小小徽章浓缩近一世纪的老工厂历史 - 2016年02月19日

Once upon a time, every factory had decorative lapel pins marking its existence. Minhang resident Xu Ronggen has been collecting them as bits of history and now has amassed more than a hundred dating back to the 1930s.

Living in an apartment of no more than 60 square meters, Xu said the collection of pins is his only valuable asset.

"To people who don't understand their value, pins are just pieces of scrap metal," said Xu. "But to me, the pins chronicle the industrial development of Shanghai and Minhang."

Xu is a retired worker from the former Shanghai Electric Machine Co. His interest in industry started in the 1950s, when his father worked for Shanghai Huasheng Electric Appliances Co and was given a factory pin as a present.

After the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression broke out in 1937, his father moved from place to place, working at different factories and collecting pins along the way.

"In the beginning, I didn't know why my father cherished the shabby-looking pins so much," Xu said. "My father told me that the pins bore witness to how war destroyed domestic industries. He wanted me to remember that."

In 1935, Huasheng was manufacturing more than 30,000 electric fans a year and had the market cornered. After the war, the company lost its momentum and had to move further inland.

After the establishment of People’s Republic of China in 1949, many factories in Shanghai moved to Minhang, creating a new industrial base in the city.

Influence by his father, Xu developed a fascination for factory pins and began collecting them from wherever they could be found: a turbine factory, an asbestos factory, a mining machinery factory and many plants.

"In the old days, every employee of a factory was asked to wear the company pin," said Xu. "It was a symbol of belonging."

Pins evolved over time. In the 1950s, traditional Chinese characters were used on the pins, and the designation guo ying, or "state owned," was common. In the 1960s, traditional characters were replaced by simplified Chinese characters, and in the 1980s, pinyin was added.

To find old pins, Xu scours flea markets and antique sellers. Sometimes friends and acquaintances aware of his hobby give him pins they find in old household stashes.

"It hasn't been easy," Xu said of collecting. "You can spend a half day in a market looking for old pins and come back with nothing."

Beyond just collecting, Xu said he studies the stories behind the pins. He said that is the true vocation of a serious collector.

"Every pin has a story," said Xu. "The pins reflect how people think at different times and show how politics affected the development of industries."

He tells the story from the 1950s where a worker went back to his hometown to visit his parents. On the long-distance bus tip, a girl sitting next to him saw the factory pin on his chest and was impressed by the words guo ying.

At that time, state-owned companies meant good pay and benefits. The girl, figuring she had met a man of substance, followed him home after the bus trip ended and asked him to marry her.

Xu's collection includes a gold pin bearing the portrait of Mao Zedong. That has a story, too. In 1952, the Shanghai Qinfeng Ferroelectric Factory, where Xu’s father-in-law worked, was merged with the Shanghai Electric Machine Co. Qinfeng was the family business of Rong Yiren (1916-2005), former vice president of China. Rong’s family gave every employee a gold pin of Mao, with their names carved on the backside, to show its dedication to the Communist Party.

Xu has compiled a book with pictures of his pins and captions explaining their significance. The book is entitled "How Old Pins Bear Witness to History."

"I hope that the book might be published one day, so that people come to appreciate how these pins show them something about their past," said Xu.