Dusty junk retains living history

• Source: Global Times
• [22:39 October 14 2009]
• Comments

 

"I learned English with the radio in the early 1990s when most of China was learning the English language," says Xie Jialin. Photo: Guo Yingguang

Trophy & TV: 1980s

Born to an era of basic material want, Xie says everyone used to focus much more on spiritual life.

Twice the size of a brick, an encyclopedia about the use and origin of Chinese characters is Xie's favorite example: not just for content, but also for pride.

He won the encyclopedia in a national contest among State-owned factories of the 1980s. Xie came second among 17 participants.

"It was a national contest. I felt very proud of myself," says Xie. "I treasure this encyclopedia. I keep it in the center of my bookshelf so that I can use it when I encounter character questions.

"The encyclopedia has seen all the transitions over these years of my family but it still remains 80-percent new."

The cover price was 36 yuan at a time when Xie earned 81 yuan a month.

"It was very precious then and people were never awarded money at that time, not like today.

"Today there is only one type of award: money," he says.

Something as apparently disposable today as a cup, a book or a notebook came laden with meaning for each and every owner at that time.

Perhaps more than any other household item, the TV emerged, tracked and measured the evolution of reform and opening-up.

"Every night my son ran downstairs to my neighbor's house to watch TV as at that time there were only two or three in the building," Yang says.

"I made up my mind to buy a TV set for my son."

"Commodities were scarce and the day I bought my family's first TV there was a long line outside the shop."

Yang bought a 21-inch Sony TV, the first popularly generation of imported color TVs available on the Chinese mainland.

"I rushed into the shop and I had about one second to check the screen and buy it," Yang says.

"Otherwise, others would have jumped in."

Pager and mobile: 1990s onwards

Xie was first in line for a pager.

"From 1992-1995, I used a digital beeper. During that time, people who owned a pager were envied by others as it was a status symbol.

"Only a few people in China could afford that kind of communication device."

All Xie's messages were numbers only. There were no letters or characters on pagers. Codes evolved like "123" to mean "Come home" or "456" for "Call me back."

Xie remembers he often forget the meaning of the more obscure code and had to check. Naturally Xie was delighted when he got a beeper with Chinese characters in 1996. An aging Xie has more recently witnessed the mobile phone evolve from a "luxury of China in the new millennium" to "a necessity of modern Chinese daily life."

Surveying his mini-empire of mobile phones the size of bricks and pagers that nobody needs, Xie says each article is like a social history textbook. With a little imagination and effort, each connects the savvy observer to true situation of ordinary people's life over the last 60 years.

"A person should never forget the past: his old acquaintances or old friends and the old stuff in his life," says Xie, "because one shouldn't forget history and should see history with an objective view."