“The baby carrier represented goodwill from my husband’s aunt, so I couldn’t bear to part with it, and I put it in the wardrobe.”

“The object I brought is a mei-dai [Cantonese for baby carrier] for carrying babies.

I have had this cloth bag for a long time. My husband’s aunt made it for him. He was very young then. It was made for my husband’s future child. It was many years ago. It was made before I met him.

The older generation was very concerned about family descendents. So she said that she would make one for my husband for future use. I have never used it before. I got married when I was in my thirties. My daughter is now in her 40s. When she was a baby, nobody used baby carriers. And we were busy with renovating our place; she was looked after by other people. Our family was poor, and we had little education. So I never used it, but since it was given to us, we kept it. It was nicely wrapped up, and we placed it in the cupboard. You can still see the lines indicating that it is a new object. I’ve never opened it. This type of baby carrier was no longer in use when I had my daughter. The other day, one of the facilitators from the group asked if I had anything old. I thought and I looked through my belongings, then I found this baby carrier.

My husband’s aunt was very thoughtful, she made it herself, and it looked very beautiful, and it could expand into a very big baby carrier. My husband’s aunt was very skillful. The baby carrier represented goodwill from my husband’s aunt, so I couldn’t bear to part with it, and I put it in the wardrobe. I want to keep it as as a memory in the living museum, because some people have never seen it before. These things are important for the younger generation – like the baby carrier, you can’t buy it now even if you wanted to.”