{"id":6331,"date":"2026-08-01T18:42:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T22:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/?p=6331"},"modified":"2026-08-01T18:42:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T22:42:50","slug":"discover-china-guizhou-the-living-arterial-memory-and-revitalization-at-the-24-bends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/china\/6331\/","title":{"rendered":"Discover China: Guizhou | The Living Arterial: Memory and Revitalization at the 24-Bends"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"model-response-message-contentr_29ef5690935fb543\" dir=\"ltr\" aria-busy=\"false\" aria-live=\"off\">\n<p data-path-to-node=\"5\"><strong>By Angela Lui | Photos by the author<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>QINGLONG, China \u2014 High above the mountain valley of Qinglong, the 24-Bends Road (\u4e8c\u5341\u56db\u9053\u62d0) weaves through the limestone peaks of Guizhou, serving as both a monument to human engineering and a central destination on southwestern China\u2019s Red Tourism circuit. Here, modern visitors arrive not merely to admire a dramatic landscape, but to engage with a remarkable chapter of national memory\u2014where wartime survival, anti-fascist solidarity, and a decades-long historical mystery intersect.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-6338\" src=\"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/99A6980-683x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Engineered in 1936 along the Yunnan-Guizhou Highway, the four-kilometer pass climbs 250 vertical meters over a horizontal span of just 350 meters. Its 24 hairpin turns serpentine up the mountain in a tight &#8220;S&#8221; pattern, forming a critical bottleneck during World War II. As an essential link along the broader Stilwell Road network transshipping Allied supplies into mainland China, the pass witnessed both the unyielding resolve of local laborers and direct Sino-U.S. logistical cooperation.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-6339\" src=\"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/99A7037-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Yet for nearly six decades, the physical identity of this national icon was lost. In 1945, U.S. military photographer John Albert captured a striking aerial photo of an Allied convoy winding up the pass\u2014a image that became a world-renowned symbol of wartime resistance. Due to wartime secrecy and regional name changes, international historians long misattributed the location to Yunnan, Myanmar, or India. It was not until 2002 that researcher Ge Shuya formally verified the site in Qinglong through archival field checks, restoring the landmark to its rightful place in national memory.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-6340\" src=\"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/99A6993-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Today, within the Red Tourism framework, the 24-Bends bridges tangible history with public education. Visitors traverse the winding turns to explore the local exhibition halls and heritage displays. Beyond historical remembrance, the site\u2019s integration with regional development, sports events, and local agriculture serves as a catalyst for local revitalization, ensuring that this wartime lifeline continues to sustain the mountain communities surrounding it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Angela Lui | Photos by the author QINGLONG, China \u2014 High above the mountain valley of Qinglong, the 24-Bends Road (\u4e8c\u5341\u56db\u9053\u62d0) weaves through the limestone peaks of Guizhou, serving as both a monument to human engineering and a central destination on southwestern China\u2019s Red Tourism circuit. Here, modern visitors arrive not merely to admire a dramatic landscape, but to engage with a remarkable chapter of national memory\u2014where wartime survival, anti-fascist solidarity, and a decades-long historical mystery intersect. Engineered in 1936 along the Yunnan-Guizhou Highway, the four-kilometer pass climbs 250 vertical meters over a horizontal span of just 350 meters. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6331"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6342,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6331\/revisions\/6342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}