The “Long Wall” – the world’s most famous, most myth-engendering bulwark
China’s most distinctive and enduring icon is the Great Wall of China, it is of course also sui generis as the world’s Great Wall. The Wall, Chángchéng長城 – or as sometimes described Wan-li Ch’ang-ch’eng 萬里長城 (10,000-mile Long Wall✱), is incontrovertibly one of the wonders of both the ancient and modern worlds. Starting in the west in Gansu Province at Jiayuguan Pass, the wall(s) meander east over mountains and through passes to they reach the sea in the country’s east (a journey of over 21 thousand km). The oldest sections of the Wall date from the Warring States era (circa 214 BCE).
Laolongtou ⍗ Shanhaiguan and ‘Old Dragon’s Head’ If we follow the extravagating course of the wall east from the Badaling section (near Beijing) for about 300 kilometres, we’ll come to Shanhaiguan (literally “mountain – sea – pass”) in Liaoning Province, one of the Great Wall’s major passes (acclaimed as “the first pass under Heaven”). This section continues to Laolongtou (‘Old Dragon’s Head‘⊟), where the wall enters the sea (Gulf of Bohai) and spectacularly and abruptly terminates! The wall at Shanhaiguan and Laolongtou snaking as it does between mountains on one side and water on the other, has been strategically important to the Chinese Empire eastern defences since the 1600s.
Hushan Great Wall
The setting that greets visitors to Laolongtou Wall end-point (Estuary Stone) looks like a most appropriate setting for the eastern terminus of the Great Wall. The reality is however that the Great Wall/s are not a continuous linear structure, they are actually characterised by numerous gaps in the sections…and where the ‘Old Dragon’s Head’ ceases at the sea is one more break in the line, albeit a dramatically evocative one! Before 1989 the conventional wisdom was that Laolongtou was the most easterly point in the Walls, but in that year Chinese archaeologists excavated 600m of a hitherto undiscovered section of the Great Wall 540km east of Laolongtou. The Hushan Wall (extending over a mountain, Hushan or Tiger Mountain) lies just north of China’s eastern border city, Dandong (which eyeballs North Korea just across the Yalu River). In 2009 the Chinese government, based on Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) research, recognised the wall as the most eastern point of the Great Wall (and ie, the end-point). Beijing’s classifying of the wall (so close to the Korean border) as Chinese contradicted the North Korean view that the wall was originally Korean (the Bakjak Fortress) and provoked a hostile North Korean reaction. [‘Hushan Great Wall’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]
PostScript: Dandong discovery reignites the Goguryeo controversy The Dandong wall conflict reignited the controversy over the Goguryeo Kingdom that previously had inflamed tensions between the two countries. Background: the historic Goguryeo Kingdom (1st century BC to 7th century AD) encompassed an area comprising all but the tip of the Korean peninsula and a portion of both Russian and Chinese Manchuria. Both Koreas view the historic Goguryeo Kingdom as having been the ‘proto-Korea’ state. The Chinese perspective (which the Koreas label as revisionism) is that Goguryeo was only ever a vassal state of the ‘Middle Kingdom’, moreover one occupied largely by Tungusic people, an ethnic minority of China. The wall kerfuffle fed into this controversy, stirring up feelings of nationalism on both sides, the fallout being that Sino-Korean relations took a nosedive. Mutual distrust lingers over the matter…fears of irredentist claims on each other’s territory, and for PRC the perennial bogeyman of the spectre of Korean reunification. [‘Goguryeo controversies’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]
(Source: Man, ‘The Great Wall)
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✱chéng in Chinese can also mean city or city wall…or more aptly to describe China’s wonder building – walls in the plural, John Man, The Great Wall (2009)
⊟ so-called because the structure’s end part (above the sea) is thought to resemble a dragon (long) resting its head (tou) on the ground
❂ the Chinese media going so far as to tag the kingdom as ‘China’s Goguryeo’ (Zhongguo Gaogouli) [Korea and China’s Clashing Histories’, (Yong Kwon), The Diplomat, 11-Jul-2014, www.thediplomat.com]
Vichy emphasis on youth sport (Coll: Mémorial de la Shoah/CDJC)
⇑Pro rugby The Nazi-installed, collaborationist Vichy ‘puppet’ regime assumed power in France in 1940—jettisoning the liberté, égalité etfraternité of the democrats and socialists —and adopting in its place the new national motto of travail, famille et patrie (“work, family and fatherland”) as the official philosophy. The new government was quick to focus on sport as a platform for implementing its policies and goals. Taking a leaf from the Corporative State approach of fascist Italy (Carta della sport), Vichy envisaged sport and PhysEd as integral to the “moral education” of the French, an “instrument for constraining and indoctrinating the population in general and youth in particular”. A good illustration of its importance can be seen in the regime’s dissemination of propaganda posters extolling the virtues of physical education (from the start Vichy law made it compulsory for schoolchildren to complete seven hours of PhysEd a week)[1].
The Rugby Wars
The Vichy regime had been in existence for only a matter of months when it banned the sport of rugby league, in France known as rugby à treize, (at the same time taking no action against the amateur rugby code, rugby à quinze). The Vichy French minister for sport, family and youth announced in August 1940 that because rugby league was (according to the government) a ‘corruptor’ of French youth, it would (in his words) simply be “deleted from French sport”. The Vichy regime justified this action by claiming that it wanted to bring an end to professional sport in France, which the regime argued had a deleterious effect on French society and morale, dubiously linking the professionalism of sport to the pathetically feeble and dispirited French military showing in face of the onslaught of the German Nazi war machine. Marshal Pétain and the Vichy leadership associated rugby league with its large working class following in the south with the pre-war Popular Front Socialist government of Leon Blum[2].
Vichy also made efforts to curb professionalism in some other sports, eg, tennis and wrestling were restored to strictly amateur status. The uncompromisingly draconian approach taken to semi-professional rugby league✱ by Vichy however contrasts with its more restrained intervention in the fully professional sports of association football, boxing and cycling (see PostScript for the treatment of football)[3].
f=”http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/image-1.jpg”> FFR: Haut coq[/captFrom two rugby codes one …
In December 1940 Vichy chief of state Pétain decreed that rugby à treize would ‘merge’ with rugby à quinze (the fifteen man-a-side rugby union game). In effect, rather than a merger, the thirteen man code of rugby ceased to exist, its funds (around 900,000 francs), its players, its stadiums, even its playing gear, were all expropriated and given to the Fédération Française de Rugby (FFR). This benevolence in favour of French rugby union was not simply the happenstance of good luck on the FFR’s part. The FFR had been at efforts to establish a cosy relationship with the Vichy regime from its inception and had actively lobbied for the elimination of its rival rugby code. This was facilitated by the regime’s choices of commissioner of sport, men with active links to the FFR: Jean Borotra, a former Wimbledon tennis champion who had extensive connexions with the French rugby establishment, and Colonel Joseph Pascot, a prominent rugby international for France in the 1920s[4]. Before I address why the FFR was hellbent on taking down the French Rugby League, I will outline some background relating to the two codes in the period leading up to the war.
http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/image-2.jpg”> Jeu de Treize[/captionVarying fortunes of the two rugby codes
Attempts to kick-start rugby à treize as early as 1921-22 with a planned rugby league exhibition match in Paris between the touring Australian Kangaroos and Great Britain’s Lions was vetoed by the influential FFR. In the early 1930s the established sport of rugby à quinze in France experienced a setback at international level. Because of the French national team’s tendency towards violent play and the widely held perception that the FFR was making secret payments to its (amateur) players, France was kicked out of the Five Nations tournament (with the British home countries and Ireland) in 1931. The ostracised FFR responded by setting up its own European competition outside of the IRFB (world rugby board) comprising rugby lesser lights-cum-minnows like Italy, Czechoslovakia and Germany. Rugby à quinze was on the back foot. In 1932 the FFR banned a union international player named Jean Galia who was suspected (albeit with fairly sketchy evidence) of being covertly a professional⊡…Galia went on start up the breakaway code of rugby league in the south-west of France✧, initially called néo rugby by the French. By season 1934-35 there was a 14-team semi-pro domestic comp underway[5].
Through the thirties French rugby league made progress culminating in victory in the European championship in 1938-39 (on route defeating both England and Wales). Rugby à treize’s crowds were growing, it was a hit with many French spectators⊛ who were drawn to its more open, free-flowing and swashbuckling style of game, which seemed to match the French temperament better than the somewhat stop-start rugby union game. In 1939 three of the top rugby union clubs in the country defected to rugby à treize…the FFR were fully aware of the threat posed to its sport by rugby league. At this point the Vichy regime intervened dramatically to salvage rugby à quinze’s and the FFR’s traditional advantage[6].
The game that dare not speak its name! Eventually, in late 1944, the ban on the Ligue de rugby à treize (French Rugby League) was lifted but three years later the code was split into two bodies: the Fédération française de jeu à treize (governing the amateur RL game) and a Ligue de rugby à XIII (governing the semi-professional game)[7]. Although the sport of rugby league was once again allowed to be played, the League bodies were barred from using the word ‘rugby’ to describe the code, having instead to refer to it as Jeu à Treize (Game of Thirteen). This prohibition lasted remarkably until 1991!
World champions: rise and decline Since its reinstatement rugby league has struggled to establish a foothold in France – despite experiencing some stellar moments in the early to mid 1950s, especially under the leadership of France’s most famous rugby XIII player, the mercurial, cigarette-smoking (during matches!!!) Puig-Aubert[8], Les Chanticleers defeated the powerful Australian side in three consecutive test series. By 1952 having won the European Championships twice and beaten Australia, France could justifiably claim to be unofficial world champs. Despite France’s rugby XIII game reaching this peak rugby à quinze and FFR remains the hegemonic rugby code and body in France, and have by far the lion’s share of coverage in the French media. Today, international results suggest the sport is still in the doldrums, however the rise of the (sole) French club side Catalans Dragons in the English Super League competition, culminating in victory in the 2018 Challenge Cup, (analogous to English football’s FA Cup) is a bright glimmer on the rugby league horizon in France.
PostScript: Vichy’s take on the ‘World Game’
Football (soccer) did not get off entirely unscathed from the pervasive tentacles of the Vichy regime. It was allowed to keep its professional status but it suffered significant modifications. Vichy restructured the French football competition to eliminate or discourage the development of “local derby” rivalries (matches between clubs in the same or neighbouring towns). Professional players were made to take up a second trade and teams were compelled to field four amateur players in games. Matches were reduced from 90 to 80 minutes duration. After the eclipse of Vichy in 1944 things reverted to the old system but the upheaval suffered over the previous four years left French football in a state of flux and chaos for a number of years post-war[9].
Footnote: To this day the FFR (French Rugby) has neither issued an apology to Fédération française de jeu à treize for its role in what happened, nor moved to recompense rugby à treize (French Rugby League) for lost finances and the expropriation of its property and equipment over three-quarters of a century ago.
┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅ ✱ badminton was also outlawed but in its case because it was deemed by the authorities to be “un-French”! ⊡ FFR’s banning of Galia was intended to show the British rugby authorities that it was serious about cleaning up France’s ‘shamateurism’ [Lichfield] ✧ the south-west was and remains the heartland of rugby à treize – all of the clubs in France’s Elite One competition except one are located there, the exception Avignon is in the south-central/south-east region ⊛ followers and fans of rugby à treize were called treizistes
[1] Christophe Pécout, Le sport dans la France du gouvernement de Vichy (1940-1944)’, www.hssh.journals.yorku.co; ‘Travail, Famille, Patrie … and Sport’, (Mémorial de la Shaoh Musée), www.sportmemorialdelashaoh.org
[2] Vichy also associated it with Free French leader Charles De Gaulle and naturally enough with the United Kingdom, ‘Badge of dishonour: French rugby’s shameful secret’ (John Lichfield), The Independent, 06-Sept-2007, www.independent.co.uk; ‘Rugby league in France’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wiki.org
[3] Lichfield, op.cit.
[4] ‘When Vichy abolished rugby league’, (Mick O’Hare), The New European, 21-Nov-2017, www.theneweuropean.co.uk
[5] Lichfield, op.cit.
[6] ibid.
[7] ‘gentlemen agreement of 10th July 1947’, quoted in ‘Rugby league in France’, op.cit.
[8] the French leadership off the field was provided by Paul Barriere, postwar president of Jeu à Treize who guided French rugby league through the turbulent period and laid the groundwork for the inaugural Rugby League World Cup in France in 1954, ‘Why this trophy for winning the World Cup?’, (Steve Waddingham), Courier and Mail (Qld), 15-Jun-2008, www.couriermail.com.au
[9] ‘Inside History: How Vichy Changed French Football’, (David Gold), Inside Futbol, 06-Feb-2011, www.insidefutbol.com
Our visit to the Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, AKA the Deir el-Bahri (“Northern Monastery”) was the highlight of the visit to Luxor, a happy wrap to a long day mostly spent peering into a raft of dark, underground Egyptian burial tombs in the nearby Valley of the Kings. From the Queen’s monastery entrance gate near the West Bank of the Nile we were ferried out to the site in “people-movers”, open transit E-vehicles. This sublime gem of a temple stands out from the others for several reasons! First of all – the fun-sounding name, we were informed by Bakr that it is correctly pronounced “Hat-cheap-suit” which is a pretty good memory device to resort to, but the quipsters in our tour party were quick to translate it into “Hot n’chicken-soup” or even more absurdly “Hot-chip’n’soup”! (in the dusty air and baking heat of the Valley, lunch was never far from our minds!). It was special too because remarkably Queen Hatshepsut was only one of two female pharaohs in Ancient Egyptian history (d.1458 BCE, 18th Dynasty). The first, Sobekneferu (d.1802 BCE, 12th Dynasty) was a more shadowy figure and a much less substantive ruler. Hatshepsut first ascended the imperial throne as co-regent with her half-brother but assumed full pharaonic powers after his death. Her reign was notable for its building projects, especially around Thebes (her crowning glory this memorial temple, Deir el-Bahri, built in Western Thebes) and for extending the kingdom’s trading links possibly as far as Punt (Eritrea) in the Horn of Africa. In the contemporary images, statues and sculptures of Hatshepsut✱, she is depicted (on her own orders) as a man, eg, the free-standing colonnade sculptures of the Queen in her showcase Thebes temple show her with a manly build and a characteristic pharaoh’s beard and attire. Lastly there is its peerless aesthetic appeal. Most of the other mortuary houses in Luxor’s valley look drab and unprepossessing by comparison. The temple is magnificently set in a natural valley against a towering backdrop of massive craggy mountains. Though upward of 3,500 years old in some ways it looks strangely modern with its ramps, two-tired terraces and the simplicity of clean, white, sharp lines of the colonnades and facade…the simplicity of the building and the way it blends into the landscape reminds me a bit of the architecture of Chicago’s Prairie School. Hatshepsut’s pet name for the temple was Djeser Djeseru (“splendour of Splendours”), in the ancient era the elegant simplicity of Deir el-Bahri was enhanced by a number of aesthetic features and elements that haven’t survived to the present day (eg, an avenue of sphinxes, fountains, lines of myrrh trees from the land of Punt) [The Rough Guide to Egypt (2007 Ed.)]. The distressing, tragic contemporary association with this sublimely beautiful monument is that it was here that 58 international tourists as well as four Egyptians were massacred by terrorists in 1997, a further 26 visitors or more were injured in the onslaught (the worst-ever terrorist atrocity involving tourists in Egypt). The terrorist group, suspected to be a splinter arm of al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya (Egyptian Sunni Islamist organisation)✥ entered the complex in the guise of security guards, trapping the victims inside the temple and setting on them with knives and guns. The murderers later fled and committed suicide in the surrounding hills. The largest proportion (>60%) of the murdered tourists came from Switzerland (later on Swiss intelligence ‘determined’ that Osama Bin Laden had bankrolled the operation). A direct consequent of the Luxor massacre was both a beefing up of tourist security and a drop in Egypt’s tourist numbers. Subsequent terrorist attacks elsewhere within the country has ensured the maintenance of high levels of security by the Egyptian authorities to this day.
🔼 Pharaoh and Queen, Hatshepsut
_______________________________________________________________ ✱ the statues of Hatshepsut that survive that is, many at the temple were predictably decimated by later male pharaohs in a chauvinist attempt to erase her from the annals of Egypt’s pharaonic ‘pantheon’ ✥ although this charge has continued to be denied by al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya itself
The island containing the Temple of Philae and other significant, associated monuments from antiquity is a definite starter on the list of essential things to see when in the Nubian region of Egypt. So, after the tour guide had taken us to the Aswan High Dam to get a sighter from the bridge of the vast reservoirs of water, we made for the island✱. The temple and other monuments we were going to see were originally on Philae island, but by the 1960s the Egyptian government, concerned at the harmful effect the periodical flooding of the island was having on the monuments and its archaeological relics (a by-product of the Aswan Low Dam), decided to relocate them to a more optimal place – mirroring the story with the Abu Simbel Tow Temples and the Aswan High Dam. The nearby island of Aglika was chosen as the new site and in a logistics exercise that consumed virtually all the seventies, Philae’s temples and monuments “island-hopped” to Aglika. There was some inexplicable delay (becoming quite the norm) when we got to the wharf in getting a boat to ferry us to the new island. One of the random fellow passengers on the boat ride was perhaps the most exotic ‘apparition’ we had encountered in all our time in Egypt. I say ‘apparition’ because although she was real, so oddly and eccentrically was she decked out in extravagant garb and paraphernalia, she was totally out-of-place with everyone else in the sweltering heat of the day. The image that occurred to me when I saw her was of a kind of Egyptian “Mary Poppins”. She was covered from head to foot in multi-layers of gaily coloured clothing, fancy “Sunday-best” gloves, etc, the whole kit! Yes and of course the obligatory umbrella as well! She also looked like she could seamlessly slot into the cast of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile, no problems. We were all melting in the oppressive tropical heat in our thin cotton T-shirts, shorts and sandals, so I can’t imagine how she was feeling it. As it transpired, ‘Maryam’ Poppins had an eccentric personality to match her flamboyant attire. She tried to blame us for the boat’s delay and then wanted to use us as money-changers. I couldn’t quite fathom what exactly the proverbial bee in her over-veiled bonnet was! As the boat neared the island the vision was an enchanting one, the central complex of buildings seemed to be growing out of the lush green band of trees and bushes which surround it! It was easy to spot the distinctive twin pylons of the Temple of Isis. Philae was one of the strongholds for the cult of worshipping the all-empowering Egyptian goddess. Once you set foot on the island you find its full of fascinating monuments and artefacts which reveal a rich and varied history and an assortment of diverse cultural influences. The earliest religious structures reach back to the 4th century BCE and the Pharaonic era. Others date to the Ptolemaic Kingdom (Alexander the Great’s Graeco-Egyptian successors from Ptolemy I up to Cleopatra). A number of the buildings still extant were erected under the aegis and command of Roman emperors, eg, the Kiosk of Trajan (above). Even the early century Byzantine rulers have left an imprint on Philae as did the Coptic Christians. Most impressive of all perhaps is the forecourt of the main temple with its splendid colonnaded, the courtyard is an irenic atmosphere-evoking space. Also calming and softening the setting was the afternoon sunlight filtering in between the temple’s columns and reflecting on the still waters of the river in the background. The temple’s stand-out for me remains the striking reliefs of Egyptian deities (especially) on the Second Pylon (above), sharply defined sculptures which have been exceptionally well-preserved (or restored) bearing in mind that the temple walls had been half-submerged for considerable periods when it was still located on the vulnerable Philae island. In addition to the Temple of Isis and the Kiosk of Trajan, the island contains five lesser temples, two Roman gates, the Portico of (Emperor) Augustus and the Pavilion or Vestibule of (Pharaoh) Nactanebo I. The site’s various buildings are rich in the representation of pictographic narratives…the trained eye of Egyptologist Biko drew our attention to other, unauthorised markings on the monuments – various graffiti inscriptions is left by past visitors from the Roman epoch through to the Napoleonic period…which is visual confirmation – if we needed it – that graffiti has been around for just about forever (‘How Old is Graffiti?‘, www.wonderopolis.org).
▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ ✱ 8.8km south of Aswan as the Nubian Corvus flies!
Hushan Great Wall
