Chinese cartoonist Jingru published an illustrated coffee-table book depicting Chinese scenes during the 1970s. Titled "Recall My 1970s," the book shows water-colored images of people's daily lives at a time when TV, radio and the Internet didn't yet exist.
One picture shows a girl buying soybean sauce from a state-run grocery. In the '70s, the soybean sauce was sold according to weight and people took their own glass bottles to buy it. A related image shows a typical grocery store using paper strings to wrap goods.
Another shows a girl sitting on a chair and listening to the radio. During the '70s when television was not popular among Chinese families, many people in that generation relied on radio to get news and information.
Cartoonist Jingyu also has an illustration of a girl staring at the snow flakes frozen on the window on a cold winter day. Such scenes were common in courtyard houses in the '70s.
A father and his daughters sketching the outline of a wrist-watch on each other's wrist is also depicted. At that time, many Chinese families were unable to afford a real watch, so they sometimes drew a wrist-watch on their children's wrists for fun.
Another illustration shows a girl finding a coin in her dumplings during the family dinner on the eve of the Lunar New Year. People always put coins when they make the dumplings, and whoever eats the dumpling with a coin is believed to have good luck in the New Year.
Jingyu also drew two kids eating sugar-coated haws on a stick, a traditional snack in north China.
An image of people using the public showers in the '70s, when water heaters for home showers were not popular among Chinese families, was also shown.
