China Just Completely Ruined a Part of the Great Wall and People Are Pissed

The botched repair job of one of the world’s ancient wonders, the Great Wall of China, is now the subject of condemnation by Chinese and international social media users and advocates.

Photos of the terrible restoration show the 700-year-old portion of the fortification covered in ugly white cement. According to Sina (via Shanghaiist), the repairs were carried out in 2014 under the direction of Suizhong county’s Cultural Relics Bureau.

While the travesty was made two years ago, the public only discovered it recently when photos surfaced in social media and were widely shared this week on Weibo. The reference “The most beautiful, wild Great Wall flattened” became a trending topic on the site.

The restoration efforts were reportedly intended to fix the parts of the wall near the border of Liaoning and Hebei province, which were damaged over time and have been kept off limits to the public. The Cultural Relics Bureau defended it as “reasonable and lawful maintenance,” and explained that the section of the wall was already at risk of collapse.

However, Dong Yaohui, deputy director of Great Wall of China Society told CNN that the restoration was done “very badly,” He said that, “it damaged the original look of the Great Wall and took away the history from the people.”

According to the deputy director, it would be best for the Chinese government to oversee any Great Wall restoration effort in the future.

“Although the local government was well intentioned and wanted to restore the bricks of the Wall, the result turned out to be the opposite,” he said.

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