Yan Cong's skin looks like he spends a lot of time outdoors exposed to the sun, wind and rain. In fact, he does.
Wearing dark green camouflage and carrying a crescent knife, he and his colleagues patrol 7 kilometers of China's border with Myanmar around 350 days a year.
Over the past five decades, Yan has walked more than 100,000 kilometers. Officers come and go, but he has stuck with his job protecting the safety of his hometown.
Born in 1960 and raised in Ximeng county in Yunnan province, Yan recalls drug dealers and smugglers crossing the border frequently when he was a child. He felt a sense of urgency to protect the border and his village.
"We need to do something to let the smugglers realize there are people patrolling, and they might be caught," he said.
On a China Central Television show about youth shaping the future, Yan Hu, the son of Yan Cong, shared the family's story of safeguarding the country's border over the past 56 years.
Yan Cong's father was among the first to patrol the border after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. He taught his son and grandson that protecting the country was an important part of safeguarding their home. The elder man is the head of a Wa village in Ximeng county.
Patrolling the border is not easy. There are no roads, and there might be dangerous animals in the forests.
"The trail will be full of thorns and weeds if you don't walk it frequently. A leader is necessary for people not familiar with the road," Yan Hu's father taught him.
At the age of 10, Yan Cong started patrolling the border on his own. He told his son about a dark night in the rain when he tried to cut the thorns but accidentally cut his own leg. His leg aches sometimes even now because treatment was delayed at the time. But he has no regrets.
"When I patrolled the border with my father and border police for the first time when I was 6, I complained that the trail was so long. He told me it was endless and encouraged me to keep going," Yan Hu said.
"When we pass the boundary markers made of stone, he always asks me to touch them. When I do so, I seem to feel the efforts of my father and my grandfather, and their devotion."
In 1993, Yan Cong witnessed the building of boundary markers No 180 and No 181. When patrolling with policemen, he will carefully introduce the history of each boundary stone and stress the importance of safeguarding the border with the younger members.
"For me, my father and grandfather are ordinary people but also heroes," Yan Hu said. "I will carry on the mission, and patrol the border with my father."
