The Great Wall Marathon®, website is highly organized and particularly appealing, however, after spending time on the website one could begin to notice some areas that seem out of place. The first area one might question is the registered trademark in the title “The Great Wall of China Marathon®”. It’s very interesting as to why a socialist country would have a need for such a mark, seeing as it is a very capitalist idea. The registered trademark symbol has certain legal implications, as according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s official website, it means that a company or organization is putting up an invisible wall, and if one wants to market, advertise or participate one must go through this medium first (http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/).
The need for such a mark is very important in a capitalist economy and very important for the western business world. According to Martin W. Lewis and Karen E. Wigen, co-authors of The Myth of Continents, such a world can “be characterized by compulsion to control and manipulate nature; a tendency to regard the self as an autonomous agent in competition with others; a restless desire for growth and development; a keen appreciation of personal freedom; a hunger for material wealth; a practical, this-worldly orientation that seeks social betterment through technological means; and above all a commitment to rational inquiry” (73). The trademark aids in the protection of original ideas and prevents exploitation. Why, because it’s standard procedure for someone to grab what others have, copy it and under bid potential customers till the company is out of business. So the question remains, why is such a western and capitalist concept implemented on a Chinese event? According to China, a text written by Patricia Ebrey, China is a country that has strong foundations in family and places more value on the collective group rather than on the individual, “this strain of socialism offered a blueprint for a world of abundance without explotation and had the added appeal that it was anti-western and anti-imperialist,” (272). However, could China be dismissing their fundamentals and the marathon and the trademark are the forecast for this change in China? China is consistently, growing an emerging force on the world’s economic stage. The sheer size of the country’s land, population and resources bring it under the western microscope.
On the other hand, the word ‘western world” is commonly used and associated with many different applications, and can one really attribute the idea of a registered trademark as truly a western original thought. “Similar assumptions lie behind characterizations of modern technological artifacts as items of “Western Culture” as though automobiles and soft-drinks were inherently of the West, wherever they might be produced or consumed” (Lewis, 52). This idea of labeling things as western is great for the argument that China is changing into a Western country or power. The use of the word western world by Americans is almost as abstract as using the word freedom. Will China be Free? First, one must ask how does China or a Chinese person define freedom? In their definition and opinion, they may already be free; they may be happy with current situation and have no desire for change. It is important that one does not use such words as a punch-line or even to define a entire country, continent or hemisphere. The trademark symbolizes western ways, it is very close minded thinking to believe that individuals in the “west” are the sole proprietor of original ideas, thus they are the only ones whom wish to protect that thought.
There is a big difference between traveling and exploration, as seen in the book The Art of Journey, where author Ramage, writes how we “vacate our normal premise, leaving our occupation(s) and webs of relationships behind, board some magical mode of transportation that hours later delivers us to a location sufficiently different from our point of departure to evoke our curiosity and raise our anxieties” (187). To reiterate, exploration is a way for people to break there social constraints to reconstruct themselves maybe even work on their perception of own identity. Travel is just moving from one recognizable space to another recognizable space, as one has seen the pictures either on the website or the travel agency. So then one might ask, what does a travel agency do? Well, they are the medium that takes one from a familiar space to another familiar space. Wow, it looks just like it did in the picture sitting at the local travel agency, imagine that! This is their way of controlling the scenery, regulating how the consumer can identify the landscape, provide with or preconceived notions so that the travel agency can easily satisfy the customer, “The aestheticization of landscape permits the viewer to define and control the scene, yet fosters the illusion that the scene is part of self-regulating nature. The viewer seems to be an incidental spectator of the beauties of nature when in fact man has created the ‘view’ himself by announcing and promoting it as ‘scenic’” (Byerly, 58) In fact, one can imagine a team of marketing reps for the agency, no doubt, sit down and say “when I think of the Great Wall this is what I envision”. Then an “artist” / (photographer) goes out and capture’s a beautiful portrait, rendering the consumer unable to deny its lure, seen below in figure 1.
Figure 1
Travel agencies do a great job of identifying their audience and creating a type of rhetoric and then marketing to their audience. An interesting fact, a travel agency is one of the main sponsors of the race. Their logo appears on the marathon’s website, under the section labeled “sponsors”. Also, one can see under the headline “tour packages” in the second paragraph that, “It is not possible to participate in the Marathon independently of these packages”. Profiting from the exclusivity of this race seems as American as charging $7.00 for a hotdog at a ballpark, they are capitalizing on the necessity of the two situations, one must eat during a five hour period and one must fly to participate in the marathon. Maybe you are a runner and an adventurer who arrived in China a week or two ago. You’ve been running, exploring and site seeing with no real plan. There have been many different beautiful areas that aren’t on the front of any magazines or include a two hour lunch break. You haven’t been looking down on landscapes that have appeared in travel guides a thousand times over. You are freelance adventurer and the pinnacle of your journey is the Great Wall Marathon. Sorry, to say that it sounds like this door will be one that is closed to you, which is shame.
Today, there is a noticeable shift in the utility The Great Wall of China from its original and intended use. The article “Vandalism and ‘Improvements’ Mar the Great Wall’, written by Elizabeth Rosenthal, appeared in the New York Times on June 12, 2003. This article rallies around the need to preserve and conserve the national relic and the cherished landmark in the nine provinces that it traverses. Rosenthal states there are many reasons for the Wall crumbling, such as erosion in areas where the Wall is constructed of mud, however, blames human activity for most of the destruction. Many portions of the Great Wall located near Beijing have been given a facelift in order to attract tourists, “…it has been gussied to attract tourists by officials who regard the Great Wall as, well, boring and old”(1). This article suggests the need to implement a plan in order to save this deteriorating piece of history. It calls upon travelers, residents and environmentalists to participate in saving one of the World’s great artifacts. In this article, the wall has been face-lifted not for, the sense of national pride but more for the country to bring in the self-seeking travelers who need to see what they feel is China’s national monument, even if this is or isn’t the case. Just the notation of Chinese officials acting more on potential profits as a driving inspiration and less for the restoration of this “boring and old” wall as a need of culture preservation seems very capitalistic.
The marathon website uses text and visual rhetoric to attract the attention of potential runner/ travelers to experience this great race. The text carefully blends descriptive word that complements the background, as well as the difficulty of the race. A race director knows what two components appeal to a lot of runners. What’s the scenery like and is it atheistically pleasing? How can the course become more challenging, something participants can brag about around the water cooler back home at the office. The written rhetoric on the site provides an answer to both questions. The following statement provides a backdrop that is ideal to a runner; challenging, yet beautiful, “The Great Wall Marathon® is a tough, beautiful and definitely extraordinary experience. The 3700 steps of the Great Wall will put your physique to the test, and the breathtaking surroundings of Tianjin Province will compete with your tired muscles for attention. The Great Wall Marathon® is the ideal way to combine an unusual running event with exploring one of the world’s most astonishing sights” (http://www.great-wall-marathon.com/marathon.htm). The website is almost mocking the runner, using the emotion of guilt on the contestant into entering because this experience could possibly be the most difficult course yet.
Visual Rhetoric is used throughout capitalistic economy as a way of making an argument without words, whereas images are used to convey ideas, to invoke a response beneficial for the sender. Picture advertisements can be seen on the website for the Great Wall of China Marathon, and there is rhetoric in the photographs that were used for this site. The site features four different pictures on the front page. These pictures depict different beautiful points along the Great Wall, the photos are inviting fresh with tons of green coloration, celebrating the beauty of China’s countryside. However, in these four photos there is no sign of any deterioration of this Great Wall. If these pictures were one main source of reference for this wall, this individual would have a hard time agreeing with the previous statements in the New York Times article. Showing fit runners on a beautiful day with a smile on their face, the sun out and a spring in their step. From that point forward it becomes the job of the agency to painlessly transport the consumer to that exact photo.
These photos appeal to our need to define ourselves, to separate ourselves, to find our own identity and what makes an idividual unique. “Thus, for example some among us spend inordinate amounts of time and sometimes money ‘finding themselves’ or getting in touch with their inner [fill in the blank],’ thereby suggesting that a ‘real’ as-yet-undiscovered self, not to be confused with the bumbler who is doing the searching, abides and awaits their discovery. Once found, presumably, their authentic existence will begin” (Ramage, 35). An ad appeals to the human needs to find their own identity that’s their own. Advertisements in the media introduce us to products that supposedly help us along the way with our self discovery. An important point, that William Callahan, author of Nationalism, Civilization and Transnational Relations: the discourse of Greater China, ties into a class reading on rhetoric and the identity and how one chooses to define oneself. “Historically, the key to peace was engagement with barbarians via trade and diplomacy that crossed the Great Wall, which existed more as an image than as an engineering feat”(Callahan, 12). There was a need for governments to draw a line that clearly defines boarders, as well as cultures. China, for centuries, has kept this separation between itself and the nomad “barbarians from the north”. These sought out divisions played a major role in the destruction of China as an economic superpower. “The Great Wall was an attempt to stabilize an ecological boundary between a zone of sedentary agriculturist the Chinese and a zone of pastoral herder including the Xiongnu. The wall created a sharp and clear buffer separating Chinese farmers of Inner China from the pastoral nomads living in Outer China. It was also a symbolic, cultural boundary between the civilized Middle Kingdom in the South and the barbaric regions in the North and West” (Veeck, 58). Very interesting that the Great Wall was initially built as a form of protection from outsiders a defining point which separated barbarians from those who were Chinese.
The point of the wall was to detach themselves from outsiders. Think about the original purpose of the Great Wall and then look at the purpose of the same wall many years later through the eyes of this paper and one will find the two are very different. The Great Wall of China Marathon® is a way for China to entice outsiders to come in. This historical landmark is used as a tourist attraction, where runners can explore the Great Wall while participating in their favorite pastime. The change in this purpose for the Great Wall was one of the key factors that brought me to my argument in the first place. Through the advertisement of a travel agency, the symbolism of the registered trademark as purely a western idea on an event in China and on one of China’s greatest monuments, is the marathon purely providing the means for western philosophy to enter into a country so reluctant? For years, Chinese civilization thrived on the idea of closed boarders and the wall was clearly a representation of their fear of foreign rule, however, the marathon sponsored by Dutch and American companies, as noted with the travel agency, are impeding on the communist ideals that China once had or is China merely changing her economic ways? Should there be a marathon on the Great Wall of China, does it destroy its purpose for being there and is it physically destroying the Great Wall itself?
Works Cited
Basic Facts on Trademarks. 8 November 2004. United States Trademark and
Patent Office. 12 July 2007. http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/
Byerly, Allison. “The Uses of Lanscape.” The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks
In Literary Ecology. Ed. Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm. Athens, GA:
University of Georgia Press, 1996. 52-66.
Ebrey, Patricia. China. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Lewis, Martin and Karen Wigen. The Myth of Continents: A Critique of
Metageography. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997.
Ramage Text book
Rhetoric Text book
Rosenthal, Elizabeth. Vandalism and ‘Improvements’ Mar the Great Wall.
12 June 2004. nytimesonline.com. 18 June 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/.
The Great Wall of China. 8 June 2007.
< http://www.great-wall-marathon.com/marathon.htm>
Veeck, Gregory, Clifton Pannell, Christopher Smith and Youqin Huang. China’s
Geography; Globalization and the Dynamics of Political, Economic and
And Social Change. Lanham: Rowmand & Littlefield, 2007.
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