Let me show you my old antique first!! This Changhong black and white TV was bought in 1978. It was the second TV set in the whole village back then~ (Click for more pictures) I couldn't find it at first, but eventually, with my not-so-good memory, I finally found it in the warehouse of my old house, and surprisingly, it still works! But it takes half an hour to warm up before any picture comes out, and the sound quality is still as good. The reason might be that the southern humidity has moistened the cathode ray tube! You need to let it warm up first to evaporate the moisture before using it! This old thing once brought great honor to my family, and recently, it made me proud again when I took it to participate in an activity organized by Changhong to look for TVs that are 30 years old!
Seeing this, I remembered the first time I saw a TV, which instantly took me back to my childhood. I was born in a remote, very remote village. One day, the family with the biggest house in the village suddenly carried back a square box, with a long antenna on top and a round knob on the right side. That was quite novel at the time. People from nearby villages all came, layer upon layer. The owner proudly introduced: "This is a TV, you can see people performing and dancing inside." I innocently interjected: "If there are people inside, how did they get in?" The owner laughed heartily. Then people started to install the antenna, and we curious kids just waited there until evening. Finally, it was ready, and many people had already left, but there was still a room full of people! The owner plugged in the power, turned on the switch, and after turning the knob several times, suddenly a white light appeared, and human figures showed up in the square box, talking and moving. Immediately, everyone in the room shouted and gathered around, discussing: "It's really amazing, you can actually see people!" "Hey, don't push, let me see too..." Someone couldn't resist and slapped the shell of the square box. The owner anxiously called out: "Don't mess with it, don't mess with it..." In the chaos, there was a soft "tsi..." sound, and the figure disappeared, replaced by many snow dots. The owner complained: "I told you not to mess with it!" Then he ordered someone: "You go outside and shake that big bamboo stick, which has the outdoor antenna tied to it." The person went outside, and we all obediently sat back down. After a while, the person outside asked the people inside: "Is it clear now?" The people inside shouted: "Turn it a bit more..." and the singer on TV came back, and everyone settled down to watch the performance. Until nightfall, no one ate dinner until the owner turned it off, and then we realized that no one had eaten...
Since then, every day after school, the children in our village would drop their schoolbags and head to that family's house. However, there were already many people there, including many adults.
I said to Dad: "Dad, can we buy a TV too?" Dad immediately said: "No! That thing is expensive, we can't afford it." I hurriedly said: "I don't want new clothes, I don't want breakfast money, I don't want to eat meat either, I..." and said a bunch of things... Dad, annoyed by me, said: "If you score 100 points on your exam, I'll buy it." I nodded vigorously. Scoring 100 in math and Chinese was easy when I was young.
Afterwards, our family lived frugally for over a year and finally bought the tight commodity - a "Changhong" black and white TV!!! At that time, I was excited for days, watching TV every day from 6 PM to 12 AM after coming home from school.
Later, families in the village gradually bought their own TVs, and the days of a large group of people gathering around one TV were gone. A few years later, color TVs appeared. The earliest color TVs were imported from abroad and belonged to luxury goods, which few families could afford, but soon, domestically produced color TVs appeared, and their quality was very good. In recent years, with the rapid development of the national economy, our family's life became increasingly comfortable, and as the head of the family, Dad decided: "Change to a 17-inch color TV!"
Now, I am also a dad, with my own family. I live in a three-bedroom two-living room house, and both bedrooms and the living room are equipped with color TVs, and they are even liquid crystal ultra-thin ones. There are three of us in the family, each with a TV, and almost all TV programs across the country can be received. Comparing these scenes of childhood memories with now, it's really a tremendous change!