Seventy-year-old Cheng Yongmao has spent the past two decades climbing the Great Wall with a red hard hat, a work vest, a wooden hiking pole, and a small camera on his chest. Based in Beijing’s Huairou District, he serves as a technical consultant on Great Wall restoration and is the technical supervisor for Phase V conservation and restoration work on the Jiankou section.
Cheng’s path started early. Around age 16, he learned traditional building skills from his uncle, including laying floors, setting foundation stones, stacking bricks, and pointing joints. Over time, that hands-on work expanded into cultural relic conservation. He later joined a Beijing Huaijian Group company focused on landscape and ancient architecture, working on projects that included Hongluo Temple, the Tiananmen Rostrum, and Guangji Temple.
He first worked directly on the Great Wall in 2004, when emergency repairs were needed at Huanghuacheng. Since then, he has participated in and led more than 10 emergency reinforcement and restoration projects across multiple sections, completing more than 20,000 meters of wall work in total.
For mason contractors and restoration crews, Cheng’s message is familiar and important. Restoration is not just laying units. It is stopping collapse and extending service life while keeping the wall looking like itself. Cheng follows four principles: original form, original structure, original materials, and original craftsmanship. He also developed a “Five Follows” method that tracks the wall’s original layers, slopes, curves, aged appearance, and damage traces.
The logistics can be brutal. In 2016, a more than 40-meter collapse on a nearly 80-degree slope at Jiankou sent massive stone blocks into a gully. Cheng’s team used a winch and took more than two months, across six or seven transport stages, to return more than 150 large blocks to their original positions and reinforce the section.
Even now, with Phase V underway in 2026, Cheng still travels between sites and climbs the wall twice a week to inspect details and guide work on the ground.
Read the full, original article from ourchinastory.com here.