Wu Zheng, a video restoration worker from Suqian, East China's Jiangsu Province. Photo: web

When history drifts apart from us, there is, fortunately, always someone there to unlock memories locked away by time. Wu Zheng, a video restoration worker from Suqian, East China's Jiangsu Province, has attracted a wide attention of netizens recently. Wu has been doing video restoration for eight years. He usually buys archival footage from abroad and restores damaged clips for documentary use. 

It is worth noting that he has restored black and white film which recorded the history of Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province, including the images of American priest John Gillespie Magee, who served as a missionary in the Nanjing Church for 28 years, and testified about the Nanjing Massacre at a military court in 1946. He has also restored many family images and helped children get reacquainted with their mothers.

Before doing video restoration, Wu studied ancient Chinese characters at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and worked as a videographer for Jiangsu TV. "During my years as a photographer, I often traveled around to shoot video materials. When a documentary needed historical materials, there was nothing I could do," Wu said. Faced with almost blank historical images, Wu decided to quit his job and started his new career. As his influence continues to expand, many people ask him to help fix family videos, such as videos of wedding, funeral, and children's birthdays. When Wu fixes the videos, he also gets a lot of surprises and warmth from clients.