HEFEI, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- Couples and lovebirds are gearing up to celebrate their relationships as Qixi festival, or Chinese Valentine's Day, falls on Wednesday.
For those who are facing fresh breakups or are in the middle of one, however, one museum may be the go-to place for some solace.
A breakup museum, which opened in April in Hefei, capital of eastern China's Anhui Province, collects mementos and objects from failed relationships. The list of breakup museums in China is getting longer as young Chinese become more outspoken about their relationships, experts say.
Wang Zhenyang, a co-founder of the Hefei museum, said it receives an average of 200 people on weekdays and 500 on weekends.
"I expect a lot of visitors on Qixi because the festival is about love, and we are about love lost," he said.
Wang, 27, broke up with his ex-girlfriend at the end of last year. He took a long trip with his friends to a number of places including Nanjing, Shanghai and Chongqing.
"All these cities I visited had a museum for broken relationships. So, I figured it would be a good idea to have one in my hometown of Hefei for myself and people like me," said Wang.
Objects from past relationships may invoke depressed feelings, so people are more inclined to destroy them in order to recover and move on. Wang and the two other co-founders of the museum, however, believe that people can find closure by giving away souvenirs from former lovers.
The museum is a three-story building with a floor space of 520 square meters. The young founders called on people to donate items to the museum through social media. So far, they have collected more than 500 items.
"People keep mailing us new items, so we plan to renew the exhibits every month so that every item has a chance to be displayed in the museum," said Yang Kang, another co-founder.
The items from broken relationships include tokens such as train tickets, a broken guitar and even a wedding dress.
"A woman mailed us her wedding dress. She was about to be married but parted from her fiance," said Wang.
Yu Tao, 21, visited the museum with his girlfriend. "I had a breakup before and so did she. She was in tears at the museum. I hope we can both move on after visiting this place," Yu said.
Pain is halved when shared. Exposing the wounds to others helps people heal, and that is why people like to visit such museums, said Wang Yunfei, an associate professor of sociology from Anhui University.
Yang Kang said he learned that a couple of visitors fell in love after coming across each other at the museum.
The idea of a museum for broken relationships came out of a creative art project that originated in Europe. Similar projects have been well received in many countries including China. A number of cities including Shanghai, Nanjing, Hefei and Chengdu have museums dedicated to breakups.
"We plan to open a bar at the museum that offers bitter and sour drinks and name them ex-girlfriend and ex-boyfriend. It will make people directly feel an emotional impact," said Yang.
