Saving the date

In 2009, Wang Guanliang and her colleagues－editors at the Forbidden City Publishing House in Beijing－attended a lecture on publications from the 1930s.

Perhaps the one that impressed them the most was the Palace Museum's calendar of 1937, the last one published since the Forbidden City started making such calendars in 1932.

After getting the opportunity to borrow the calendar from the museum's library and examine it further, they proposed to resume publishing the annual calendar.

"Because time was limited－and to pay homage to older-generation experts－we decided to reproduce the 1937 edition, keeping the design and all the photos of the historical relics in it," Wang says.

"But, in addition to updating the information for the dates, we also made some changes to the cover, such as using red cloth stamped with golden characters."

As electronic devices became commonplace, calendars mainly became perfunctory gifts given to business partners or benefits for employees, especially those in State-run companies and governmental bodies.