Saving the past to secure the future

Fortunately, a nationwide documentary program known as Chinese Memory is battling the clock to rescue footage before it vanishes from the collective memory. Led by the National Library of China in 2015, hundreds of short documentaries, usually half-an-hour-long, have been produced to capture details of the ICH items and those inheritors' life.

As the country's Cultural and Natural Heritage Day falls on Saturday, 115 such selected documentaries, including the one about Zhan, were broadcast in a one-month-long exhibition, both online and offline.

Hopefully, through streaming apps like Youku and Douyin and mainstream news websites as well as 170 public libraries across the country, these inheritors' voices can be better heard.

"In our project, a documentary aims not only to be a recording of oral history or reference to revive the intangible cultural heritage," says Tian Miao, deputy director of public education department of the national library who is in charge of Chinese Memory. "It can enlarge our database of files and be widely spread through mass media."