Keeping the traces left by the internet
ZISAI began in Chengde in 1998, initially at cd-www.he.cninfo.net. In 2001, it adopted the independent domain zisai.com.
From a local portal within the early postal and telecommunications information network to today’s personal blog, and from dial-up access to mobile internet, nearly thirty years have passed. Many familiar websites, forums and communities have quietly disappeared, their once-busy addresses becoming history.
Looking back, the journey resembles a life: the excitement of beginnings, the rewards of growth, the bustle of maturity and the calm that follows.
Yet the internet has not forgotten everything. Old links survive in news reports, government websites, search engines and web archives. Pages that no longer receive updates still record the meeting of a city, a generation of users and the early internet.
ZISAI Internet Heritage keeps an entry point to those traces. It collects historical pages, former addresses, media reports and public records of ZISAI and related sites, using verifiable material wherever possible to document that they existed.
There is no attempt to recreate their former bustle or add new stories to the past.
Landscapes in words. Time leaves its traces.
About this archive
ZISAI has been redesigned, moved and rebuilt many times. Early material is incomplete.
This archive starts with verifiable records: original pages, third-party reporting and clues preserved in external links. It distinguishes evidence from personal recollection and does not substitute memories for documentation or aim for a particular number of entries.
The archive continues to grow. For historical addresses that are no longer accessible but remain cited online, I hope to keep at least one reachable destination.
The list below contains available English translations. See the Chinese archive for the full collection of former sites and public records.
ZISAI · Since 1998
What we preserve is evidence that these pages once existed.
