Qiu Jianqiu and the radios he collected.[Photo by Sun Junjun]

Early on the morning of May 18, International Museum Day, Qiu Jianqiu, a man in his 60s, walked into the China Radio Museum of Zhongshan (CRM) located on Sunwen Middle Road, and joyfully greeted the museum staff. It was a Saturday, when the museum received many visitors.

Presently, hundreds of radio models, from the early 1900s to 1980s, of dozens of domestic brands are exhibited in CRM. These collections, including typical products of different periods, cover the entire history of China's radio development.

"The museum not only demonstrates how the world's radio industry developed over the past century, but also shows the rapid development of Chinese electronic industry since the founding of China," Qiu Jianqiu said.

As the main donor, in 2004, he selected over 2,000 radios from his ten-year collections and donated them to Zhongshan Museum.

2005 witnessed the establishment of China's very first radio theme museum in Zhongshan. Over the decade, CRM has welcomed millions of visits, and a great proportion of visitors have been experts and scholars in the broadcasting and television industry and Chinese radio lovers.

In fact, radios are just part of Qiu's collections. "I have expanded my scope in the past over ten years. So far, my collections fall into such categories as radios, film projectors, electronic instruments, communication devices and etc."

Not long ago, a Hong Kong film industry leader and a professor from South China University of Technology visited Qiu Jianqiu and expressed their wish to build an "international film history museum" together. Since then, Qiu's goal was to build his own film history museum in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

In addition, Qiu Jianqiu is also planning a book on his collection knowledge. He hoped to record the history of China's electronic industry with both material objects and texts, and pass down the culture to later generations.