Memories of change

A Chinese writer of children's literature releases a nonfiction work, based on multiple interviews, Mei Jia reports. 

The Up series of documentary films, which have been directed by British filmmaker Michael Apted for years, is well known. The interviews-based series that originally began in 1964 follows 14 British children as they grow up and lead adult lives. One episode aired every seven years, mostly on the British channel, ITV.

While different in approach-the British series follows the same interviewees over nearly 50 years-a new Chinese book also tries to capture childhood memories through interviews.

A Chinese writer of children's literature recently released the nonfiction book on childhood and related memories-stories that shaped individuals alongside historical and social changes. The author of Childhood Revisited, Yin Jianling, from Shanghai, has spoken to 26 interviewees ages 14 to 97 to draw a larger picture of China's development over almost a century.

"We see many differences in the childhood memories of Chinese born in the early 20th century and those born after 2000. Sometimes, it feels like they lived in two separate worlds," Yin, who was born in 1971, tells China Daily, adding that the emotions of growing up were shared among generations.

One of Yin's interviewees, Luo Hantan, who was born in suburban Tianjin in 1936, talks about growing up without his father, who had left for the revolution in 1935. He worked for the Communist Party of China as an undercover agent.