Hunchun, Jilin: Creating a "Red Border City" from Points and Surfaces

Changchun, 24 Jan (Xinhua) -- The harsh winter in the northeast is bitterly windy, but the "red heat" of Hunchun in Jilin Province, located at the junction of China, Russia, and the DPRK, has not diminished, and various groups from Changchun, Yanji, and other places have been visiting the relics of the Anti-Japanese Coalition in Hunchun and receiving red history education in a series of touching stories of the War of Resistance.

Hunchun experienced the baptism of gun smoke during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and left a large number of revolutionary cultural relics and relics of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in the territory. In recent years, the local government has continued to develop red resources, making the "red charm" of this small border city increasingly prominent.

In a martyrs' cemetery in Dahuanggou Village, Ying'an Town, Hunchun City, 13 heroic martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the country during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression are buried here. "In August 1938, the local guerrillas rested in the Great Desert Ditch, because of the traitors' whistle-blowing, the Japanese army sneaked in at night, and 13 members of the team died heroically in battle..." Liu Guoxin, a 65-year-old veteran, had tears in his eyes every time he talked about this history.

Since his retirement in 1977, Liu Guoxin has visited the cemetery every year during the Qingming Dynasty. Since 2004, he has been here every day to patrol and give volunteer lectures to visitors. After walking on rugged mountain roads for a long time, Liu Guoxin's shoes are not known how many pairs of shoes are worn. Under the influence of Liu Guoxin, more and more villagers in Dahuanggou Village became familiar with this red history, and many of them could tell the stories of 13 martyrs.

Since 2004, Hunchun has successively restored more than a dozen anti-war sites in Dahuanggou and built the Hunchun Party History Exhibition Hall, forming a party history education base in Dahuanggou. From a martyrs' cemetery to an educational base, Dahuanggou has become the most representative place for Hunchun's red history education.

In recent years, Hunchun has continuously increased its investment in the Dahuanggou base, forming a red line that integrates on-site teaching, centralized teaching, and student experience. The fame of Dahuanggou has also gradually spread to Jilin Province, and various groups from all over the country have come here to learn the spirit of the War of Resistance. Statistics show that the number of visitors to the Hunchun Party History Exhibition Hall reached 50,000 in 2018, exceeding 30,000 in the previous year.

In the face of an increasing number of visitors, hunchun city government officials have joined the team of docents. After retiring, Liu Nairen, former director of the Party History Research Office of the Hunchun Municipal Party Committee, came to the Party History Exhibition Hall as a volunteer docent. With a wealth of professional knowledge, he has trained a team of highly qualified interpreters. "According to the age and occupation of the visitors, we hope to clearly imprint the red history of Hunchun in the hearts of tourists." Liu Nairen said.

When the reporter interviewed Hunchun, he found that some private entrepreneurs also joined the team of "red propagandists" in Hunchun. In 2017, private entrepreneur Xia Xicheng invested hundreds of millions of yuan to build the Red Culture and Folk Museum in Hunchun, exhibiting a large number of anti-war objects he collected from various places. "The spirit of the revolutionary martyrs can never be forgotten, and I am planning this museum in the hope of doing my part." Talking about the original intention of building the museum, Xia Xicheng said.

With the continuous deepening of development and utilization, Hunchun red resources are formed by points into lines and surfaces by lines. Visitors to Hunchun can choose a number of routes such as Dahuanggou, Fangchuan Village, and the Red Culture and Folk Museum to experience various forms of party sex education and patriotism education such as "retaking the Anti-Lianhe Road". In the vicinity of the Red Route, Hunchun has also developed ecological tourism projects such as ecological gardens and canyon rafting, and red resources and green ecological resources shine together, becoming a new focus of local development of tourism economy. (End)