Article Surfing Archive

Remember the lifelong anxiety you've experienced, worrying about the crumbling of The Great Wall of China? Fret no more.

Now, humanity longest tribute to war-wrought paranoia will be on the mend. It seems the enterprising communist nation has an abundant new supply of materials to rebuild it with: The millions of lead-loaded toys, bibs and other children's paraphernalia its cheapo manufacturers shipped off to Mattel and other toy makers, appalling mothers by the millions.

But, as Confucius say, 'Toys made with lead paint eventually return to factory.'

Or, in a more contemporary vein, "From China with lead" is turning into "Back at you from America."

Even as you read this, the varicolored plastic remedy is tending its way toward its eternal destiny, as ships laden with returned Barbie Dolls, Mattel Cars, painted bibs and other infant delights steam toward their disgraced land of origin.

Of course, given the way rocks cobbled together have a way of returning to their place of origin, especially with the steady help of enthusiastic vandals, the ancient enormity has been falling apart almost since it was begun. In fact, today less than half of its 4,000 mile stretch still rises above elevation zero.

And Mao, economic moron that he was, didn't help the matter. He was unable to envision the stone wonder of the world as anything other than a dispensable feudal curiosity, let alone a hot tourist attraction that could help prop up his decrepit state. So great swaths of it were pulled down and transformed into functional accoutrements of his workers paradise, such as dams, roads, and stone huts.

But now the new communist elite are in receipt of more than enough resilient material to restore the entire length of it.

Redone as a sort of land fill from toy land, the reconstructed immensity will, to the delight of state capitalists everywhere, become a greater wonder for tourists than ever. Imagine the colorful come-visit look of its renewed grandeur, compacted with a rainbow of plastic toys, out of which odd appendages and bumpers poke.

Should such an original method of rebuilding the wall ever become an architectural reality and surefire outrage, what might have become The Great Fall of China may be elevated to an enlarged source of latter-day Chinese prosperity.