Interlocking past with present

Determined to keep traditions alive, heritage-based architect finds new medium of expression, and a growing audience, after retiring, Yang Feiyue reports.

Bathed in the honeyed glow of the mid-March sun, 75-year-old Wang Yongxian explains the millennia-old Yingxian Wooden Pagoda to his 1.5 million followers in a video, as if introducing an old friend.

"This isn't just wood and nails, but a living record of Chinese ingenuity," says the man who drove more than three hours from his home in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province, to visit the towering marvel of engineering.

A retired structural engineer and cultural heritage expert, Wang has dedicated his retirement years to a new kind of preservation: digital storytelling. In the past two years, he has taken to livestreaming to introduce young viewers to the ancient knowledge embedded in China's architectural relics.