(ECNS) — An 80-year-old Uyghur man in northwestern China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has raised the national flag in his courtyard in Tacheng more than 1,400 times over the past 17 years, continuing the tradition every Monday and on major national holidays.
Shalekejiang Yiming, who began the practice 17 years ago, carefully numbers and keeps every flag he has replaced. Despite his age, he remains determined to continue the weekly flag-raising ceremony.
"I have a drive inside me. I must never stop raising the national flag, lose my love for the country or let the flame of ethnic unity die out," he told China News Service on Tuesday. He added that if his health eventually prevented him from carrying on, his son and grandson would take over.
In June 2021, three generations of his family were invited to watch the flag-raising ceremony at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. During the visit, he touched, for the first time, a national flag from the square at the training ground of the People's Liberation Army honor guard.
"I was the first to receive the flag. As I touched it, I thought: My mother gave me life, but it is my motherland that has given me the happy life I enjoy today. I embraced the flag as I hug my own mother and gently kissed it. It was the happiest moment of my life," he said.
Hundreds of thousands of visitors have traveled to his yard to join the flag-raising ceremonies, and the yard has become a base for education on the sense of community among China's ethnic groups.
(By Zhang Dongfang)
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