As 23-year-old Wang Xiaowen steps into the model cave, childhood memories wash over him. He lived and went to school in damp caves in a poor region of Gansu province .
The model cave dwelling, or yaodong, has been set up in a local shopping centre to give the public a glimpse of what schools are like in the mountainous Loess Plateau zone.
Mr Wang, a postgraduate student at Nanking University, came to the city last week to help in a fund-raising activity, the Reunification and Repay: Rebuilding Collapsing School Project.
'When I was small, I lived and studied in cave dwellings like this, but the conditions were much worse,' said Mr Wang.
'The caves were dim and ventilation was bad. There was no electricity. Water dripped when it rained.'
The model consists of a classroom, a teachers' dormitory and a storage room, and everything inside the school, such as chairs, desks and student exercise books, have been brought here from Gansu.