Welcome to the apartment museum of Beijing where we have gathered and restored three unit of former residents in the area with very typical life styles 100 years ago: a typical nuclear family of three, a student/young employee living with roommates, and an elderly couple.
Our museum is a three story structure placed in a relatively old high rise built very soon after the demolition of the residential area where we believe three of our residents lived. We were very lucky to have received collective funding as well as object collections from multiple former residents to have been able to restore the look of the three homes in the newly built high rise. However, due to the constant pressure from the contractor of the building, the museum is getting budget cuts constantly. We have spent over [arbitrary number] of money on law fees, restoration and reinforcement of the rooms, but it is getting tighter and tighter for us. If you would like to help preserve our collective memory of the lifestyles before, consider a donation on our website [insert website url].
The typical nuclear family:
Overview:
This family structure was the most common in the early 21th century China when the “one child policy” was still active, and also due to its compact structure where the parents would go to work and most usually driving their children to school on their way, and picking them up after school. This “one line connecting two dots” structure provides efficiency in commute and would ensure the children’s safety under the parents’ or the school’s watch at most of not all times. Most adults living in megacities like Beijing would still be working regular 9 to 5 jobs during the day (the term “9 to 5” was invented also as a result of the commonness of such professions), which was drastically different from today’s huge variety of professions and modes of working. And what the kids study in school is also unrecognizable in today’s standards, which we will see later.
Coming in the front door, we enter the living room/kitchen where everything social used to happen. Family dinners used to be even more of an important thing than now, at least once or twice every week, the whole family would gather around a carefully planned dinner and would talk about their weeks, parents would talk work with each other, and children – small kids and teenagers alike – would be questioned about their school day, grades, and academic performances. Parents would ask about their recent exams, assignments from school as well as outside tutoring classes. Latter of which would become history in several decades due to China’s confusing educational system makeover.
The food however, used to me way more interesting than what would be available now since back then when food was grown worldwide and shipped worldwide via airplanes and freezer trucks to maximize freshness, a big economic center of a city like Beijing would be able to get groceries, meats, and fresh produce from literally every corner of the world – provided that it was profitable for corporations to do. Families with wider knowledge of culinary styles could have Asian, middle eastern, European, and Mexican dishes on one dinner table at once – which is mind-blowing to think about nowadays.
This is a great premise! What would a visitor DO in the museum? Walk me through the experience from entry to exit.