Since my journey along the Wall in 1987 I have remained in China to explore the Wall in a more systematic and scholarly way.

From the mid-1990s I embarked on a project to document all extant Great Wall in the Beijing Municipality. This field work involved making multiple visits to all sections of Wall in the capital region to locate and record, with documentary photography, outstanding archeological and architectural features.

It was during this field work that I first identified the looming crisis that has already blighted, and continues to damage Great Wall. Thus Great Wall conservation studies has become a major part of my research work. In fact I would go as far to say that it is now the most important aspect of Great Wall studies. Without it, all other foci within the discipline will be rendered more difficult given that the very physical evidence (remains) are being reduced and changed so dramatically by various forces. Man induced damage (physical or aesthetic) is far more severe than natural damage.

In my work I am stressing the need to regard Great Wall as a landscape, not just a building. Great Wall conservation can no longer be limited to rebuilding sections for mass tourism.

A new aspect of my research work is location and documentation of Great Wall older than that of Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) age. A recent research trip was in Inner Mongolia to locate and follow a section of one of China’s earliest border defence Walls, built circa. 300 BC.

Great Wall Studies is a broad discipline. I realize that even after my 17-year-long involvement in it there remained aspects of the discipline that I have totally neglected. One was in gaining a better understanding the very reason for Wall-building – the nomads. A recent trip took me to Mongolia to see the nomadic way of life and examine examples of weaponry from the Genghis Khan period.

Most recently I have been using my camera to comment on the state of the Great Wall using the technique of rephotography. Although in early 2007 I curated the national exhibition "The Great Wall Revisited" at Beijing's Capital Museum, this documentation to evidence changes on the Great Wall since the first photos of it were exposed in the mid 1800s is a work in progress.