What does the invention of Belt & Road culture look like on the ground? Approximation du jour: it looks like a mash-up of classical European music, traditional Chinese martial arts, and a yearning to explore and trade and understand.

We are now well into our third decade of of upgrading Nantou Ancient City from being an urban village with a few historic relics to standing as the common origin of Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Throughout this process, anniversaries have provided the excuse for celebrating the city as a cultural fount. This year, for example, was the 450th anniversary of the establishment of Xin’an County with its county seat at Nantou. Shenzhen City and Nanshan District celebrated with a series of lectures on the common origins of Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The lectures were held in the Sun Yat-sen Park auditorium, which has been connected to the ancient town since 2017, when Nantou served as the main venue for the Shenzhen UABB. There are other dates that have also proved useful. In preparation for the Return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, for example, the establishment of the “Southern Headland” Commandery in 1394 predicated claims that Shenzhen and Hong Kong shared over 600 years of history.

(Of course, you may be thinking: wasn’t the premise of full-on rural urbanization before 2010 the idea that Shenzhen had no culture? And yes, this is true. But it is also true, that folks have been living in the region for (at least) 7,000 years. In fact, just across Shennan Road from the Ancient City beneath Honghua Estates was a Han-era mausoleum. Unfortunately, the mausoleum surfaced during the era when Shenzhen was considered to have no history and so relics were quickly packed up and housing estates built. )

Anyway, the most recent anniversary to be celebrated at Nantou was the Third Anniversary of the “opening of the street (开街三周年).” In 2020, at the city’s 40th anniversary, Wantong officially opened its upgraded commercial streets and museums to encourage cultural tourism. This anniversary was the first time post-Covid that they have been able to celebrate the renovations to the neighborhood. And celebrate they did, bringing into focus current political-economic aspirations via cultural events.

At this particular moment, Shenzhen has signed letters of intent to cooperate with institutions from the Veneto region of Italy. Accordingly, the third year anniversary was structured as a cultural exchange between ancient China and ancient Italy. The evening opened with a performance of a piece of Italian classical music and an aria. The director, soloist, and singer were Italian. The closing event was a dance from the ballet， Wing Chun (咏春), which was produced by the Shenzhen government and is based on southern Chinese martial arts. (And yes, Wing Chun is currently on tour, selling out venues throughout the country.) In between, leaders from the Veneto region and Shenzhen said nice things about each other, asserting this cooperation as an extension of ancient maritime relations. In case, we missed the point that we are part of a continuous historical process, a short film was prepared for the event. Marco Polo was shown visiting the exhibits in the Ancient City, expressing curiosity about everything he saw.

Today, I’m thinking about how time and history is being ideologically mobilized in Shenzhen. There has been a shift away from imagining the future to more interest in the city’s past. Previously, the future was were we found Shenzhen. Now, however, the region’s past has been explicitly linked with imperial China and the maritime trade of the South China Sea. Moreover, this history is presented as being fulfilled through the maritime Silk Road. It is one narrative strategy for re-tethering Shenzhen to the central government, making sure that what happens here is always already understood to be the result of decisions taken in Beijing.