Travel Alone on the Great Wall 2，450 KilometersGrowing up in a western world， William knew well how to getsponsors. Outdoor activity needs shoes， clothes， tents， food etc. He gotmany sponsors like Midland （later merged and purchased by HSBC） tomeet expense. Midland had shares in Travelex， the world largest foreigncurrency exchange corporation. In this way， William became thebeneficiary of Thomas Cook. E-traveler’s check launched by TMT coincidentlyhad the Great Wall printed on its checks and TMT thoughtWilliam was the best candidate for advertisement for Thomas Cook.
But William had big problems. As information and books onChina， Chinese people， Chinese history and culture were far and few，his knowledge about China was limited to the Great Wall， Mao Tsetungand chopsticks. In the past very few Westerners visited China andthus not much information was available on the Great Wall except afew pictures. As for language， William could say a few sentences inCantonese accent “Hello， I am William from Britain” andthat too was92 not understood by the people of northern China where the wall waslocated as their dialect was different.
Then in 1986， William came to China.
He first visited the imposing Great Wall at Badaling， and thendecided to run from Shanhaiguan. But the hot weather knocked himdown. The well-trained William got heat stroke and collapsed. He hadto stop. Later， he started from another end of the Great Wall， JiayuguanPass. He only ran more than 200 kilometers， then he ran into anotherfrustration. One of his foot bones was broken plus an endless diarrhea，he had to return in the midway.
Being defeated twice didn’t make William lose confidence， butgave him two conclusions： One， running on the Great Wall is possible.
Two， the Chinese people welcome him. The difficulties on the waywere not that terrible and farmers along the Great Wall were very plainand hospitable. No one regarded him as an extraterrestrial being andhad a storm in a teacup， but helped him as much as possible. Therefore，William was full of confidence for his future journey. In a word，just as Mao Tse-tung said， the future is bright， but the road is tortuous.
While resting and consolidating in Beijing， William ran into twostudents on the street of Jianguomenwai he met at Shanhaiguan duringhis first try on the Great Wall in September 1986. They were lookingfor a foreigner to practice their oral English. William immediatelygreeted them with the sentence learned in Liverpool with the Cantoneseaccent. Both his friends listened to him and got confused. Williamrealized that he should buy a notebook and asked a Chinese to writea paragraph， tell others who he is， what he is doing here. The twostudents found they could just help each other with William. So theyhelped William write on the notebook， “Hello， I’m William from Liverpool.
I’ll run on the Great Wall alone. Please help me！ I need waterand food.” At the end， he put another sentence “Long life to the friendshipbetween China and Britain”。
“This is very useful，” said William smiling. In farmers’ homes along the Great Wall， William showed this notebook to them. Manyfarmers can’t read. He had to wait for their children back from schools.
Sometimes he even used body languages， for example， “I’m hungry. I’
m tired.” That indeed helped to communicate in a basic level.
In 1987， from autumn to winter， William finally reachedShanhaiguan at the seaside in Northeast China from Jiayuguan inthe desert in Gansu， west of China. It took him 160 days to finish thejourney of 2，450 kilometers. William told us that actually it took him78 days to tramp on the Great Wall by excluding the time of restingand being interrogated and examined， and expelled out by the police.
Many media reported the journey of 2，47 0 kilometers was not accurate.
Some sections of the Great Wall have been gone， some sectionsare military important places and foreigners are not allowed toapproach them. So he had to run off and on for 2，450 kilometers. HisEnglish style preciseness and obstinateness won’t let him count 20 kilometersmore.
But anyway， William is the first foreigner who has walked onthe Great Wall. After that he often used of his vacations to make upfor the omissions to the Great Wall. Moreover， he earnestly practiceswhat he advocates in protecting the Great Wall， so he has been on theGreat Wall for more than 1，200 days in the past 20 years. He is entitledby Xinhua News Agency， the most successful foreigner in explorationof the Great Wall. After tramping on the Great Wall， he wrotedown all he saw along the way into a book Alone on the Great Wall— from Desert to Ocean， which was published in the UK （Hodder &Stoughton 1989）， USA （Fulcrum 1991） and Germany （Sierra/NationalGeographic Traveler 1997）。
Obviously for the 78 days， he endured the hardships of an arduousjourney， hunger and tiredness， he even suffered from being chasedby wild dogs. While beating dogs， William was so frightened. Whenhe described it afterwards， he was full of humor， “I nearly became thedogs food”。 Of course， more memories are warm and nice. The farm9ers along the Great Wall are plain and friendly. They often took himto their homes and asked him to sit on kang， the bricked bed， givehim hot water to drink and food to eat. Because they don’t know howto communicate with him， they sat there watching him. Some neighborscame to see him and wanted to say something to him so they justshouted at him. “They are testing whether I have any response forthey thought I’ve got hearing problems. Later， they realized that I justcouldn’t speak Chinese. It was hard to communicate， but both sides tried very hard. Hetook out a photo of the Queen to show the farmers. They mistook thatto be William’s mother. When they found out he was still single， theyall showed pity on him and shook heads to him. In Chinese the character“good” is combined with two words woman and son， meaning it’