Personal items can paint a bigger picture of the growth of a nation
Print Edition
ARCHIVISTS in east China’s Jiangsu Province are encouraging residents to collect items of sentimental value, offering free file boxes and guidance on how to preserve them.
The provincial archive bureau has developed free software for residents to manage items which could include movie tickets yellowed with age, primary school report cards, or first love letters.
With the bureau’s help, 64-year-old Xu Xiaozhen in Nanjing, Jiangsu’s capital, has sorted his belongings into 20 boxes.
The oldest document in his collection is a letter he wrote to his father in 1961.
“I was in primary school while dad worked away from home,” Xu recalled.
At that time, educated young people like his father were encouraged to go to poor areas.
He wrote the letter just before Spring Festival on a page torn from his school workbook.
“You should take good care of yourself while alone,” Xu had written, adding that the family had bought two ducks for the holiday.
Half a century later, his father gave the letter back to him.
Xu has also kept a letter from his workplace required for his wedding, paper cuttings made for the wedding, and his father’s graduation certificate.
Xu, a retired judge, said his most valuable items were meeting notices from the past decade. “In one year we had to attend more than 100 meetings,” he said. “It was sheer formalism. I knew it was going to change. Look, it’s much better now,” he said.
“What I have preserved are not just old things, but part of history,” Xu said. “As time passes, we may form new ideas about old matters.”
According to the Jiangsu archive bureau, about 2,000 households in Nanjing have consulted the bureau about starting their own family archives.
“We plan to add another 1,000 households by the end of this year,” said the Nanjing bureau’s Cui Liping.
While most of the files are stored by residents at home, they may keep valuable items at the bureau that could include diaries, manuscripts, photographs, tapes and diplomas.
“Documents from each family reflect the changes they went through over the decades, while the collections from many households taken together reflect the development of society,” Cui said.
He Xingyun, 84, began keeping financial accounts for her family in 1958, jotting down income and expenditure every day. Her 22 books hold records ranging from two cents for a needle to 600,000 yuan (US$87,900) for a house. Since she began keeping records, the price of a steamed bun rose from 20 cents to one yuan.
“The books offer a small glance at China’s economic growth,” she said.
Xu Yun, a retired teacher in her 70s, her daughter and granddaughter all kept detailed records of their lives. Their diaries show the changes in women’s experiences from generation to generation.
“With the diaries I would like to tell people, our descendants in particular, about the loyalty and love in our family,” Xu said.
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