by Xinhua writers Zheng Jingxia, Zhou Qianxian and Zhan Yan
BEIJING, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Though plastic slippers and terylene shirts are common nowadays, they were hard to come by in China in the 1960s. For Liang Yahui, his dream during his teens was to have a terylene shirt and a pair of plastic slippers.
"They were considered chic and high-end at the time. Terylene was taken as superior to cotton as it was easier to wash and did not wrinkle," recalled Liang, a visitor from Tianjin, pointing to the terylene shirts and blouses on display at the Beijing Exhibition Center.
The memory-provoking terylene shirts were part of the ongoing exhibition to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
Arranged in chronological order and dubbed "time tunnel" by visitors, the exhibition recounts stories of how China has developed from scratch to the world's second-largest economy and delivered visible changes to people's lives.
Apart from terylene clothes, the sewing machine not far away was another exhibit reminiscent of the old days for Liang.
"I used to wear cotton shirts and cloth shoes, all of which were handmade by my mother with her needles and sewing machine," the 65-year-old said, adding that cotton and grain were all in tight supply at the time.
Since China had the capacity to manufacture terylene, the pressure of producing cotton, once a dominant raw material for clothing, has been greatly eased and more arable land has been used to grow grain, a museum narrator said.
The exhibition also presented several homes from different times and regions. An area showing a typical room before the reform and opening-up reminded Liang of the days when he and his four siblings squeezed in one single room.
Gone were the days when a room with only a bed and a desk was deemed decent housing. Now Liang and his wife live in a fully furnished apartment of 80-odd square meters.
Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that China's per capita living space of urban residents expanded from 5.6 square meters in 1956 to 39 square meters in 2018, a leap in people's housing conditions.
The past seven decades also saw per capita disposable income in China register a growth of over 59 times when inflation was factored in. The figure stood at about 49.7 yuan (about 7 U.S. dollars) in 1949, and soared to top 28,200 yuan in 2018, an NBS report showed.
Economic strides have brought about remarkable changes to people's lifestyle.
By no stretch of the imagination could Sun Shien, a retired manager from Beijing, anticipated the ways that he enjoys his leisure time.
Referring his learning horse-riding, skiing and driving after retirement as testaments of the growth of living standards, Sun said that he couldn't be more fortunate to be born into a new China that was free of war and develops rapidly with each passing day.
"With the driver's license I got at 60, I drove to Xinjiang Uygur and Tibet autonomous regions three times," said Sun, who spent an amazing vacation in South Africa recently.
Watching black-and-white footage of the founding ceremony of the PRC at the exhibition, the 75-year-old could not hold back his excitement.
He recalled that one day when he was five years old, his parents brought him to the street where people holding national flags and playing waist drums came flooding in from Tian'anmen Square. "My parents told me that a new China was founded," Sun said.
That, as the exhibition showed, was when China's splendid new journey and all miraculous changes started.
