Elderly man teaches teens about ancient inventions

"Over the past year, the students here have shown keen interest in ancient science and technology," said Wei Lai, director of Colorful Happy Farm.

In the 1980s, Tang left his former job in Beijing and worked at a research institute in Chongqing's Yongchuan district. By making contact with foreign guests at work and sending each one a well-chosen example of Chinese folk craft, Tang's interest deepened.

To discover the traditional folk craftsmanship scattered among the people, he traveled to Chongqing and various provinces — Sichuan, Shaanxi, Guizhou, Jiangxi and Zhejiang. He collected firsthand information about many ancient scientific and technological devices and made sketches of them. Then he restored or reproduced them over the years at full scale.

Tang said that in 2019 he began to draw attention from domestic research institutions, as well as researchers in the United States, Japan and South Korea. And scholars often invite him for academic exchanges.

Now he has restored most of the ancient scientific and technological inventions in the farming category included in The Exploitation of the Works of Nature, an encyclopedia covering a wide range of technical issues that was published during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

"Culture is the soul of a nation. We need to draw strength from these traditional things," Tang said.

He said he hopes to build a big museum to exhibit hundreds of restored inventions.

"I hope it will bring young people closer to the country's long history and civilization, develop Chinese civilization and build stronger cultural confidence among the young generation."