those things? Kid, I didn't know. I didn't. I was. I was struggling. So I went in December and it was very, very cold. Um, so there was the weather to deal with and also just the sheer steepness of trying to to scale this thing.

It's not There were two ways we could go. To the left was a more arduous path and to the right was the little tourist friendlier path. And my fiance and I were like, we're going to the left the road not taken. Yes, So how do you actually this is probably dumb question, how do you actually access it? Like?

Are there steps and entry points? I guess yeah. So we pulled up to it was almost like a theme park entrance, like they have a gate and a temple there and you get like an admission ticket and then they have bridges built to access the wall. So being there when you finally saw it in person, what impressions that you had of it before? We're just totally destroyed or was it exactly like you thought it would be.

It was surreal being on it. I mean because I think a lot of times you see the aerial photographs of the Great Wall, so we have this bird's eye perspective on it. But once you're on the wall, I never considered how steep the stairs were, how um the incline is also so steep. There were a couple of times when climbing up, I was literally on my hands and knees getting up. But I also have a terrible fear of heights. Didn't know that would be an issue,

but it was. And you have winds kicking up because you're kind of on the side of a mountain um and then coming down having to kind of do the butt scoot down a few airs. Wow, are you serious? Yeah? And I'm pretty fit not to brig How high up were you, like at the highest point, Like if you if you had fallen or jumped off the side, how how far would you have dropped? I would have messed myself up big time. When is that the scientific answer.

I can't tell you altitude or anything. So earlier too, in the office, you were saying that they like pipe music out and stuff like that. Yeah, so um. At pretty regular intervals along the wall, they have these lookout towers and I think some of which were actually housing for people who were building the wall and guarding the wall.

And the Chinese government has now installed these lovely speakers that pipe like traditional Chinese music along the wall, so you you have a little soundtrack to guide you along your way. Did it add to it or detract? It added to it in a way because it was just such a bizarre experience. And we were also surrounded by so many other Chinese tourists as well, who were coming

to the wall for the very first time. So you're sharing this experience with people you know, who you you know, can't verbally communicate with, but you're all kind of taking in this one site together. Can you believe this? Wow face? We were all agog So um. Was the general impression like this is the Dollywood of China? Or did it seem like reverent in like people have died here and that kind of vibe. It was reverent aside from all the cigarette butts on the stairs. That was a funny thing.

There was an older gentleman who passed me as I was in my crawling face smoking a smoke heading on up um. So there was a little bit of trash, but it was very clear that you needed to otherwise, like respect the space. They were actually a couple in my group who were huge sports fans, I want to say, of the Seahawks, and they were in all of their gear and they want to take a photo of them

with their Seahawks flag. That got shut down very quickly. Really, Oh yeah, So have they have people there minding the activity? Oh yeah. If you're at a Chinese tourist attraction, people

are watching you. There is nothing wrong with Dollywood, by the way, I want to put that on the record, is a great place and conger something very special happened to you on the Great Wall as well, correct aside from scooting down on your on your fannie, aside from an exotic fannie scoot yes, And to our English friends here in America, that means but don't get all weird. Uh So what happened? Tell us about your other experience.

My fiance proposed to me so we climbed to the very to the highest point we could, and we were looking out this lovely guard dour I suppose, and the music hadn't the music would play an interval, so we were in kind of a quiet lall and I was just like looking out and then I turned around and he was on one knee, and at that moment, as he was proposing, the music swelled yet again, and it was amazing, and all of these Chinese stores were up there freaking out like so many cell phone photos, and

the Seahawks people were like, yeah, just throwing footballs at us. That is totally awesome. I imagine that a lot of people get engaged on the probably a lot of people, but I don't know anyone that's got engaged. I don't think anyone but meat Chuck. He's a very exclusive experience. And then one other thing you mentioned, you alluded to somebody almost not coming down. Was that you or was

there somebody else who almost fell off? That was a guy named Barry who was part of my tour group, and he was very ambitious and determined to climb as far as he could, but we had to leave at a certain time and he got stuck for a little while, and no one knew that Barry was going to make it down. Then Barry was or heard from again. Berry finally made it, but he had to take a cab.

It took him so long to get down. He had to take a cab rather than the tour bus to the lunch restaurant, but then just spent lunch complaining about how much the cab costs. Barry strikes me as one of these guys who would be like God's missed out. Man. You didn't see what I saw, Bengo, Kristen, do you have anything else to share? Go to China? It was amazing. I'm serious, Like, go to Beijing, see everything. It's incredible and if you can get engaged on the Great Wall,

it's a good story. Nice Um. That is good advice all around, Kristen. You tell everybody how to get in touch with you with stuff. Mom never told you. Well, you can simply head over to stuff. Mom never told you dot com and everything's right there, podcasts, videos, social media stuff. Mom never told you dot com. Wow, Yeah, that was awesome. An drag and conger in here, boy, Barry, he got in your crow, didn't I know that? Guy? Man? There's one in every group. UM, let's see what did

we say? If you want to know more about the Great Wall of China, I think you just did. Okay, Well, if you want to know more about the Great Wall of China, you can look those words up on the search part how stuff works dot Com. And UM, since I said search parts, time for the listener mail. I'm gonna call this pretty serious stuff. Hello, Josh, Chuck and Jerry. I just wanted to give you you all of sincere thank you. I'm sure you're aware of the appreciation we

listeners have for the podcast. However, I hope you understand the extent of it. About one year ago, I was suffering from a very deep depression and tried to commit suicide for obvious reasons we all know. I was not successful, and she puts a little wink in there. I appreciated that extra point. Agreed. In the attempt to gain focus in my life, I started an old hobby of running to summon what passions I used to have, and that

is where stuff you should know kicked in. I started tuning into the show, uh and forgot how deeply passionate I was about the world around me. Listening to the banter and filing away new information from the podcast really help those long workouts. I can say now with my anniversary coming up, I'm in a much better place. I finished my degree and animation, and uh, I'm working towards new goals and you guys really helped out in that

little unique way, and I'm forever thankful. Have a wonderful evening. That is so wonderful? Isn't that nice? Yeah? Man? Uh? And I think name redacted on that. Thank you, dear listener. We appreciate you for letting us know that we're glad we could be part of the whole jam, the whole road to recovery. Man, until you're doing better. Uh, If you want to let us know how we have been a part of your life, for good or for ill, probably preferably for good. Sure, you can tweet to us

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