Down memory lane

Videos of wobbly TV aerials, black-and-white programs, and ice cream sold on the back of a bike reveal a yearning for yesteryear, Xu Lin reports.

A black-and-white TV set is broadcasting a scene with Monkey King from Journey to the West, a series first aired in the 1980s and adapted from a classical Chinese novel of the same name.

Back then, getting a good TV signal was not always guaranteed and aerials often had to be adjusted by hand to get watchable transmission.

Now the scene is being repeated as we step back in time. Wang Cunjin carefully turns a long pole attached to an old-fashioned TV aerial in the yard and holds it to get a strong and stable signal.