Liu Hongyan, 45, has walked the Great Wall so many times that she no longer bothers to keep count. Five days a week, she climbs onto the ancient ramparts to patrol, tracing the same weathered stones that have stretched across mountains for centuries.
"I never tire of walking it," Liu says.
On days when her mood dips, she pauses and listens: wind brushing through leaves, insects humming in the grass, birds calling across the ridges. "The sound quiets the heart," she says.
Liu grew up beneath the Great Wall in Shixia, a village tucked deep in the mountains of Beijing's Yanqing district, southwest of Badaling town.
Surrounded by steep peaks and encircled on three sides by the Wall, the village occupies a strategic pass that armies once fought fiercely to control. The traces of those centuries of conflict remain etched into the landscape. About 8.6 kilometers of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)Wall run through Shixia's territory, along with another 1.5 km of crumbling fortifications dating to the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577).
In the 1980s, residents of Shixia began organizing to protect the Great Wall. By 2006, they had established the Shixia Great Wall Volunteer Protection Association, the first farmer-led organization in Beijing devoted to safeguarding the monument.
Today, more than half the village's residents volunteer as guardians of the Wall. Several, like Liu, serve as full-time protectors.
Their efforts have recently gained stronger legal backing. On March 1, the Regulations on the Conservation of the Great Wall in Beijing officially took effect — the first local statute specifically designed to govern the Great Wall's management. The regulation marks a shift toward more systematic and legally grounded protection of Beijing's section of the Wall.
Guarding the Great Wall may sound like a grand responsibility. In practice, it involves countless small tasks. For Liu, the new rules have also made her job easier.
"In the past, if we saw something improper, we could only take photos and try to persuade people," she says. "Now we can contact enforcement officers directly."
