Building the foundations of excellence

A view of the ancestral house of Yangshi Lei. Tucked away inside an ancient alley near the entrance of Xinzhuang village, the ancestral home of the prominent Lei family has been restored and turned into a museum that vividly recounts their tales. Upon entering the village in Yongxiu county, in the north of Jiangxi province, visitors are first greeted by two signs shaped like cross-sections of a tree trunk that immediately inform them of the village's status as the home of Yangshi Lei and the family's stories. Moving deeper along the winding streets of the village, the ancestral home of the Lei family inadvertently emerges, setting itself apart from the other rural abodes with its black tiles, ancient bricks, and exquisite carvings. "We've been strictly following the requirement of protection first and then restoring as the original, and have put in more than 10 million yuan for the renovation of the ancestral home of Yangshi Lei," says Qin Ling, Party secretary of Yongxiu.