Keeping the past in sight for the future

The city still has a large number of immovable cultural relics that have not been listed as cultural relics that need to be protected yet, causing difficulty in protecting the city's immovable cultural relics, he adds.

"Many immovable cultural relics pose safety hazards with termite infestation, water leakage, cracked walls, damaged building components and old water supply pipelines," he says.

If maintenance cannot be carried out in time and repairs are postponed, resulting in more damage and need for extensive repairs, it not only requires a huge investment, but also leads to the loss of historical information and the weakening of authenticity of cultural relics, according to Wu. And the value of cultural relics cannot be replicated, with each relic having its own historical, scientific and artistic values.

Diaolou, which were usually built by overseas Chinese in the late Qing Dynasty till the 1930s, were structures that combined Chinese and Western architectural styles, while the ancestral halls have always been traditional cultural memorial sites, demonstrating traditional culture and customs.

After the implementation of the annual maintenance system for immovable cultural relics, the preservation status of these structures in the city has greatly improved.

Long Mengjun, director of the publicity and cultural service center of Torch High-Tech Industrial Development Zone, says that the full coverage of the city's annual subsidy funds has effectively solved the difficulty of property owners and custodians being unable to bear the repair and maintenance costs and maximize the preservation and continuity of the authenticity and integrity of cultural relics.

Wang Muxing contributed to this story.