Minecraft challenge breathes new life into rich cultural past

In the boundless, block-made universe of Minecraft, a popular sandbox video game, a poignant digital reconstruction has struck a deep chord across Chinese social media.

A young gamer has meticulously re-created part of the destroyed Yuanmingyuan, or Old Summer Palace, a royal garden in Beijing and a symbol of China's "century of humiliation", and has digitally repatriated the site by reuniting the looted 12 zodiac bronze animal heads in his virtual landscape.

His video, a serene fly-through of the meticulously re-created site, has been viewed millions of times.

Comment sections have been flooded with remarks about "cyber reunion" and "connecting the past and present". One top comment read,"This is the patriotic romance of the young generation."

Pixel by pixel, 24-year-old gamer Qiu Zekai, known online as Qiuxiaoniuer, spent two months resurrecting sections of the ruined palace's Xiyang Lou (Western-style mansions), including Dashuifa (the Great Fountains).

"I wanted the regret to be compensated for in the digital world," Qiu told China Daily.

The ruins are a somber lesson in national history.

The 12 zodiac bronzes were part of a fountain at the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) royal resort, which was burned and razed by invading Anglo-French forces in 1860 during the Second Opium War (1856-60), with numerous relics, including the bronzes, looted and lost overseas. Only seven bronze heads have been returned to date.

Qiu's creation offers a rare, interactive glimpse into its former glory, transforming pain into a proactive act of remembrance.

"I only restored a very small part. But many people said they get to know the history and the national treasure buildings through my work. It's a great honor," said Qiu, who has 3.4 million followers on the short video platform Douyin, with 200,000 of them gained through this video.