[Photo by Liu Xiangrui/China Daily]

"Few people, such as my classmates, were aware of it, which was a sharp contrast to the stories I heard," Duan says.

Gradually, Duan had the idea to narrow his focus and collect more relevant items with a view to one day establishing a themed museum.

In the beginning, Duan primarily sought out military items used by the Japanese troops during the war, before he gradually realized that it was important to collect things used by the Chinese army and its international allies, such as the US "Flying Tigers", to comprehensively and accurately reflect the war.

Duan started working for the local branch of the Agricultural Bank of China in the mid-1980s, and he has used large proportion of his income to build his collection of war relics.

As well as extensively traveling through villages and towns in Tengchong to look for artifacts left over from the war period, he has even traveled to Japan, the United States, Myanmar and India to attend auctions in his bid to find suitable items to expand his collection.