XU ZHIPENG, a young man who searched for ancient wells in Bao’an District in 2014, has decided to revisit the wells and publish a book about them, the Shenzhen Evening News reported yesterday.
The project began in the summer of 2014 and ended in the winter. Xu and his friends found a total of 100 ancient wells. They measured the length, width and depth of each well and took water samples.
On April 22, Xu launched a project to revisit the wells. He wanted to see what had happened to the wells in the past four years. This time, he recruited more team members, including two photographers, a Cantonese interpreter and a stenographer, all of whom were volunteers he met in Shajing Subdistrict. They hit it off right away and decided to use their spare time to revisit the ancient wells.
Chen Yana, who partnered with Xu to search for the wells four years ago, came all the way from Hunan Province to join them Sunday. She had lived in Shajing for 10 years and has strong feelings for the place.
“Everyone in the group has lived here for at least five years and is very interested in the history and culture of Shajing,” said Xu. He has lived in Shajing for more than 10 years and is very familiar with every street.
In addition to gathering a more complete collection of data, the team will also interview more elderly people living in the area, in hopes of restoring the ancient wells to their original appearance based on their descriptions.
Xu said the district’s archive plans to sort out the materials collected during their visits and publish a book.