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Two thousand and two hundred years ago, the original "Seven World Wonders of the World" made by the Greek philosopher Philon included the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia and the Colossus of Rhodes, along with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in modern-day Iraq, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in modern-day Turkey and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.

But Philon never recognized the wonders contained in ancient China since his footsteps hadn't reached far enough. The Great Wall in Beijing and the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin's Mausoleum in Xi'an have often been referred to in modern times as the "Eighth Wonders of the World" because of their scale and significance.

Following the destruction of Afghanistan's giant Buddha statues at Bamyan by the Taliban, a Swiss filmmaker, curator and traveler Bernard Weber, decided to set up the "New Seven World Wonders" contest in 2001. The Swiss organizer said the selection of the new list is a great chance for people to review how major world civilizations grew, and to appreciate the world's collective cultural heritage.

Organizers of the biggest ever global vote announced that over 40 million people had taken part so far in an Internet campaign to choose the seven new wonders of the world from a list of historical constructions.

The New Seven Wonders' panel of experts, chaired by the former Director General of UNESCO, Prof. Dr. Federico Mayor, pared down the list to only include those nominees with the most votes received by the end of 2005, narrowing the list down to 21 finalists in 2006.

According to the most recently published data, on May 7, the top 10 were the Great Wall of China, the Acropolis in Greece, the ancient Mayan city of Chichén Itzá in Mexico, the Coliseum in Rome, the Eiffel tower in Paris, the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu, Petra in Jordan, the statues on Easter Island, Britain's Stonehenge, and the Taj Mahal in India.

When asked to give the exact position in the rankings for the Great Wall, Tia B.Viering, head of Communications for the New Seven Wonders, couldn't elaborate much to China.org.cn but indicated the urgency. 

"The Great Wall was, at the last ranking, still in the Top 10 candidates. Of course, since there are many, many exciting and powerful initiatives going on in many other countries, it is extremely important that the Chinese people spread the word and keep voting -- the Great Wall needs all the support and votes it can get!"

Without this crucial support, the Great Wall may be left out of the final winning 7 monuments, which will be officially announced on July 7 this year in Portugal's capital city, Lisbon.

She added that the next and final ranking would be released on June 7.

The China Great Wall Society held a press conference at the foot of Great Wall to ask tourists to vote to save its place. According to some sources at the press conference, they said the Great Wall now is out of the Top 7, citing two main reasons for this drop.

First, though China has over 100 million Internet users, most of them didn't know about the vote and other Chinese people, over a billion, don't use the Internet. Second, the language barrier poses a serious problem. Since the contest is hosted on a foreign website, most Chinese are unable to read it.

The society said they have taken steps to remedy this situation, such as translating and setting up a Chinese version of the website and opening a channel for Chinese people to cast their votes by cell phone text service, charging 1 yuan per vote. However, with a lack of money for publicity in China, the New Seven Wonders organizers are disappointed with the results so far. Many governments of other countries, such as Peru, India, Great Britain, and Brazil, have supported the poll and sponsored several social campaigns for it.

Shan Jixiang, director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, told Beijing Morning Post yesterday that since the event is just a civilian campaign within commercial factors and the organizers are not from an authoritative international organization, the Chinese government will neither boycott the vote, nor support it by organizing people to vote.

"The Great Wall is already a world-recognized wonder, so no matter if it wins the poll or not, its status will not be changed a bit. I'd love to see Chinese civil organizations taking part in it, because, anyway, it's a good campaign to promote world cultural heritages," Shan said.

Mu Lanying, an official from the China Great Wall Society, told China.org.cn that the society launched the campaign to solicit votes for the Great Wall on May 28 in order to raise the Chinese people's awareness and enthusiasm for protecting cultural heritage, not just the poll itself.

When told there are many people in China now who question the authority of the event organizers, Mu said that NGOs are very important in foreign countries. "Compared with Chinese NGOs, their systems and regulations are far better. So, Chinese people should not worry about the justice and fairness."

She also added that people shouldn't forget that the original Seven Wonders were selected by one man. "He was not that influential at all, but his legends of the Seven Wonders have gone on and on for generations." Other people have expressed concern that the cell phone text vote is an excuse to dig money from Chinese people, but Mu explained that the 1 yuan per vote fee is not so unaffordable for Chinese people.

Tia Viering added that there are only three ways to vote (telephone, cell phone short text, and online poll). They do earn money via short text service but that is for compensating the costs, which, for example, developed the latest and most advanced technology to prevent hackers from ruining the fairness of the poll. Fifty percent of the earnings will also be donated to world heritage protection organizations.

(China.org.cn by Zhang Rui, May 30, 2007)