Higher living standards

Four decades of reform and opening-up have seen higher living standards and helped China to become the world's second-largest economy.

The NBS said GDP has risen from 370 billion yuan in 1978 to almost 83 trillion yuan last year.

According to people.cn, the annual growth rate was 14.5 percent, and last year, China accounted for 16 percent of the global economy, compared with 1.8 percent in 1978.

Transportation

Li Yan, a 45-year-old consultant in the field of information and communications technology in Beijing, was among the visitors at Song's exhibition. "Foreign products flowing into the country had a huge impact - boosting innovation, both in products and ideas," she said.

Reflecting on the most impressive change for her in the past 40 years, Li plumped for the improvement in the transportation network.

"Back in my school days, we used student tickets when we took a bus to school, but they only arrived every 30 minutes in the morning. The infrequent, crowded buses made attending school very difficult," she said.

During the past four decades, transportation payment systems were upgraded from paper tickets to travel cards, and today smartphone apps provide convenience when using public transportation.

Public vehicles have improved, too. Last year, Beijing Public Transport owned and operated 26,363 public vehicles, compared with 3,315 in 1978. Moreover, 739 routes have been added to the 119 that operated in 1978.

Li said that when she first visited Europe 20 years ago, she was shocked by the advanced subway and high-speed rail networks.

"However, I recently returned from a business trip to Italy. My assistant asked me not to tease her about their subway systems. She was worried that people from China would find the networks old-fashioned because China's rate of development is much faster," she said.

Visitors to Song's exhibition stopped to view items that caught their eye, especially those connected to their younger selves.

A dusty abacus in a corner attracted the attention of accountant Yin Mingxian. Though computers and mobile phones are universally popular nowadays, the simple counting frame invented during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) is still used because of its accuracy and convenience.

"When I started my first job in the 1990s, we had had calculators, but I still used an abacus because I regarded it as much more accurate," she said, with a laugh. "Veteran accountants preferred the old-fashioned abacus in particular. Today all companies use computers to do their accounts."