On May 14, 2024, President Xi Jinping replied to the letter from residents in Shixia Village, Badaling Town, Yanqing District, Beijing, calling for continued efforts to protect the Great Wall, and encouraging the villagers to go on working hard to "pass down the precious heritage of our ancestors to future generations."

Before this, some villagers in Shixia Village wrote to President Xi Jinping, recounting their work in protecting the Great Wall and changes taking place in the village.

Since the 1980s, the village committee has been organizing the village members to guard the Great Wall. Mei Jingtian is one of the Great Wall guardians.

Mei Jingtian, now aged 80, is a sun-tanned man with a medium size. Despite his advanced age, he is seen always holding a ramrod straight posture.

The Great Wall was first built over 2,500 years ago as a defense work. The Badaling section of the Great Wall is the earliest section of the Ming Great Wall that opened to tourists, and serves as the core of the Badaling scenic area.

In 1978, Mei Jingtian was wild with excitement because of the country's efforts to protect the legendary Great Wall. However, it also made him more concerned about the dilapidated state of the wild Great Wall in his hometown.

Noticing the Great Wall bricks used by some villagers to build courtyard walls, he exchanged the cement he purchased for housing construction for these bricks. Whenever he found abandoned stone landmines from wartime or bricks engraved with ancient characters on the mountain, he brought them back on his shoulders.

"I once discovered a 34.5-kilogram stone stele on the mountain, but it was so heavy that I had to drag it down the mountain with a rope the next day and donate it to the local cultural heritage management committee," he recounted.

In 2006, a Great Wall protection volunteer team was founded in Shixia Village under Mei Jingtian's guidance. Almost all villagers, aside from the elderly and children, participated in the preservation efforts.

"My father patrolled the Great Wall area at least 20 times a month, wearing out seven or eight pairs of rubber shoes a year," said Mei Lanfen, Mei Jingtian's daughter.

According to the woman, her father left every morning with an army kettle slung over his shoulder and a sickle in his hand for a whole day.

"I didn't know what my father was doing every day. I just remember that he often came home covered in dirt and, sometimes, with injuries."

With a history of more than 2,000 years, several sections of the Great Wall are at risk of falling into disrepair due to improper maintenance. Weeds and bushes grow unchecked, roots split the walls, and the structure suffers from damage caused by natural calamities. By the end of 2015, more than half of the Great Wall sections in Beijing were badly damaged or even endangered, according to the Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau.