Thousands of kettles dating back from the 1960s to the Neolithic Age are on display in China's first private kettle museum that has just opened in Baoding, Hebei Province.
The museum is run by Shang Baoli, a famous collector in Baoding.
Shang's ancestors were in the tradition of collecting things. Shang, 40, began to collect kettles when he was a teenager. To date, he has spent 1 million yuan collecting kettles although he is far from rich.
He has walked through much of China for collecting kettles of different times. Now he has thousands of kettles of different materials such as pottery, porcelain, iron, bronze, jade and agate, wood, etc.
Since 1993, his kettles have been brought to many exhibitions and won several prizes. Visitors from the United States, France, Singapore, South Korea and Japan came on purpose to appreciate his collection in his home.
Shang said, "I have a sweet dream every time when I collect a kettle of a high value. From these kettles I can see political, economic and cultural changes in different times. I think that in one way or another they reflect the history of human development."
(Xinhua 05/11/2001)
