In Tiantai county, when it comes to the Hehe culture, we cannot get past Shen Zhongming and the Hehe Cultural Park he helped build. Born in Tiantai county, Shen is the chairman of the board at Zhejiang Mingfeng Industrial Co. Ltd., and the president of Zhejiang Car Utilities Industry Association.

Nurtured by Hehe culture since his childhood, Shen took a special liking to the concept at a very young age, and has reaped many benefits from it.

In the early days, there were no places or areas specially allocated for the promotion and protection of the Hehe culture in China. Therefore, setting up a Hehe-themed cultural park to commemorate Hanshan and Shide, two legendary monks who once lived as recluses on Tiantai Mountain during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and who have been regarded as symbols of the Hehe culture, became Shen's quest. In Shen's mind, it was his responsibility to pass on and promote the best of traditional Chinese culture, and building a Hehe cultural park was bound to bring a lot of benefits to the nation, the people and, more importantly, the future generations. It was much more rewarding than a commercial undertaking.

Foreign friends experience sitting in sedan chair in the Tiantai Hehe Cultural Park. [Photo provided to ezhejiang.gov.cn]

Together with his son, Shen began working in earnest. They organized a team for the planning and construction work, and Shenggang, Shen's son, was put in charge of collecting cultural relics and items, as well as historical documents and materials on the Hehe culture from home and abroad. During the preparations, sports facilities that local residents could freely enjoy were also put in place.

After several years of hard work, the Tiantai Hehe Museum, China's first Hehe culture-themed museum, officially opened to the public on May 16, 2015 inside the newly launched Hehe Cultural Park. More than 3,000 items and historical documents on the Hehe culture were exhibited at the museum.

At present, the Hehe Cultural Park serves as an education base not only for the Party School of the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee and the Organization Department of the CPC Taizhou Municipal Committee, but also a Hehe culture research base for Renmin University of China. The park has carried out international exchanges on the Hehe culture with the United States, Japan, Korea, Canada and other countries, and helped establish the Hehe Culture Research Association in Canada and the Hehe Culture International Center in Tokyo, Japan, playing a great role in promoting the overseas dissemination of the Hehe culture.

Since then, a hall showcasing marriage customs and a "one rattan" gallery have also been set up. Born in the late Ming (1368-1644) and the early Qing (1616-1911) period, "one rattan" is a unique traditional wooden craftsmanship in Tiantai. After putting together wooden strips of different lengths with mortise and tenon joints, the craftsmen then loop and twist the strips into different patterns without a beginning or end - a symbol for harmony. It is named as such because the works are shaped like the rattan palm trees in the mountains of Tiantai county. Featuring over 500 pieces of classic works from various periods, the gallery also contains a workshop for the cultivation of inheritors.

Shen's commitment to the protection, dissemination and promotion of the Hehe culture has earned him the reputation of the "Hehe Culture Ambassador" in the local community.