one
In the autumn of 20 14, I moved from Minhang to Yangpu and lived next to Dinghai Road. Shanghainese call Dinghai Road "Xiajiao", which means poor community. It's a bit self-deprecating. There used to be a shop here called "Xiazhijiao Grocery Store".
Dinghai Road is quite famous in Shanghai, and its fame is also related to poverty. In 1980s, Cheng Naishan, a Shanghai woman writer, wrote a novel "Poor Street", which was adapted into a TV series of the same name. The location of the play was chosen in Dinghai Road. After the TV series was broadcast, it caused a sensation in Shanghai, and Dinghai Road became famous in one fell swoop, becoming synonymous with "poor street".
It is often said that Dinghai Road is the least like Shanghai. The 890-meter-long Dinghai Road starts from Dinghai Bridge on Huangpu River in the south and ends at the intersection of Pingliang Road and Ai Guo Road in the north. The houses on both sides of the street are low, shabby, uneven and crowded, and they have all been transformed into small shops, one by one, from the street to the end of the street, full of the faces of ordinary people, which is in great contrast with the surrounding high-rise buildings. It's hard to believe that this is in the downtown area of Shanghai, as if this whole Dinghai Road is frozen in 1922 forever like an I-shaped cement pole on the roadside.
Every morning is the busiest time on Dinghai Road. People come and go in the street, bustling, bicycle battery cars, delivery yellow croaker cars, slowly through the crowd. Shops on the street, each with its own business, sell one after another, and the southern accent is transferred to the north, which is a busy scene. Breakfast shops are all on the left side of the street, and the breakfast in each shop is different. Fried dough sticks with sesame seeds, steamed buns and wonton jiaozi are steaming hot. An old-fashioned fried dumpling shop, with a small head, is very inconspicuous, but the business is very prosperous, and people who buy fried buns need to queue up. Occasionally, walking slowly from the door of the store, the smell of raw and fried buns bursts into the nose, giving people a warmth of street life.
Living near Dinghai Road, it is most convenient to buy side dishes. There are all kinds of fresh vegetables, seasonal fruits and aquatic meat on the street, so it is called street food market. The price of vegetables on Dinghai Road is also cheaper than other places. The merchants on the street are warm and simple. Because it is a repeat customer, the buying and selling price is clearly marked, and it will not be short of weight, and the reputation has always been good. Even so, careful Shanghainese always have to bargain, which seems to be a living habit of local people. Although those small vendors have meager profits, they sometimes erase a little money in order to expect customers to come again. When they meet a little tricky Shanghainese, they will say, "Why do you want to make a counter-offer when it is so cheap?"
Residents nearby come to visit Dinghai Road not only to buy some side dishes, but also to find some bargains sometimes. Pots, pots, dishes, quilt sheets and underwear coats are surprisingly cheap. A pair of jeans from 30 yuan and a velvet suit from 50 yuan are not bad at all, compared with things costing one or two hundred yuan in the supermarket. If you go to the old leather shoes shop on Boyang Road, the leather shoes with a price of 100 yuan are completely handmade, and the style is not out of date at all. They are also authentic first-layer cowhide.
To outsiders, the shanty towns on Dinghai Road seem mysterious. Go in through the dark mouth of Wuqi, and there is a hole in it. The narrow alley can only be passed by a cart, and there are low shacks on both sides. Most of these dilapidated shacks were private houses built before liberation. On the gray cement exterior wall, there are many small advertisements printed, like pieces of cowhide moss on people.
In Shanghai, where land is precious, the area of each shack is not large, so the alley space outside the house is fully utilized to the extreme. Many people have a swimming pool by the door. The sink is used for washing vegetables and clothes, and also for washing mops, which are hung outside the window. On the other side of the entrance door, it is used to park bicycles and battery cars, or put washing machines. The slightly wider corner of the alley is also used to pile up sundries, and some people with emotional appeal will plant some flower bonsai to decorate the plain life. Looking up, there is an air conditioner under the eaves, and the wires overhead are messy. Between the parallel shacks, a bright sky shines, and the clothes poles protruding from the house are drying the clothes and bedding of each family. The dried items fluttered in the wind, just like colorful national flags. Further down, the alley turns, and the alley is connected with the alley, just like entering a maze, completely unable to tell the southeast from the northwest.
two
Lane 449, Dinghai Road, is a legendary old community.
In the 1920s, Japanese-funded Yufeng Cotton Mill expanded its recruitment, and many underage girls left their homes and came to Shanghai from rural areas in northern Jiangsu to work as bonded laborers in the cotton mill. In order to solve the expanding housing demand, the factory has built dozens of contract workers' dormitories on farmland beside Dinghai Road. These houses are collectively called Yufeng Workshop, which became the dormitory of the 17th National Cotton Factory after liberation.
Entering Lane 449 from Pingliang Road, the two sides of the road are worlds apart. On one side is a new residential area with high-rise buildings, and on the other side is a dilapidated courtyard. There are many workshops lined up, with two main lanes in different directions leading directly to Dinghai Road and Pingliang Road, and 15 narrow lanes strung together, forming a pattern of alleys and main lanes. The supports in the front and rear workshops are only two meters wide, and the spacing is somewhat unreasonable. The spacious main driveway has become a parking lot for residents, and it is very troublesome and laborious for cars to turn around inside.
There are more than 65,438+0,600 families living in a crowded place in this residential complex. Every house is very small, and some people live in an area of only 9 square meters. The cramped indoor space, the bed on the bed, the bunk on the ground, the Dojo in the snail shell, men, women and children live in the same room, and there is almost no personal privacy. In order to expand the living space, everyone had to build it illegally, so various ideas came into being. In front of the house and behind it, on both sides of the alley, there is a kitchen with messy furniture. Gai Lou is clearly illegal, but it is clearly defined, euphemistically called for safety, to prevent the elderly from forgetting to turn off the gas and causing human tragedy. There are also some families whose children are getting married when they are older, and their parents can't afford to buy a house. When they are poor, they change their minds and build an attic as a wedding room.
The living conditions of these former contractor dormitories are very bad, and the lighting and ventilation conditions are extremely poor. People who live upstairs naturally feel lucky. If they live downstairs, they will feel very miserable. At the bottom of the workshop, the ground is very wet. On the Huangmei day in June and July, the room was humid and sultry, giving off a musty smell. If it rains heavily and the sewer is not well drained, water will overflow into the room. No matter whether you live upstairs or downstairs, there is no bathroom in the house, and Lazar is in it. The first thing residents do when they get up every day is to line up outside and empty the toilet with "red lanterns".
The residents of Lane 449 are looking forward to the demolition every day. On the street of Pingliang Road, banners are hung all the year round. The banner with black characters on a white background reads the words demanding demolition. The problem of demolition has not been solved for a long time. In order to attract the attention of the above, the old aunts beat gongs and drums in the community.
The residents living in Lane 449 are another kind of Shanghainese life. The main alley of the painting became the living room of the residents in the community. In their free time after dinner, their neighbors gathered in the alley. Old colleagues in the old neighborhood, like a family, have a warm and unrestrained relationship with each other. The lady sitting chatting, stretching her slender legs, joking while playing with her mobile phone, and her unkempt uncles, wearing vests, shorts and slippers, stood smoking. They talked loudly and loudly, and no one was watching. Any gossip, gossip, funny jokes, winning or losing at the poker table, anything can be used as the material for the conversation, and there is no reserve or reservation from Shanghainese at all.
Compared with other communities in Shanghai, it is more like a small society of villagers. Many residents living here, if counted for three generations, all their ancestors came from the rural areas of northern Jiangsu, so that for more than half a century, the lingua franca around Dinghai Bridge is not authentic Shanghai dialect, but the northern Jiangsu dialects of Yancheng and Huai 'an, and even some local old Shanghainese can speak a few northern Jiangsu dialects. Many of them inherited their father's business and their mother's business, and some families have been textile workers for generations. They seem to have a tradition of intermarriage within the industry, and many employees of textile enterprises around them have something to do with 449. They have lived together for decades and have the same and similar lifestyles. They are good at playing mahjong, drinking old wine and playing cricket, and they are very famous in Yangpu District.
In the eyes of old Shanghainese, 449 is not to be taunted by anyone. They have the physique of industrial workers, the heroic genes of Su Beiren, the mischievousness nurtured by urban life and the traditional cohesion of unity with the outside world. They live in despicable streets, regard themselves as "barefoot people who are not afraid to wear shoes" and are used to fighting with their fists. Fighting is notoriously deadly. There have been rumors that Shanghai hooligans look at Yangpu, Yangpu hooligans look at Dinghai, and Dinghai hooligans look at Lane 449. When the hooligans and beggars in old Shanghai heard that they belonged to Dinghai Bridge, they would run away in fright. Even the soul of the old street in Hongzhen dare not run wild in front of them.
Don't look down on 449 Lane because of this shit. There used to be many celebrities here. It is such a small place that there are not only famous national model workers and famous football stars, but also the rebel commander of the Cultural Revolution, the richest man in Shanghai and the outbreak of local tyrants. Life is unpredictable, and historical waves wash sand. After a period of time, those once famous people all fell silent, and few people mentioned that silence because everyone felt that it had nothing to do with their own lives.
three
Dinghai Bridge at the southern end of Dinghai Road is a landmark here. People used to call Dinghai Road, and the surrounding Boyang Road and Guiyang Road are Dinghai Bridge. Dinghai Bridge, which is less than 100 meters, is the first bridge on the Huangpu River in Shanghai. Display the words "1927" on Chinese and English nameplates. The mottled old bridge spans the Fuxing Island Canal, connecting Dinghai Road and Fuxing Island, and the Huangpu River is outside the bridge.
Dinghai Bridge is the cradle of modern industry in China. Superior geographical location, convenient water transportation and golden waterway leading to the sea make it a treasure-house for investment and factory setting. At the beginning of the 20th century, with the influx of foreign capital, there was an upsurge of investment and development in this land. More than ten kilometers of coastline along the river was covered with various factories, which became the birthplace of industrial civilization in China. Not only the earliest foreign-funded enterprises in China, but also the earliest waterworks, power plants and gas plants in China were born here, creating a number of firsts in national industries, thus starting the modern life of China people. Standing on the Dinghai Bridge, you can see the Poplar Pufa Power Plant, which was once the largest thermal power plant in Asia. The tall chimney still stands, just like a milestone of an era.
No.2866 Yangshupu Road is the former site of Shanghai Guomian No.17 Factory. The largest textile enterprise in Shanghai has tens of thousands of employees in its heyday, and its leading fine fabrics are well-known at home and abroad for their excellent texture. In the wave of reform and opening up, the textile industry bears the brunt, and the old factories that have been brilliant for half a century have been eliminated in industrial adjustment. The workshop was shut down, the workers were laid off and diverted, and the equipment was transferred to northern Jiangsu. The once-hot labor scene, the deafening roar of machines and the busy figure of textile women workers have long been a historical memory.
The former site of Guomian No.17 Factory has been transformed into Shanghai International Fashion Center. The zigzag factory building with clear water red brick has been completely preserved, which is the core of modern fashion. The contrast and integration of history and fashion here reflects the unique artistry and makes it more avant-garde. There are the largest show in Asia, the highest glass runway in the world, Shanghai Fashion Week, large-scale music festival, fashion carnival, brand launch and large-scale international auto show. You can sing, and I will appear. The Riverside Wharf, which used to transport cotton yarn raw materials, has also been transformed into a hydrophilic platform for leisure and entertainment, and the old factory of Phoenix Nirvana is becoming a new global fashion capital.
Walking across Dinghai Bridge from the north end is Fuxing Island Greenway. On the bridge at the intersection, there is Dinghai Road Ferry Terminal, and the ferry is still around the clock, reaching Pudong Jinqiao directly. Next to the ferry is Dinghai Road Subdistrict Office, not far from which is the famous China Shipyard. You can walk along the * * * greenway hidden by camphor trees to Fuxing Island Park. The park is the only Japanese-style garden in Shanghai. The trees are lush, quiet and peaceful, and birds can be heard from time to time. The White Deer Villa in the park used to be Chiang Kai-shek's palace. It was from here that Chiang Kai-shek and his son fled the mainland by boat with the rumble of Shanghai's liberation.
four
Year after year's expectations have finally come true. A large-scale renovation plan for old districts has been vigorously launched. The old residential area around Dinghai Road has been included in the scope of old renovation, and every street is covered with red banners to mobilize demolition.
On Dinghai Road, which entered the countdown to demolition, the old houses on both sides of the street were marked with the word "demolition". Many shops in the street have closed down. The once prosperous old street gradually became deserted. People who used to go shopping and buy food don't know where they went, which has reduced a lot. Merchants who have not moved out, their business is not as good as before, and they are preparing to retreat.
On Boyang Road, which is connected with Dinghai Road, the demolition team has entered the field, and the road is full of dust. Some old houses have been stripped of their roofs, and some doors and windows have been removed, leaving only a broken body. The last few streets near Dinghai Bridge will soon disappear.
The news of the demolition of Dinghai Road soon spread all over Shanghai. A wave of people from the media rushed here from all directions. With cameras, they walked around the streets, claiming to save the last mean streets. What I saw on the media platform was a live report. Some people even suggested that Dinghai Road should stop demolition and remain the same, leaving Shanghai with the most authentic and natural street style. For this, the uncles and aunts of Dinghai Road are always enlightened and refreshed. This is not a Shikumen in Huangpu District, and it has no reservation value at all.
At this moment, those who clamor for demolition have been swayed by considerations of gain and loss. Because they know that demolition is nothing more than two schemes: either monetary compensation, giving money according to the area of property right certificate; Or give you a house and move to the suburbs. For them, Dinghai Road is their homeland, and everyone has a feeling that it is difficult to leave their homeland. What's more, it is an old and good location, and it is convenient for work and life, children's study and family life. However, they have no more choices: if they want to live more spacious, they can only move to the suburbs. If you want to stay in your old place, your house is so small that you can't move the house in the city with a little compensation.
Broken streets are about to become history, and the reconstructed Dinghai Road will never be the next corner. I'm looking forward to a new look. I miss mean streets, which once gave me convenience in life, and recall its real fireworks and its rich street customs.