Yang Shuangfeng conducts equipment check on DDG-163 Nanchang, a decommissioned destroyer ship which is now a military theme park, in Nanchang, east China's Jiangxi Province, Aug. 8, 2019. After it was decommissioned in September 2016, DDG-163 Nanchang, a Type 051 guided-missile destroyer of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, remains a tourist attraction in Nanchang, the city after which it was named. To navy veteran Yang Shuangfeng, the last Chief Engineer on DDG-163, the ship means more like a comrade than a mere tourist destination. When DDG-163 went out of service, Yang had realized that it was hard for him to just give up on this "old comrade". Eventually he persuaded his family to relocate from Dalian in northeast China to Nanchang, where it is docked, and continued working on the ship. DDG-163 became open to the public on Aug. 1, 2017 as a military theme park. Since then, Yang has been offering free tour guide on board DDG-163 while conducting daily maintenance. Yang says he feels motivated to stay with DDG-163 as long as the public still shows interest and keeps coming to visit. (Xinhua/Meng Dingbo)
