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Great-Wall-in-space mythcomes crumbling down

The myth that you can see China's Great Wall from space is being taken out of Chinese textbooks, thanks to the nation's first man in space.
The Great Wall of China is deserted in Mutianyu, China on June 19, 1989. Tourism has been at a low at the Great Wall since the crackdown on student demonstrators in the capital.
The Great Wall of China is deserted in Mutianyu, China on June 19, 1989. Tourism has been at a low at the Great Wall since the crackdown on student demonstrators in the capital. Udo Weitz / AP
/ Source: The Associated Press

The myth about China's Great Wall has come tumbling down, thanks to the nation's first man in space.

For decades, the Chinese propagated the myth that their most famous creation was visible from space. Elementary-school textbooks in the world's most populous nation still proclaim that the structure can be seen by the naked eye of an orbiting cosmonaut.

But the myth was shattered upon Yang Liwei's return from a 21 1/2-hour space jaunt last year, so schoolbooks will be rewritten, the Beijing Times newspaper reported Friday.

The wall stretches thousands of miles across northern China but is only a few yards wide, making it impossible to see from space.

A Ministry of Education official in charge of teaching materials for China's schools said the textbook's publisher was informed to stop printing the essay that recounts the falsehood.

The essay is part of China's standard sixth-grade language and literature textbook, the paper said quoting the official, surnamed Zang.

It reads: "A cosmonaut rising radiantly said 'Flying in my spaceship, surveying our Earth from space, I am able to make out two constructions with my bare eyes: One is a Dutch sea embankment, the other is China's Great Wall!'"

The paper said, "Having this falsehood printed in our elementary school textbooks is probably the main cause of the misconception being so widely spread."

Its report quoted Wang Xiang, a delegate to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body to the national legislature meeting in Beijing this week.

During this year's meeting, Wang submitted a proposal to the government asking that school books and school curricula be amended to stop spreading the Great Wall space myth.

The myth "is a disadvantage to the real knowledge acquired by our elementary school students," Wang was quoted as saying.