Barracks Observation | Stories of Youth, Stacked into a "Spiritual Reef"

I Tell You About the Nansha Islands

■ Huang Xinlong

On the reefs and islands of the South China Sea, there is a group of people telling moving stories in plain language. A series of short videos titled "I'll Tell the Nansha Story" is quietly making its way into the view of countless netizens through the "cloud." In the videos, garrison officers and soldiers recount the history of defending sovereignty and the steadfast watch kept amid the ebb and flow of the tides, bringing the stories of the Nansha Islands into thousands of homes.

For a long time, many people's understanding of the Nansha Islands has been suspended in the air. It is the expanse of deep blue at the southernmost tip of the motherland's territory—a distant place repeatedly invoked in grand narratives yet always faceless and indistinct. People respect the perseverance of the officers and soldiers there, but it is hard to truly reach the core of that perseverance.

The Nansha Islands are too far from us—so far that most Chinese people have never truly come to know them. And this series of videos has accomplished something remarkable: it has brought that distant sea before our very eyes.

There is no ornate narration in the videos, no deliberate sentimentality. Young Nansha officers and soldiers simply look at you and tell you about the reefs they have guarded, the sea they have watched, the home they have thought of. These stories are small—small enough not to stir anyone—yet when they accumulate one by one, you come to understand: what we call home and country has never been an abstract concept. It is built inch by inch from countless such concrete and minute days, from ordinary yet extraordinary people. The power that truly moves us often lies not in how loud a voice is, but in how true it is.

That is also why I want to recommend it to you. It gives warmth to a distant territory and gives a face to nameless perseverance. After watching, "Nansha" will no longer be a symbol you look up to from afar, but a group of people you think about, miss, and are willing to feel a surge of warmth for. That sea will, because of these voices, quietly take up residence in your heart.

So please, open it. Give it a little time, and give yourself a little time, to listen to those unpolished voices coming from the Nansha Islands. I believe that, just like me, at some offhand remark, you will suddenly find your eyes going red.

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Stories of Youth, Stacked into a "Spiritual Reef"

■ Huang Xinlong

Officers and soldiers of a Navy Nansha garrison unit on duty. Photo by Li Xinyu

The morning sun over the Nansha Islands always leaps from the sea with impatient urgency.

At dawn, before the first golden rays have spread across the sea and sky, Corporal Li Xinyu of a Navy Nansha garrison unit has already jogged to the easternmost point of the reef. He sets up his tripod and adjusts the camera angle again and again, until the lens steadily "frames" the figure, the reef rocks, and the sea about to be ignited by the rising sun.

In the frame, Wang Jingwen, deputy political instructor of a certain company, draws a deep breath, and her clear voice cuts through the sea wind: "Listening to the stories of Nansha, reading the history of Nansha—hello everyone, I am your narrator, Wang Jingwen…"

This is an ordinary scene from the filming of "I'll Tell the Nansha Story." Since it began airing last year, dozens of episodes have accumulated more than ten million views. A group of young people with an average age under 25, armed with a few cameras and burning hearts, have turned the days of reef duty into stories and told the story of Nansha's steadfast watch to countless netizens in the "cloud."

The lens records stories. Behind the lens, there are even more stories.

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Telling the Nansha Story Well Is Also a Form of Steadfast Watch

Everything began with a comment that stung.

Last year, Li Xinyu, returning to his unit after leave, was scrolling through short videos on a high-speed train when he came across one introducing the Nansha Islands. In the comment section, one remark cut him to the quick: "Where are the Nansha Islands? Aren't they all uninhabited reefs?"

Li Xinyu gripped his phone tightly. The scenery outside the window flashed past, but his thoughts drifted back to that distant expanse of blue.

"So many of us are guarding the Nansha Islands, and there are still people who think it's an uninhabited zone!" After lights out, lying in his bunk, Li Xinyu told his comrades what had happened.

The dormitory fell instantly silent. In the darkness, someone turned over: "My parents still can't figure out where the Nansha Islands are… I told them I'd been assigned to Nansha, and my mom stared blankly for a long time and asked whether Nansha was right next to Hainan Island."

"If you search for Nansha online, you really can't see us—real, living people—or what we do every day." Another voice joined in.

That night, the dormitory talked until very late. Outside, waves beat against the reef, each one sounding like a sigh.

What truly ignited action was a lament from a new recruit.

In September of last year, Private Tian Kuiyuan saw off a veteran squad leader who had guarded the Nansha Islands for twelve years, his eyes reddening: "The squad leader has watched over this sea for so long, but besides us, who knows his story? What a shame."

Yes. What a shame.

On the reef, every person is the protagonist of a story: a radar operator keeping lone watch over a screen deep in the night, wrestling with solitude; officers and soldiers protecting sea turtle nests and releasing hatchlings back into the ocean; everyone planting seedlings and trees, cultivating a "South Sea oasis" on the reef…

These ordinary yet burning stories are like scattered pearls. If no one picks them up, strings them together, and tells them, they will ultimately be scattered by the sea wind and swept away by the waves.

A thought took root in the hearts of these young officers and soldiers: tell these stories to the netizen who asked that question, and to everyone who does not know the Nansha Islands.

The idea quickly won support from leadership. "The 'Nansha guardians' of the new era must not only guard the reefs well, but also make more people know about Nansha, pay attention to Nansha, and love Nansha." The unit's leadership was unequivocal: "Every inch of reef in the Nansha Islands is a symbol of national sovereignty. Telling the Nansha story well is also a form of steadfast watch."

The officers and soldiers saw it clearly at once: what they were filming was not an ordinary "life vlog." Every episode is a calling card showcasing the bearing of Nansha servicemembers; every participant is a messenger conveying love of home and country.

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Everyone Is a Creator, Everyone Can Be a Narrator

The enthusiasm burned like fire, but only when they actually got to work did they realize how hard it was.

No professional equipment, no directing experience—at the first meeting, the soldiers sat around the table staring at one another.

Someone suggested filming training scenes to look formidable; someone wanted to film scenery for an aesthetic effect; others argued for focusing on combat readiness and demonstrating capability. Everyone argued heatedly, faces flushed.

"Film history!" The unit leadership made the call, settling the matter with a single decisive word.

With the direction set, ideas flowed freely. Squad leaders dug out long-stored old stories; new recruits contributed fresh ideas; the headquarters staff provided a "story collection"—all of it became precious "ammunition."

Once the scripts were written, filming presented its own major challenges: the Nansha sun is brutally fierce, and cameras exposed to it for even a short time would shut down. The sea wind howled, and microphones were constantly filled with noise. By the time evening finally came and the light softened somewhat, the tide would surge in and equipment had to be pulled back.

No one retreated. With the drive to "cut a road through every mountain," they ground their way to a set of filming techniques unique to island-reef conditions.

The hardest part was appearing on camera. Most narrators were grassroots officers and soldiers who frequently froze up in front of the lens. Staff Sergeant Second Class He Qian, a signals soldier, froze more than ten times during a segment of less than one minute. After several failures, she stamped her feet in frustration, her voice on the verge of tears.

"Our equipment is basic, our technique is rough, but we have something others don't—authenticity!" the squad leader in charge of filming reassured her. "Netizens love watching because we don't perform. Every detail is real. Authenticity is the most powerful thing."

He Qian steadied her breathing and took her position again. Facing the camera, she smiled, turned the script into her own words, and delivered her narration in one unbroken take.

"That's a take!" Under the blazing sun, several deeply tanned young soldiers smiled brighter than the sunlight itself.

Shoot after shoot, adjustment after adjustment, the officers and soldiers found their footing and fell into a natural division of labor: those with a good writing hand polished the scripts, aiming for "the smell of earth" as well as "love of home and country"; those with agile minds devised creative ideas to find novelty in the everyday; those with a steady hand held the camera, keeping watch by the sea from five in the morning to capture the empty establishing shots of sunrise; others specialized in finding "details"—the stone mill of an old reef fortification, a national flag tattered by the sea wind—all of which became moving footnotes in the videos.

Everyone is a creator; everyone can be a narrator. Training breaks and off-duty hours became "creative time." Not beautiful enough? Reshoot. Not satisfied with the script? Revise again. Flip open the notebook of one of the team's lead creators and you find dense clusters of ideas alongside storyboard sketches.

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Creation Gradually Became a Collective "Journey to the Roots"

The more stories they filmed, the deeper the officers and soldiers wanted to dig. And so they became "treasure hunters" of Nansha history.

They plunged into the military history gallery and the hall of honors, brushing dust from old photographs and artifacts; they approached veterans who had guarded the reefs for many years and listened to them recount the hardships of living in "stilted structures" and drinking "sky-gazing water" (rainwater collected by looking up at the sky); they pored over historical records, noting down one by one the ironclad evidence that the Nansha Islands have belonged to China since ancient times, engraving it in their hearts.

"The deeper you dig into the history, the more awe-struck you feel, and the more glorious the mission seems." Narrator Wang Jingwen spoke from deep personal experience. To tell the history of the reefs well, she did thorough preparation and for the first time came to understand in full the journey by which her predecessors surveyed and named the Nansha Islands. In the process, she suddenly understood: what she was narrating was not merely the story of one reef or one person, but a weighty history concerning sovereignty and dignity.

Creation gradually became a collective "journey to the roots" (寻根之旅). The officers and soldiers came to understand that what they guard is not only the reef, but also a history, a legacy, and a heavy responsibility.

The full story of the land beneath their feet took deep root in the hearts of the officers and soldiers, growing into the "root system" (根脉) that sustains their continued watch.

In the past, soldier Liu Zihan was somewhat impetuous. After participating in filming the videos and deeply exploring Nansha history, he seemed like a changed person—his character became steadier, his training drive stronger, and he wanted "to stay in the military for the long term." In March of this year, he was successfully promoted to Corporal.

He Qian, who used to freeze up so often, now speaks Mandarin with increasing precision and carries herself with greater confidence in front of the camera. More importantly, the repeated acts of narrating and looking back gave her a fundamentally different understanding of her mission: "Before, I simply thought that guarding the reef meant keeping a good watch. Now I understand—what we guard is the fruit of thousands of years of our ancestors' cultivation of the South China Sea, generation after generation."

Unit leadership was gratified to discover that after the "I'll Tell the Nansha Story" series was released, the awareness that "you could become the protagonist of a story at any moment" transformed the officers and soldiers' spirit and bearing: they push harder on the training ground, stand watch with greater vigilance, their drive grows stronger, and their passion burns brighter.

Comments from netizens across the country gave the young officers and soldiers enormous encouragement. A student left a message: "Someday I want to enlist and serve in the Nansha Islands." A parent said: "After watching the videos, I can finally feel at ease about my child serving there." A demobilized veteran sent a message: "Thank you for continuing to guard and tell the story in our place."

Every comment was solemnly noted down. The officers and soldiers said: "The recognition of netizens is our motivation to keep telling the story."

In early 2026, "I'll Tell the Nansha Story" was named a "2025 Strong-Military Positive-Energy Online Excellence Work" (2025强军正能量网络精品). When the news reached the Nansha Islands, the officers and soldiers were overjoyed.

Telling the story was the original intent; winning the award was a surprise. The Nansha story continues. Now they have new ideas: filming "four scenes of Nansha," conducting "veteran revisit" segments, and engaging in deeper interaction with netizens.

"We are thinking about how to tell the story with more thought and more depth." As a next step, they plan to dig deeper into the history, culture, and spiritual lineage of the Nansha Islands, weaving sovereignty consciousness and love of home and country more naturally and skillfully into vivid stories.

"No slogans—but we want everyone who watches the video to understand from the bottom of their heart: why this sea must be guarded by Chinese people; why this steadfast watch is something every Chinese person can be proud of." This is the shared voice of the officers and soldiers who participated in the filming.

The setting sun melts into gold; another episode wraps up filming.

Li Xinyu and his comrades sit on the edge of the reef. The evening glow dyes the sea orange-red; the national flag on the reef snaps in the wind like a leaping flame.

"What do we talk about next episode?" someone asks.

"Let's talk about this flag." Li Xinyu points to the national flag, vivid as fire. "Starting from the day the first Five-Starred Red Flag was raised over the Nansha Islands, it has been raised on time every day, rain or shine. Even if only we can see it, I want to tell that story to everyone."

The sea wind brushes their faces—carrying salt and bitterness, but carrying burning heat as well. On this territory at the southernmost tip of the motherland, a group of young people are using unassuming lenses and sincere narration to guard and transmit China's Nansha story.

This is the declaration of sovereignty written by the new-era Nansha officers and soldiers in cyberspace; this is the invisible yet indestructible "spiritual reef" (精神礁盘) stacked up by a group of soldiers with their youth and their love.

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The Lens Is Also a Weapon

■ Cheng Yuanjin

"I'll Tell the Nansha Story" has won an award. Behind the applause, there are also questions: a soldier's duty is to prepare for war and fight it—is it "dereliction of duty" (不务正业) for reef-garrison soldiers to film short videos?

To answer this question, one must first recognize a fundamental truth: today, the battlefield for defending national sovereignty has long extended beyond the reef beneath one's feet. When questions about the Nansha Islands continue to circulate online, silence is loss of voice, and loss of voice may mean loss of ground.

When reef-garrison soldiers raise their lenses, it may look like capturing light and shadow, but in reality they are gripping another kind of "weapon"—what they guard is the invisible territory beyond the tangible land, a territory equally inviolable. This is absolutely not "dereliction of duty"; it is precisely a demonstration of understanding the "primary duty" more deeply and practicing it more concretely.

The deeper value lies in completing a successful act of "sovereignty expression" (主权表达). These young officers and soldiers keenly perceived that cyberspace is equally a battlefield for defending sovereignty. They use their lenses to declare to the world: there are people here, there are stories here—this is China's inalienable territory! When hundreds of millions of netizens come to pay attention to and love the Nansha Islands because of these videos, a powerful emotional consensus and sovereign identity quietly coalesces. This is precisely a vivid expression of the political acuity and sense of mission of the new-era Nansha officers and soldiers—guarding the tangible position while holding the intangible public opinion front; beyond silent perseverance, sounding a powerful voice of the era.

What is worth deep reflection is the way the process of narration itself shapes the officers and soldiers. "Seeking the roots" (寻根) in order to tell the story well allows the younger generation to understand legacy by tracing history, and to anchor their faith by gazing back at the road already traveled. It offers us this insight: the best education is to make officers and soldiers the protagonists of the story rather than spectators; the deepest identification comes from personal experience and personal understanding.

The waves of the Nansha Islands beat against the reef day and night; the waves of the era surge equally through every officer and soldier. By picking up the lens, they actively embrace the era and define what steadfast watch looks like in the new era.

The Nansha story is inexhaustible; the story of a stronger military is even more so. We look forward to more officers and soldiers proactively picking up their lenses and "microphones," telling the brilliance of every reef and island and the steadfast watch at every combat post, and spreading those stories far and wide. Let every ordinary yet burning story of a stronger military become a light that illuminates the human heart!

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The Reefs of Nansha, The Soldiers of Nansha

■ Yi Wenqiang

This is a reef rock. It is neither the miraculous stone of mythology that gave birth to the Stone Monkey, nor the legendary Taishan rock said to ward off evil and protect the home—it is simply the most ordinary of the hundreds of millions of rocks in this world.

But is it truly so ordinary? This is the most common type of reef rock found on the Nansha Islands. Over tens of thousands of years, scoured by time and waves, it has grown ever smoother and more lustrous, yet it has never yielded to this stretch of sea—just like the officers and soldiers who stand watch here, its "sinew and bone" (筋骨) growing ever harder.

The soldiers of Nansha are like the reef rocks of Nansha. Please scan the QR code to draw close to the reef rocks of Nansha and the soldiers of Nansha.

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Reading the Silence of the Reef Rocks

■ Navy Lieutenant Xu Qiwei

When I received the assignment to film the twenty-first episode of "I'll Tell the Nansha Story," I thought about it for a long time.

In the previous twenty episodes, my comrades had told so many stories. It seemed like everything worth telling had already been told. What could I still say?

One day, while walking on the reef, I suddenly noticed something I had never paid attention to before: the reef rocks scattered across the reef had, at some point unknown to me, been carved by my comrades with slogans of all sizes.

The different words on the reef rocks reflect the different feelings of the officers and soldiers. They carved the character for "home" (家) into the reef rocks, expressing the love of home and country embedded in "making the reef one's home" (以礁为家); they chiseled "Nansha Spirit" (南沙精神) into the rocks, engraving their loyalty to the motherland into the grain of the stone; they wrote battle slogans on the rocks to remind themselves to remain ever ready for combat (枕戈待旦).

I once thought reef rocks were cold and hard, without feeling. But when I read carefully the words carved into them, I understood: the garrison officers and soldiers have projected onto these silent rocks their feelings for this sea and this reef, fusing into the stone their faith in guarding the Nansha Islands and defending home and country, endowing the rocks with warmth and spiritual meaning, and distilling a reef-rock culture (礁石文化) unique to Nansha.

During recording, there was one sentence I turned over and over in my mind, and finally spoke to the camera. I said: "The soldiers of Nansha use their loyalty to give the reef rocks a soul, and the reef rocks in turn, through their eternal standing, bear witness to the officers and soldiers' steadfast watch. They are mirror images of each other, resonating with one another, together facing the wind and waves in the vast deep blue, silently guarding the peace of the motherland." That was not a performance. It was what I truly wanted to say from my heart.

On the day the video was released, I stared at the comment section and scrolled down one comment at a time. One comment made my nose sting. A netizen wrote: "I thought the hardest thing in Nansha was the reef rocks. After watching this, I know—the hardest thing is the people standing on the reef rocks."

It turns out that a silent stone can truly connect people who have never met. A thousand li away, a stranger had formed some subtle emotional resonance with us, standing watch in the Nansha Islands. I suddenly understood: bringing this expanse of blue national territory into the public eye, and moving every person who hears the story to feel it and resonate with it—that is the meaning of our narration.

The story of the Nansha Islands—I will keep telling it. I will tell it to everyone, and I will tell it to myself ten years from now—to tell her: you once did something remarkable on China's South China Sea.