Using the present to preserve the past

Enthusiastic amateurs are using modern tools, such as social networks and digital publishing, to help save endangered cultural sites and forgotten art forms, as Peng Yining report.

When he first encountered the Wenfeng Pagoda, Tang Dahua could hardly believe his eyes. After hundreds of years of being scorched by the sun and battered by winds and rain, the 8-meter-diameter mound of mud supporting the five-story tower was so pitted and eroded that it resembled nothing so much as an enormous termites' nest with a 5-meter-high rotunda perched precariously atop it, looking as though it could come crashing to the ground at any moment.

The pagoda, built to provide beneficial feng shui for Qixian county in Shanxi province, can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), but none of the locals could say how long it had been in its dilapidated condition. For them, it had always seemed on the point of collapse.