Restoring ancient books, a daunting but promising task for China
Updated 21:44, 08-Jun-2020
CGTN

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For 23 year-old Li Yanjun, it was a coincidence that she became an ancient book restorer.

When she was about to graduate from university, she watched the documentary "Master in Forbidden City" which depicts the lives of antique restorers, and decided to seek a similar job instead of becoming a teacher like most of her classmates. 

She was lucky to be recruited to China's first and only museum on the restoration of ancient books in southwest China's Sichuan Province, which just opened at the end of last year. 

The 1,100-square-meter museum in Chengdu displays more than 500 restored ancient texts, some of which are the works of accomplished restorers. It also is a gateway into the complicated procedures of the endangered craft that is vital to the country's huge inventory of ancient books.

To let visitors better understand the craft, which includes over 20 steps from making glue to bookbinding, the museum also has a demonstration zone. It is where Li Yanjun and her colleagues work.

"I'm honored to do this job. I may not exist in this world 100 years later, but I would have left my trace in the restored ancient books. It is very meaningful to me," said Li.

The museum is part of the Ancient Texts Restoring Center of Western Sichuan, which is one of 26 national-level institutes focused on the craft inheritance. The center, founded in 2009, has developed from five restorers to more than 30, and restored over 170,000 ancient books at the end of 2019.

Visitors looks at the restored ancient texts in the museum on ancient book restoring in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. /Xinhua News Agency

Visitors looks at the restored ancient texts in the museum on ancient book restoring in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province. /Xinhua News Agency

"Many of the ancient books restored by us are very precious, such as the texts discovered from the Mogao Grottoes in 1900," said Peng Dequan, the founder of the museum.

The 74-year-old said many skilled restorers are elderly without successors, which prompted him to open the museum to promote the craft.

In China, books written or printed before 1912 featuring classical book-binding styles are classified as ancient books.

China started an ancient books protection project in 2007. It is estimated that China has about 50 million ancient books.

Incomplete statistics shows that about 30 percent of the ancient books need restoration, said Yang Guanghui, executive vice-president of Fudan University Chinese Ancient Books Preservation and Conservation Institute.

Facing such a daunting task, there is only less than 150 ancient book restorers across the country before 2007. Although the number of restorers has increased to exceed 1,000 as of 2017, a shortage of restorers remains.

China started to nurture the high-end ancient talent by recruiting specialized masters at universities in 2014. As of 2019, four universities which have specialized masters' programs have recruited 126 students in total, among which Fudan University and Tianjin Normal University also set up their own research institute on ancient books preservation.

In the internet era, digitalization is also an important method to preserve the ancient books. 

As of November 2019, the digital version of more than 72,000 ancient books has been published across the country, all of which are free for people to read online.

(With input from Xinhua)

(Cover image designer: Li Wenyi)