In Zhuanghe, a group of cultural volunteers travel all over the locality to search for cultural relics, explore old streets, and record oral narratives. They go around the ancient streets and historical relics with their cameras and notebooks all year round, regardless of summer or winter.

Over the past 10 years, more than 1,000 people have participated in it. They cherish the history and cultural relics of Zhuanghe and bring back the long-unseen cultural memories.

On March 3, Zhou Meihua, Jiang Tao and Sun Deyu were exploring in the old streets in Qingduizi ancient town, Zhuanghe. When asked about Qingduizi, Zhou Meihua, who was born and raised here, couldn’t stop talking about it. She said, although this ancient town was small, in the reign of Zhenguan in Tang Dynasty, there were fishing and merchant ships docked here and temples were built more than 1400 years ago, according to the ancient inscriptions on monuments of Tianhou Palace. There are well-preserved old streets of Ming and Qing architectural style and the existing ancient buildings of the Qing Dynasty are of a large number and scale in Qingduizi ancient town, which is rare in Liaoning.

The cultural volunteers interviewed Yu Longfei, Lin Bentang and other old people who lived in the old street or were familiar with the history of it. Stories behind the old buildings such as the stone archway and the Hua family compound were heard, so as to further enrich the oral history of Qingduizi old street.

On March 3, cultural volunteers Zhou Meihua, Jiang Tao and Sun Deyu interviewed old man Zhao Qingyuan (first from left) on the old street in Zhuanghe, as Zhao told the stories of time-honored brands in Qingduzi ancient town.

Zhou, Jiang and Sun also took an orderly inventory of some cultural relics in Zhuanghe, enhancing the awareness of cultural preservation of the local authorities and preserving historical memories of Zhuanghe. To collect ancient monuments scattered in the territory, they went all over Zhuanghe, searching for merit monuments, temple monuments, memorial monuments, martyrs’ monuments and so on.

Zhou Meihua said that making rubbings of monuments is a professional work. Because of no funds at the beginning, they had to do it themselves. It turned out to be bad, so they had to pay out of their own pockets to hire two masters of making rubbings of monuments from Luoyang. And they intended to make rubbings of all the ancient monuments in Zhuanghe and arrange them academically into a book called The Book of Zhuanghe Monuments. Every monument in the book will be illustrated with a detailed inscription of where it was and where it is now.

Zhou Meihua, Jiang Tao and Sun Deyu are not only cultural volunteers, but also cultural inheritors. They have visited more than 700 elderly people over the age of 80 in 10 years, sorting out memories of Zhuanghe from their oral statements.

The three volunteers work in Qinglai Academy where the reporter saw the books they compiled, including Zhuanghe Cultural Heritage, Zhuanghe Local History and Zhuanghe Stories. These books have changed the perception that Zhuanghe has stories but no history, and have sorted out the history and culture context of Zhuanghe since it was inhabited by human beings, with many historical materials presented for the first time.

Zhou, Jiang and Sun’s enthusiasm for cultural relics conservation and their dedication to retaining memories of hometown have inspired more and more people to cherish cultural relics and history and feel the changes of city. The exploration to the ancient town implies the spirit of inheritance.