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Chinese man discovers family dining table is ancestor’s Qing dynasty academic record

A man in eastern China was stunned to discover that his family’s battered dining table was in fact a Qing dynasty (1644–1912) honour board commemorating…

By Samantha Johnson / July 19, 2026

A man in eastern China was stunned to discover that his family’s battered dining table was in fact a Qing dynasty (1644–1912) honour board commemorating an ancestor’s success in the imperial examinations.

Xu, a villager in Anhui province, shared the unusual story in an online video on July 12, which subsequently went viral on mainland social media.

The footage shows a dark-red wooden table scarred by decades of use, with cracked edges and a faded surface. Yet two carved Chinese characters – “Gongyuan” – remain visible.

“I never imagined that the table our family had used for decades was actually my great-great-grandfather’s academic record,” Xu wrote.

He said the object was originally a plaque. Older relatives, impressed by its thick, sturdy timber, later repurposed it as a dining table, unaware of its historical significance.

The inscription went largely unnoticed until Xu, driven by curiosity, searched the characters online. He then learned that the plaque had been awarded by local Qing dynasty education officials to his ancestor, Xu Yunli, in recognition of his performance in the imperial examinations.

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