The Museum of China's Residents' Committees opened to the public on Dec 21 in Hangzhou's Shangyangshi Community. The 3,000-square-meter museum features exhibits of community development in China through video, photos, films, 3D movies, text, relics, paintings and other objects. Visitors can take in the history of China's urban residents' committee, a basic unit of neighborhood organization going back to ancient times and later highly developed by the People's Republic of China.

The museum is divided into five pavilions that cover the development of urban neighborhood committees; the community construction; a documentary and historical data library; the modern community work and the delivery of services.

More than 10,000 items collected from around China are displayed. They include an old tape recorder, a committee telephone from Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, a Model Family trophy from the 1950s from Fujian Province, a porcelain-enamel cup popular in the early 1990s from Hangzhou's Xiaoyingxiang area, and a notepad filled with work agendas in the 1970s from Tianjin.

The community last year was confirmed as the country's first residents' committee by the State Ministry of Civil Affairs. This new form of grassroots organization was set up in cities throughout China by 1956.

By Li Hui