About On the Great Wall
On the Great Wall is an independent city magazine for curious travelers and armchair explorers. We look beyond the familiar landmarks to find the stories that make a place feel alive: impossible architecture, neighborhood legends, and dishes with complicated pasts.
China's cities are often introduced through scale and speed. We are interested in the smaller signals too: the elevator that behaves like a bus, the snack named after an old argument, the winter palace designed to melt.
Why these stories?
A city is never one story. On the Great Wall is a growing notebook of the details that guidebooks skip and residents remember. Every article is written to open a door into deeper exploration.
Meet the editor
Panda Wu is a native-born Chinese writer with a fondness for giant pandas, old streets, late dinners, and asking one question too many.