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This video shows the Dashdawa Mongol activist Wang Yanhong singing a song at the site in Ulan Butun where the Jungarian Khan Galdan Boshugt was defeated by the Qing army. Entitled ‘Father’s Grassland, Mother’s River’ (父亲的草原母亲的河), the song was written by a famous Mongolian diaspora poetess called Xi Murong. Through this song, Wang grieves his loss of the Mongolian culture and language, but insists that he is still a son of the steppe. Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

The Dashdawa Mongol Studies Centre was established in 2014 by Wang Yanhong at the Chengde Normal College for Nationalities. The office contains some books related to the Dashdawa Mongols including photos he took with the Ööld Mongols in Zhaosu county of Xinjiang. He says that he wants to promote a close connection with those people via academic work and cultural exchanges, a wish also shared by other Dashdawa Mongols in Chengde. Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

This video shows Wang Yanhong explaining the Dashdawa Mongol history to the representatives of five Dashdawa Mongol surname groups. He says that initially, about 1,000 Ööld people arrived at Chengde in 1757, followed by another group two years later, the same year when the Anyuan monastery in Chengde was built. Some years later, however, about 500 people were dispatched to Xinjiang to protect the Qing-Russian border areas. Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

This video focuses on the morning prayer session in the Puning monastery in Chengde. The Puning monastery is the only monastery that has Mongol lamas and holds regular prayer sessions in Chengde. It has 60 resident lamas from Inner Mongolia and Qinghai province. It is fascinating to see some of the lay Chinese attendees chanting in the Chinese version of the sculptures, while the lamas chant in Tibetan. Most of those who attend the morning prayer sessions are however Mongols from the neighbouring Inner Mongolia. Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

In this video, Wang Yanhong talks about his effort to revive the Dashdawa Mongolian culture at present and his plan for the future. In 2010, at Wang Yanhong’s initiative, China Central Television made a documentary of the Dashdawa Mongols in the middle of the demolition of the Mongol Camp. In the following years, he has been actively collecting materials about the Ööld Mongols in Xinjiang. In 2014, he attended an Oirat Mongolian academic conference held in Zhaosu county, which is known as Mongol Küre (Mongol Camp), in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. During this trip, he visited local Ööld Mongols, meeting famous Jangar epic singers, and attending the Ööld Mongol oboo worshipping ceremony. In order to salvage the disappearing Dashdawa Mongol identity in Chengde, he established ‘the Dashdawa Mongol Studies Centre’ at the Hebei Normal College for Nationalities in Chengde where he works. Supported by the city government, Wang Yanhong made an Ööld oboo on the site of the demolished Mongol Camp. Oboos among the Ööld Mongols in Xinjiang, he explains, symbolise their pride as the protector of the Qing dynasty’s far western borderland, and the newly built oboo in Chengde is to mark that the Dashdawa Mongols came from Xinjiang and are related to the Ööld Mongols there. Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

This video shows an oboo worshipping ceremony in Chengde. Built on the site of their former community Mongol Camp by the Dashdawa Mongol activist Wang Yanhong, the ceremony is attended by his family members and scholars who participated in a conference Wang Yanhong organised for marking the 256th anniversary of the Dashdawa Mongols’ migration to Chengde (承德市达什达瓦蒙古东迁256年研讨会). Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

This video shows that representatives from five Dashdawa Mongol surname groups – Bai, Kou, Xu, Du, Zhao – get together and talk about their memory of their ancestors in Chengde, the Ööld Mongols. These are close relatives.In the past, they say that Ööld Mongols in Chengde wore Mongolian dresses on importance occasions. They used to live in the Mongol Camp (蒙古营) which is also known as the Ööld Camp (厄鲁特营); the former name was used by the Chinese and the Manchu to refer to them, whereas the Dashdawa Mongols called their residence Ööld Camp. Kou Zixin says that he lived in the Mongol Camp until he was 10, and his grandfather was the head of the Mongol Camp. Kou Tianqing remembers that his grandfather had a Mongolian name called Bayanhu, but he adopted the surname Kou during the Republican period. Zhao Huiyan also remembers that her grandparents used to say, ‘we do not belong to the eight banners, we are from the Ili river’. It is clear from the video that they all know they are the descendants of the Dashdawa Mongols originally hailing from Xinjiang, but they do not know too much about details of their history. Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

This video shows the Dashdawa Mongols and Oirat scholars getting together at the Anyuan Monastery celebrating their eastward migration 256 years earlier. The monastery was built for their ancestors in 1764. As shown, apart from members of the five main Dashdawa Mongol surname groups, Du, Zhao, Xu, Kou and Bai, there were also Ööld Mongols from Xinjiang attending the ceremony. Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

This video shows Wang Yanhong, the Dashdawa Mongol activist, building an oboo with his relatives at the spot of the former Mongol Camp in Chengde. A couple of years ago, the Mongol Camp was demolished in a campaign called ‘Big Change in Three Years’ (三年大变样). In August 2015, Wang convened a conference in Chengde marking the 256th anniversary of the easterly migration of the Dashdawa Mongols (承德市达什达瓦蒙古东迁256年研讨会) which was attended by scholars from Xinjiang, Beijing and other places. Using this occasion, Wang and his relatives put up a temporary oboo as shown in the video. He says that he modelled it after oboos he saw in Zhaosu county in Ili, their ancestral homeland. After completing the construction, Wang Yanhong taught his family members customs of oboo worship, such as burning incense, circumambulating the oboo clockwise three times, and adding stones to the oboo. Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin

According to the discussion conducted by Dashdawa Mongol representatives in the video, they have always been officially recognised as Mongol since the Qing period till today. During the Cultural Revolution, however, under pressure, many Mongols changed their nationality registration to Han Nationality. Kou Zixin is one of the people who changed their nationality register, but he wants to change it back to Mongolian. He says it is a complicated process requiring a lot of certification. Wang Yanhong, however, successfully restored his nationality to Mongolian, which now appears on his ID card. Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin