Family story: The words I know best are the names of my family

Keywords: Literacy campaign.

At the beginning of the literacy campaign, Xin Ruilin did not have access to literacy textbooks with which to teach workers, so he wrote his own. Every evening, he used a fountain pen to write his own material, the first page of which was a collection of Chairman Mao quotations. In place of drafting paper for his lessons, Xin Ruilin asked the workers to save all the paper from the cement packaging, which when unfolded and cleaned, served as a good substitute for the drafting paper he needed. He painted in bold gridlines on the paper with his writing brush to make wall charts for his lessons.

Xin Ruilin posing with his wife at Tiananmen  Rostrum in 1998

Xin Ruilin (standing) teaching construction site  workers engineering

Self-edited literacy textbooks.

Head of the household: Xin Ruilin (81years old)

Wife: He Lan (83 years old)

Family members: 15 people, including a son and his wife, a daughter and her husband, and grandchildren.

Family profile: The head of the household was born in Hongdong, Shanxi Province, came to work in Beijing in 1951 and is now living in North Hongmiao Community in Chaoyang District.