A message straight from the heart

The Granny House Away from Home was the most dramatic of the eight documentaries shown recently in Kunming, as part of the village video project sponsored by the EU-China Biodiversity Program.

Many of the 300-plus viewers in Yunnan University's auditorium were captivated by the film's central theme - How to preserve a fast-vanishing ethnic culture in the face of rampant commercialization.

While dismantling a 200-year-old house from its original location and recreating a replica in the capital may be seen as one way of triggering enthusiasm for heritage protection, it raises the question: At what cost?