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Man believes in power of letters
http://www.sina.com.cn 2004/06/28 10:28  Shanghai Daily

  People collect everything from coins and stamps to bottle caps and sportscards.

  Chen Ren is also a collector. But it's not your average matchbook collection. Chen writes letters to world leaders and collects the responses.

  During the past 20 years he has received more than 300 letters, envelopes, stamps, photos and signatures from 95 presidents, premiers, chairmen and even royalty.

  Last July, Chen opened the Shanghai Peace Museum, China's first and only private collection exhibiting postal items signed by heads of state. Since then he has welcomed some of the city's most prominent foreigners.

  Guests include the consul-generals of Iran, Egypt and South Africa. A US Consulate delegation visited three weeks ago.

  Now the 56-year-old local man says he is writing an autobiography titled "My Story." He is also planning to introduce his collection of letters abroad.

  "By putting letters and pictures of different heads of state together, I try to deliver a message that no matter how far and dissimilar, people of all nations are standing hand-in-hand and side-by-side," he says. "That's how I understand the starting point of peace."

  Chen doesn't appear to be a man who corresponds with the world's most powerful people. For more than 35 years he has done what everyone is doing - get up, go to work, come home and watch a little television.

  It all changed on July 28, 1984, after he sent a letter to the director of the New York postal bureau to complain about one of their working defects.

  A month later he received a reply from the American.

  "I was ecstatic and so proud," Chen says. "I began thinking about writing to post directors around the world."

  That plan was soon abandoned for something more ambitious. Chen says he started writing to the leaders of different countries to express his hope of keeping peace in the world.

  In June 1985, Chen received a letter from the prime minister of New Zealand - his first reply from a world leader.

  "I wrote to them not because I believed I would get a response, but because I dared to have a try," he says. "There is always success and failure.

  The only time you meet 100 percent defeat is when you lose hope and courage."

  In 1988, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent Chen a letter. Former US President George Bush mailed him signed photographs two years later.

  Chen has given up his job as a ship's engineer, used his own money and vacated his 24-square-meter bedroom to open the museum in his home. Still he has no complaints.

  "I'm not making a living," he says. "I'm following my heart."

  The Shanghai Peace Museum is located at No. 2 Gongping Road, Lane 200.

  Those who are interested can also visit Chen's Website at www.peacedialogue.com.




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