Video project looks back at youth

Former students recall their younger selves a decade after leaving university. Yan Dongjie reports.

Last month, Wei Longjie received a "time capsule" in the form of a short video from 2012 in which he spoke about his life and said some words to his future self.

Wei was one of nearly 100 graduates-to-be from Renmin University of China and other top universities who were interviewed in Beijing that year.

In the video, Wei said the moment of which he was most proud was when he was awarded as the "annual champion" in the local round of a national knowledge competition TV program in 2008 in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

"That day, I had the highest 'paycheck' in my life, before now," Wei said, noting that he won 15,000 yuan ($2,150), a few electronic devices and plane tickets to South Korea.

He and the other winners even became role models for thousands of teenagers nationwide, many of whom wrote to him to express their admiration.

"So many things have happened in 10 years," Wei said, adding some of the winners had gone from being "attractive young men" to "fat uncles".

"Time is a butcher's knife, and sometimes it carves pigs, too," he said with a laugh, quoting an old Chinese saying. He mentioned that he had recently met a friend who had also been a provincial champion. "The girls who wrote him letters might not want to see him now," he said jokingly.

Gao Song, the video project's founder called it The Stories of Yuanbaoers, which refers to the interviewees and means "precious gold". At the time, he was a senior student at Renmin University.

He promised the interviewees that he would send them the videos in 2022, and also give them an opportunity to respond to their younger selves.

In the interviews, the Yuanbaoers shared their thoughts on their studies, lives, questions they had about their impending graduation and their expectations. In addition, they each addressed their future selves while looking into the camera lens.

"I started The Stories of Yuanbaoers because I was at a very confused stage of my life in March 2012. I felt that the people around me were the same as me. They didn't know what they were going to do in the future," Gao said.

He spent a year filming his classmates, friends and people around them. "They were all about 20 years old. Life was very confusing and full of infinite possibilities," he recalled.