Vast Chinese Walls Series: Williams

Western Regions live beyond Jiayuguan

The Williams trekked east from Ming Beacon Tower one

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We were accompanied on our journey by two Williams, one in person (William Lindesay) and one in spirit (William Geil).

Our guide, William Lindesay, arrived in China from England the same year as I, 1986, but he essentially never left. He ran the entire Ming Wall from Jiayuguan to Shanhaiguan (“First Pass Under Heaven”) on the Bohai Sea 2,500 kilometers to the east in the late 1980’s. He promotes Wall conservation and has amassed a comprehensive collection of maps, books, artworks, and artifacts of the Vast Walls. He and his wife, Wu Qi, bought a farmhouse (“The Barracks”) at the base of the Ming Wall in Jiankou three decades ago (see Stanza 8). They raised two boys who themselves recreated their father’s original journey and then some in 2022. The family operates WildWall Tours sharing the Vast Walls with kindred spirits. William has a term for us. We are Wall-nuts.

For a long time, William thought he was the first to so traverse the Ming Great Wall. But no. He learned that a man from Pennsylvania, William Geil, had walked the same course back in 1908. They visited many of the same places, documented much of the same history. And now, William the Second is the keeper of the records, archives, photographs, negatives, and ephemera of William the First.