William Lindsay, British, 63 years old, graduated from the University of Liverpool, England, majoring in geography and geology. He traveled to China in 1987 with a childhood dream. The walk along the Great Wall from Jiayuguan to Shanhaiguan took more than 160 days. It was the Great Wall that enabled him to meet his beautiful Chinese wife, and eventually allowed him to stay in China. He called himself the "Foreign Red Army" and began the "Long March" to protect the Great Wall.
The first time William knew about the Great Wall was in 1967, when he was still in junior high school. There were two books that he would use throughout his life, one was a Bible and the other was a map. The Bible was everywhere in England and did not interest William in the least, so he found a map.
"I saw China on the map, the Great Wall lies in the north of China, it is so beautiful. On the map I saw the beginning and end of the Great Wall, and I dreamed of one day riding my bicycle from one end to the other." William told the principal about this idea and the principal said that it was a great dream, but unfortunately it couldn't come true.
When William visited the headquarters of National Geographic magazine in Washington, D.C. in 1980, he bought a globe in their store, the Great Wall It's the only human building on the map. "There are no pyramids, no Taj Mahal, no other famous monuments."
"The Great Wall is not only the greatest building in the world, it's also a precious treasure to mankind, it contains a spirit." William didn't understand why some Chinese people didn't love their Great Wall instead.
"Over the years, my greatest achievement has been to make people realize that the Great Wall will eventually disappear if it is not protected," William said. Media reports have made more people, including some Great Wall experts, aware of the problem, and the government is beginning to confront it. "The government is very supportive of me, and that's important." In 2001, William registered the Friends of the Great Wall International Association in Hong Kong, which brought him closer to the Great Wall. By 2004, the association had secured steady sponsorship and the projects were running smoothly: they organize three to four litter picks a year! campaign, collecting and placing bins for the Wall, hiring local farmers to set up a Green Station for the Wall, and setting up green signs at the Wall's location. In 2001, William founded the International Friends of the Great Wall Association.
In 2001, William founded the International Friends of the Great Wall Association, which called for a "Mountain Promise" to "take the trash with us, not the trash". Throwing litter everywhere", and environmental slogans made into signs, placed on the Great Wall. Until now, William and volunteers come to the Great Wall every week to pick up litter, an average of more than 120 bags of litter per year. Under William's influence, his two sons have also joined the team to protect the Great Wall。
