Dabancheng: Years Lost in Singing

"Dabancheng: Years Lost in Song" is an epic that spans time and space. During the war in Xinjiang in 1877, Yi Ming, who was forced to serve as a soldier, fell in love with Alam Khan, a girl from Dabancheng. After fleeing and being sieged, they finally got married in Dunhuang, but they were separated forever because of Yi Ming's early death. Alam Khan spent his whole life guarding this memory of love. In 1904, the German explorer Lecoq recorded an ancient sad version of this folk song in Turpan, witnessing a true history. During the Anti-Japanese War in 1938, musician Wang Luobin heard its simplified version in Lanzhou and adapted it into a cheerful melody that was sung across the country and became a symbol of hope. The three timelines intersect in the song, telling the eternal themes of war and peace, love and loss, revealing how art carries memory, transcends life and death, and allows ordinary people's stories to gain immortal life in the melody.