2024 marks the 700th anniversary of Marco Polo's passing. In this year, Alessandro Martini, a young man from Milan, Italy, performed in the dance theatre Invisible Cities, portraying his idol Marco Polo. 

His Chinese friends affectionately call him Alex. Alex has longed for coming to China ever since he heard about Marco Polo's story in elementary school. He started to learn Chinese in high school. Several years later, he finally came to this fascinating Eastern country and stayed for eight years. 

Over the past eight years, Alex has travelled to most parts of China and thrilled to discover that the mysterious Chinese intangible cultural heritage is a collection of Chinese wisdom and techniques that can be touched and learnt. So, as the modern-day "Marco Polo", he will visit some uniquely charming cities to learn traditional Chinese crafts and explore local youth-run shops and museums from young inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, thus sharing these fascinating Eastern techniques with everyone. 

Alex travelled to Nanjing, Jiangsu province to learn about gold foil. Marco Polo once described the Orient as the land of gold in The Travels of Marco Polo. Gold is hammered into foil, as thin as a cicada’s wing and as soft as silk. It represents the spirit of being tempered through countless trials, and yet maintaining the true grit, which is admired by Chinese. Yet, gold foil endures and dazzles through thousands of years.