Two pillars frame a dirt road leading into the distant past. A Qianlong house stands in the late autumn sunshine, its black brick courtyard filled with warm light. Within the intricately carved wooden shutter-style doors, dozens of ancient vases in brilliant colors stand on a massive wooden table set between the dark red columns of the main room.

Visitors want to melt into this historical scene but the illusion fades-this is modern-day Shanghai and it's actually been hundreds of years since this house was first built. Now it stands far from its original site in Suzhou, on a rural plot in Shanghai's Qingpu district. It was moved here by a Canadian Chinese man who now dedicates his life to restoring and preserving old architecture and artisan culture in China.

Jeffrey Wong has been collecting houses, temples, well stones, pillars and other architectural artifacts since 2000. "When I travel around the area, I see a lot of beautiful old architecture that is not being preserved," says Wong, who retired to China in 1994 but still keeps homes in Canada and Hong Kong. "I think this is where the culture of China really lies, but if no one protects or preserves it, it will be lost forever." Wong's passion and generosity in this pursuit have saved the Chinese government not only millions of dollars, but also the incredible engineering headache of dis-assembling, re-locating and re-building incredibly delicate, sometimes rotten and moldering, structures. He bought the Qingpu land planning to resurrect his collection of architecture here and turn it into a "cultural village" that would welcome visitors and also serve as a retreat for traditional artists from China and around the world.

The 60-something Wong was born in Japan to Chinese parents. His father was a wealthy publisher and trader between China and Japan. Wong, who grew up constantly moving around South East Asia and Europe, accumulated his own fortune through trading in textiles and the import export business. It was only after moving to Shanghai 8 years ago that he became fascinated with collecting houses.

How does one collect houses? In today's China, with old structures constantly being demolished to make way for modernity, lots are often sold piecemeal-a handsome claw-foot bathtub here, a carved wooden girder there. Wong tries to keep on top of demolition plans, and bids for the entire structure before any sledgehammering begins. As he always keeps an eye on the landscape when traveling around the region, he has sometimes made offers to peasants who would rather have a convenient new cement box than a falling-to-bits wooden structure with no plumbing or insulation. For the Qianlong house, Wong actually offered to build the Suzhou farmer's new house as part of payment for the old house.
Entering the Qianlong house, one is surrounded by pottery and massive furniture, much of which Wong recycled from unusable pieces of his houses. Apart from architectures, Wong's antique collection is also massive. In the Qianlong house alone are ancient treasures enough for a museum exhibit. "Here's a 2000 year old piece from the Han dynasty," says Wong excitedly, picking up one pot and revealing that every single article has a yellow post-it stuck to it's bottom with Wong's own scribbled notes on its origin. "Some of these pieces are from 770 BC."

Wong's architecture collection goes back 480 years and includes some incredible gems, both for their historical as well as design value. Included are the entirety of Shanghai's massive original Jing'An Temple (a replica is now being built in concrete by the city), one of the mansions of notorious gangster Du Yuesheng and the famed Qing dynasty poet Xu Zhimo's house from Haining in Zhejiang province, along with an astounding 68 other houses from Xu's street. Altogether over 100 pieces of architecture including mansions, houses, temples, pavilions, teahouses and bridges all await careful restoration and rebuilding in Wong's warehouses.

Wong's cultural village is a lovely haven. A canal Wong had dug across the site is filled with bright goldfish, which one can watch over the splintering railing of an ancient wooden bridge-another of Wong's purchases. Carpenters working amidst piles of seemingly unlabelled bits of various houses spend full days patching cracks and reinforcing rotted pieces; sections of Jing'an temple lie about as casually as if they were sunning themselves. Wong's team of expert engineers and over 40 craftsmen work full-time. Today, surrounded on all sides by fields of goldenrod in full bloom, a group of workers in straw hats expertly wield their tools. They are obviously confident craftsmen who are intimately familiar with traditional handsaws and lathes-no electric table saws here.

Due to land developers taking over his Qingpu site, all of Wong's houses will soon migrate to Tongli, where Wong has found a new location. Hopefully the new site, in the historic UNESCO-listed water village, will prove a lasting sanctuary for the architectures. The Tongli government says the new 10,000 mu site, which is 50 times bigger than the Qingpu land, will be protected forever, including the land's forests and four lakes. The lush natural environment promises to be an even more enchanting locale for Wong's cultural village. But the new home comes at a great cost. "We have to move every stone, every plant, every fish, every house. We estimate it will take 1200 trips of a ten-ton truck to move everything to Tongli," says Wong brightly. "Buying is not the biggest expense, it's the moving and restoring that are the real cost.

The work in Tongli is just beginning and Wong's engineers and builders have a huge project ahead of them. Putting an old house together is much harder than just building a new one. "Its like a jigsaw puzzle, putting all the houses together again," says Wong. His approach to re-building addresses some modern day conveniences, such as adding plumbing and electricity to kitchens and bathrooms. However, for the rest of the space he tries to maintain the original house as much as possible. "I don't put everything perfectly, I preserve the judgement of history," he says.

The Tongli site will be partially open to the public and partially a free private retreat for artists and artisans welcomed to use Wong's professionally equipped clay studios, including several wood-fired, hand-built kilns as well as a collection of electric kilns. "I want it to be a platform for cultural exchange between Chinese and overseas artists," says Wong, "I'm willing to invest hundreds of millions of renminbi in my dream. Hopefully in the future there will be people to carry on this project."

Not everyone understands why a multi-millionaire has decided to spend his fortune on restoring ancient arts and architectures, with no monetary benefits whatsoever. "Many of my friends don't understand what I'm doing," says Wong, "I say one day I'll be in a hospital bed with an IV drip and that's when you realize you can't take it with you, only pride can you take with you. I can be proud of what I do." Visitors to Wong's Tongli cultural village will be proud, too and grateful for the painstaking work Wong and his team have done, not to mention future generations of Chinese who will have him to thank for the treasures he has saved.