Zhang Li, a Beijing-based film and TV producer, considered shooting a documentary about China's rich cultural relics long ago and it took him nearly five years to complete the project.

"With the longest continuing civilization in the world, China boasts an abundance of cultural relics," Zhang said.

"However, in China's modern history, much of the country's cultural heritage has been lost due to various reasons."

Many relics are stored in overseas museums, such as the museum in Ulricehamn, in Sweden.

Ulricehamn is a small city about 300 kilometers (186 miles) southwest of Stockholm, where a museum has reportedly stored several hundred Chinese "national treasure level" cultural relics.

Some of the intact and beautiful gold or silver bowls in the museum are rare in China, according to researchers of Chinese cultural relics.

"These items have dazzled even the most experienced Chinese experts who had never seen such fine works before," Zhang said.

A photojournalist-turned producer, Zhang heard many more stories by Chinese experts who lament the loss of the cultural relics due to robberies and smuggling, as well as their destruction by bulldozers.

While most people simply feel infuriated after hearing such stories, Zhang told himself: "I should do something more constructive."

During the following years, the desire to do something became an obsession, as Zhang met with a variety of Chinese historians and archaeologists.

In late 1996, Zhang, then a producer at the audio and video sector of the Xinhua News Agency, finally decided to document the fate of Chinese cultural relics through the use of cinematography.

"There is a story behind every piece of a cultural relic. I want to tell every Chinese of those stories," Zhang explained.

Zhang's commitment to the project has resulted in his production of a 46-part television documentary.

Entitled The Memoir for Chinese Cultural Relics, the documentary provides a panoramic view of cultural heritage and is the first documentary of its kind in China.

The shooting of the documentary, a strenuous task, began in July 1997.

In order to give viewers a more vivid impression, Zhang decided that all scenes should be shot on the spot.

Within the next four years, Zhang, as the general producer of the documentary, and his crew, traveled to more than 20 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions of China. They also visited museums in more than 10 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Norway and Sweden.

Zhang believed such a long-march was necessary because the trips helped him acquire a great deal of "first-hand" information.

Loss of cultural relics

"An important part of the documentary portrayed the disasters that happened to Chinese cultural relics during the period between 1840 and 1949," said Zhang.

During this period, Western countries looted Chinese treasures in a frenzy.

China suffered a great loss in 1860, when British and French troops robbed the Old Summer Palace.

The country lost more of its treasures in 1900, when joint troops from eight countries, including Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Italy, Austria, the United States and Germany, carried away a fabulous haul of treasures from imperial palaces in old Beijing.

It was estimated that currently there are about 1 million pieces of Chinese cultural relics stored in more than 200 museums in 47 countries. However, the exact number remains unclear because there are few written records about their loss.

The oracle bone is an example. Since 1899, more than 200,000 pieces of animal bones or tortoise shells with inscriptions dating to the Shang Dynasty (16th century-11th century BC) have been unearthed in Anyang, in Central China's Henan Province.

Among them, as many as 26,700 pieces have ended up in 12 countries, with Japan holding the largest number more than 12,000 pieces.

Zhang and his staff tried their best to trace the whereabouts of various cultural relics in their journey from one country to another.

In the documentary, a part featuring the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, the whereabouts of the Dunhuang artifacts are told in minute detail.

The discovery of the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes in Northwest China's Gansu Province in the early 1900s shocked the world.

More than 40,000 invaluable scrolls have been excavated so far, but among them, only about 20,000 remain in China.

The others have been shipped all over the world, mainly stored in museums in London and Paris.

In order to give viewers a closer look at the lost Dunhuang artifacts, the production unit traveled to the United States, Britain and France.

Fortunately, they were allowed to film in the British Museum and the Fogg Art Museum, where, for the first time, the precious scrolls and wall paintings were demonstrated in front of a camera.

But there were also pitiful behind-the-scenes stories.

The Museum of Guimet in Paris has long been known as the "Louvre of Oriental arts," housing the most complete collection - from the earliest Chinese ceramics to fine works from different kilns of various historical periods.

As luck would have it, during the crew's stay in France, the museum was in the process of an interior upgrading and was closed.

Contemporary ills

Entitled The Memoire of Chinese Cultural Relics, the TV documentary is not confined to the loss of Chinese artifacts between 1840 and 1949.

Trying to provide viewers a thorough account of the fate of Chinese cultural relics in modern history, the documentary describes the protection, as well as destruction, of cultural relics in recent years.

"During the past few decades, unprecedented attention has been attached to cultural relics protection in China, but the destruction of cultural relics is unprecedented, too," said Ma Zishu, former director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

A great number of Chinese cultural relics have been smuggled to other countries.

For example, two gangs were involved in 24 grave robberies in Houma County in Shanxi Province, and profited more than 8 million yuan (US$967,000) from sales of the cultural relics to overseas dealers in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Members of the two gangs were arrested in 1994 and 1995. Said to be the most serious case involving grave robberies after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, it is discussed in the 28th part of the TV documentary.

"It is very informative material for Chinese or foreign viewers," Ma said.

By telling such stories, Zhang expects to arouse people's consciousness about the importance of cultural relics protection.

(China Daily April 19, 2002)