Industrial Heritage Suzhou Numeral Board Surrounded by Garbage
Related report by Legal Evening News in February of this year
Photo / Legal Evening News / Law Vision News Reporter Cui Yifei
Pictured above: The Suzhou numeral board surrounded by garbage
Photo / Legal Evening News / Law Vision News Reporter Cui Yifei
December 29, 2017, Legal Evening News
Legal Evening News / Law Vision News (Reporter Cui Yifei) — Relics of the "Suzhou numeral boards" that witness a century of Chinese railway history are located along the side of the Jingmen Railway. In February of this year, after this matter was reported by Legal Evening News, the Shijingshan District cultural relics department went to the site to inspect it, stating that they would incorporate these precious cultural relics into the industrial heritage catalog and strive to protect them in-situ. However, recently, railway cultural scholar Wang Wei discovered that one of the Suzhou numeral boards was actually surrounded and besieged by domestic garbage.
At the beginning of this year, along the side of the Jingmen Railway, three cement boards with strange characters were distributed, catching the attention of railway cultural scholar Wang Wei. Through textual research, the characters on the cement boards were identified as rare "Suzhou numerals."
Suzhou numerals are early Chinese folk "commercial numerals," originating from counting rods in Chinese history, produced in Suzhou, China, and mostly used for numerical records in old-time commerce, handicrafts, pawnshops, accounting, and bookkeeping. Today, they can still occasionally be seen in markets, old-style cha chaan teng (cafes), and traditional Chinese medicine pharmacies in Hong Kong and Macau. When the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway and Jingmen Railway were initially built, mileage posts and gradient boards along the route also used Suzhou numerals.
In February of this year, the Shijingshan District cultural relics department learned through Legal Evening News that Suzhou numeral boards still survived within the region. Led by reporters from Legal Evening News / Law Vision News, they conducted an on-site inspection of the three Suzhou numeral boards within the region and stated that they would strive for in-situ protection.
Recently, however, Wang Wei discovered that one of the Suzhou numerals had actually become neighbors with garbage. Reporters from Legal Evening News / Law Vision News saw at the site that a Suzhou numeral cement board by the side of the tracks was entirely surrounded by discarded disposable lunch boxes, waste lumber, and white plastic bags, with an environment that was extremely messy and chaotic.
This morning, reporters from Legal Evening News / Law Vision News called the cultural relics section of the Shijingshan District Culture Commission, where a staff member surnamed Wang stated they would look into and understand the matter.
Based on information mastered by Wang Wei, fewer than 20 Suzhou numeral board relics survive on railways in the Beijing area, all of which have a history of over 100 years. There are 3 at the China Railway Museum. Of the 8 inside Qinglongqiao Station on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, most were voluntarily protected by railway workers—one of which was transported by Wang Wei from the Zhuozishan section of the Jingbao Railway to Qinglongqiao. The rest are all scattered along the tracks of old railway lines.
