The poster for The Mystery of China Photo: Courtesy of Youku

From the Sanxingdui Ruins, one of the greatest discoveries of the ancient Shu Culture, to the Nanhai No.1 shipwreck from the Song Dynasty(960-1279), a milestone discovery for Chinese underwater archaeology, numerous finds have been telling us more about China's past and the history of humanity. Now a new culture reality show, The Mystery of China, is set to air on Chinese streaming site Youku and Henan TV to tell the stories of six of these cultural treasures. 

Starring Chen Kun and Xu Danrui as guest hosts, the show will not only visit archaeology sites, but also ask questions of culture scholars and archaeologists to help audiences gain a better and deeper understanding of these cultural treasures. 

According to Li Bing, the show's producer, "who we are" and "where we come from" are key questions on the route to "finding our genes." 

"We hope to record the glorious moments of our more than 5,000-year-long history. That is our intention behind the show," said Li. 

The show visited some of China's most well-known cultural sites like the Mogao Grottoes and the Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum, approaching them from different angles. How to introduce these cultural sites in the best way possible was something that the production team had troubles with. 

"Chinese history is so long that if we follow chronological order, then we would have to start with the Xia (c.2070 BC-c.1600BC), Shang (c.1600BC-1046BC) and Zhou (1046BC-256BC) dynasties or even earlier," Li told the Global Times. 

"That is not the way we learn history. A collection of thousands of objects for the royal family of the Tang Dynasty[618-907] was unearthed in 1970 in a small village in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province. Who buried them and why they did so… there are so many questions to be answered. Telling these stories is something we hope to do to allow audiences to discover more about these shining cultural symbols," he added. 

"Content about history and culture has always been a core area that we hope to focus our efforts on. For the large number of audiences who are interested in this type of content, we will continue to invest heavily in this direction to produce more and more high-quality premium content," Han Yun, manager of the documentary channels at Youku, told the Global Times.