Story of the halved quilt carries Long March spirit

After learning about her story from a newspaper, some Red Army veterans, including Deng Yingchao (1904-1992), a revolutionary and politician who was the wife of the late premier Zhou Enlai, sent a new quilt to Xu in 1991. Sadly, it arrived shortly after she died.

The story, however, has been passed down through Xu's family and the village for generations. "I grew up hearing the story from my parents and grandparents," Zhu said.

Born in 1988, Zhu has no personal memory of her great-grandmother. "In my father's and uncles' descriptions, she was an ordinary rural woman with a strong will," Zhu said. "She often told the family: 'What are members of the Communist Party of China? They are the ones who, even if they have only one quilt, would offer half of it to the people'."

Zhu worked as a kindergarten teacher until the summer of 2018. When she returned home for the holidays, she found her uncle telling the "half a quilt" story to visitors through a portable loudspeaker.

"He had been doing it for years," Zhu said. "I was deeply touched and realized that we younger ones have an even greater responsibility to share this story with more people."

Now, as a docent at the "Warmth of Half a Quilt" Exhibition Hall in Shazhou, she has given thousands of tours to visitors, ranging from primary school students to seniors in their 70s and 80s. Since its opening in 2017, the exhibition hall has welcomed over 5.7 million visitors, becoming a key site for Red history education and study programs in the region.

In September 2020, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, paid a visit to the exhibition hall during an inspection tour in Hunan.