Lin Min

    CONTRARY to the popular misconception that Shenzhen is a 30-year-old city with no history, the city has relics showing the first county established here more than 1,700 years ago, and the first human activity here is known to have taken place 6,700 years ago, during the Neolithic Age.

    However, if we do not make a conscious effort to preserve our ancient buildings, many of them will fall victim to ruthless urbanization and their owners will choose profit ahead of the conservation of our collective heritage.

    Zeng Yaotian Residence in Shajing, Bao’an District, a watch tower built about 100 years ago, is being damaged after it was rented to a stone-cutting workshop and several migrant families, according to the Daily Sunshine. The workshop has dismantled a wall for business, causing damage to the building.

    The three-story watch tower was listed as a protected site by the Bao’an District Government in 2003 in light of its usefulness to historical and architectural research. However, the building is owned by the Zeng family, who are living in the United States, and the district government said it could do nothing to prevent the building from being rented for business.

    This is only the tip of the iceberg. Bao’an has eight ancient villages — including the 200-year-old Langxin Village — that the district government is attempting to conserve. However, houses in these villages are private property and most of them are being rented to migrants whose activities and home renovations are causing damage, or at least depriving them of their ancient character. Some were simply demolished by their owners to build new houses.

    In the past two years, Shenzhen Daily has reported that ancient school houses and historic buildings have been put to such prosaic purposes as chicken farming. And just a week ago, reader Marco Loglio wrote to the paper complaining that Dongshan Temple in Longgang District, which was built in 1394 during the Ming Dynasty, had been demolished to make way for a new wooden temple.

    Over the last 20 years in Shenzhen, there has been a direct correlation between the speeding up of urbanization and the destruction of ancient villages, Liu Yaodong, head of the Bao’an cultural relics management office, told the Farmers’ Daily last year.

    A great challenge is that private owners set their eyes on profits rather than conservation, and authorities do not have the power to tell people what they can and can’t do with their own property. For the owners, preservation just means extra cost.

    Simply listing protected sites cannot conserve heritages, unless protection measures are directly enforced. The city and district governments may not have the budget to buy up these sites and buildings, but they can learn from other cities in creating effective measures.

    Hong Kong traded land plots in exchange with historical buildings for preservation. In 2008, the owner of King Yin Lei Mansion received a plot of land for surrendering the historic 71-year-old building — which has featured in several films and television series — and paying for its restoration.

    Shenzhen should consider land swaps for heritages, which will not involve spending huge sums of taxpayer money. The ancient villages and houses will help Shenzhen residents, most of them migrants ignorant of the city’s past, understand the city’s roots and forge a cultural identity. The heritages will also enhance the city’s allure to expatriates and foreign tourists.

    For many people, being an “international city” means sleek skyscrapers and grand roads. It’s less fashionable to believe that cultural heritage is just as important to a world-class city as modern achievement. But the importance of forging a collective, historical identity can be discovered when visiting Paris, Rome and other international metropolises.

    Modern towers may be a sign of development, but knowing where we’ve come from is essential to knowing where we’re going.

    (The author is editor of the Shenzhen Daily News Desk.)