Xue Jinyu, a retired worker in Cixian County, north China's Hebei Province, has collected 20,000 badges of Mao Zedong in 30 years.
Xue, born in 1943, was a member of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
Xue's home is a quiet courtyard full of flowers and grass. On the 2nd floor, various kinds of Mao Zedong's badges are on display in his three rooms of 70 square meters.
The earliest badges dating back to 1928 and the latest to 1999 are different in sizes, with the smallest one measuring 9mm in diameter and the largest, 500 mm. His badges are made with different materials such as gild, silver, stainless steel, glass, bamboo, ceramics, copper and jade.
Xue said that he began to collect Mao's badges in 1965. Since then he has spent at least 100,000 yuan on a total of 20,000 badges. Those badges were exhibited for the first time in 1993 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mao Zedong. And they were opened to the general public in 1998.
He has also collected badges of world celebrities, badges, medals, certificates of advanced workers from all walks of life in different historical periods. His collections vividly display the history of the CPC and attracted people from all over China to visit.
By May 1, a total of 30,000 people all over China had visited Xue's badge exhibition.
(People's Daily 05/26/2001)
