Photo: Dong Dynasty
I told a friend a few years ago that I would write a series for Minsheng Road because I had lived there for a long time, and every alley there had been visited several times, and they had many stories to tell. However, people are very strange, the more familiar you are with the place, the easier it is to ignore it, every time you write an article, you always want to write somewhere else first, and the place around you can write at any time... So again and again, again and again, Last year, I moved out of the old city, and my work became more and more busy, and what I thought was a show of hands was shelved indefinitely, and there was no more follow-up.
Fast forward to the end of 2021, it is another year of autumn and winter, the sun shines warmly on people, at this time, it is easy to breed some nostalgic emotions, so the old streets and alleys of Minsheng Road flashed out of memory, and I felt that they seemed to be summoning me, inviting the former neighbors to go to the past, so I found a few afternoons, returned to Minsheng Road, and completed the promises made before.
On the minsheng road, it is branched into many regional units called lanes, lanes, and fangs, and the naming rules of these place names in Guangdong are not very clear, what is li, what is an alley, what is a fang? I checked the information and explained it as follows:
Alley: A long, narrow street
Li: The ancient village of Rizhi.
Fang: The name of Yili, mostly used for the name of the street and alley - "Explanation of Words"
In summary, my understanding is: "alley" refers to a narrow alley, "fang" refers to an area, and "li" also refers to an area, but the scope may be wider than "fang". However, these are only my own judgment, does not represent the correct understanding, welcome familiar with the history of the gods in the comment area to leave a message to correct.
The old houses hidden behind the road, seemingly dilapidated, are filled with stories, brick by brick, and are worth savoring. Because there is a lot of content, so it should be launched in episodes, this episode should show grass lane, gongyuan lane, xin shetang, south garden lane and other places.
(1) Grass Lane
The first alley on the left hand side of the overpass at the junction of Minsheng Road and Zhongshan Second Road is CaoXiang.
CaoXiang, once known as the third lane of Jiefang Middle Road, starts from the southern section of Minsheng Road and ends at the end of the alley. It is 85.5 meters long and 2.6 meters wide.
On the left-hand side of Grass Lane, it leads to a residential building.
There was a puzzling broken window halfway through, it looked like a window, and it was supposed to be a house, but it was full of rubble and rubble, overgrown with weeds, and somehow.
At the end of the road, there is a row of 4-storey residential buildings, which should have been built in the 1980s and 1990s, and the house number is one of the 1-3 of Minsheng Road, which is rarely inhabited and very empty. Climb up the stairwell and you can see the overpass of Zhongshan 2nd Road.
Standing here, watching the endless flow of people and cars, the feeling is wonderful, like standing in the dusty twentieth century, staring at the busy twenty-first century...
There are not many households in Grass Lane, a total of about 11 house numbers, the left is a single number, the right is double number, of which No. 7 accounts for almost half of the alley, I thought this was just a household, but when you pass through a small alley that can be seen in the sky, before and after the hall to enter, but found that there is a residential building inside, there is really a mountain outside the mountain, there is a building outside the building.
And further inside, it's all closed abandoned houses, and I don't know where their entrances are?
On the wall at the end of the alley, the words "Grass Lane, Twenty Years of the Republic of China" are engraved, and the inscription has been unrecognizable.
It is said that there used to be a pond at the end of Grass Lane that could be crossed to Minquan Road, but now it is difficult to find any trace.
I turned over a few photos taken here in 2018, when there was a shop on the left side of the alley door, I was still disgusted with their miscellaneous objects in the alley to affect me to take pictures, and now the store has closed, but it makes me a little lost; at that time, there were a lot of flowers and grasses in the alley, greenery, there was a large-leaf banyan tree hanging down at the end of the alley, there were clothes hanging in the alley and the old people who walked by, quite a breath of life, and now the grass alley, quiet, people go to the empty building, lifeless.
Taken in 2018
Taken in 2018, there was a large-leaf banyan tree at the end of the alley
(2) Public Lane
Next to the grass lane is the public lane.
Gongzu Lane was once called Jiefang Middle Road Fourth Lane, 53.6 meters long, 1.8 meters wide, there are not many households, a total of 11 households, the house number is also left single right double. Formerly known as the private alley of Liu Gongweitang, the entire alley still retains the mashi pavement, and the original gate stone at the entrance of the alley is still clearly visible today.
There is also a door in the middle of the alley.
The middle door used to be No. 4 Gongzu Lane, there was a gap of about ten centimeters under the door, and there was also a hole in the corner of the wall next to it, I didn't know why when I first saw it, but I guessed that maybe this family has cats and dogs? Later, when I passed by, sure enough, a dog poked its head out of the hole and looked at me, but it was quite timid, and when it was frightened by me, it actually retracted back into the cave with a cry... Now the dog hole is still there, but I have never seen the dog again...
8 Gongyuan Lane. Because no one has been in and out for a long time, the rusty iron gate and the banyan tree that grows on the side of the house have been tightly combined, you have me, I have you, forming a natural barrier, to open this door, it is very difficult, it is estimated that the branches must be cut off
From the iron door between the cracks to look, you can faintly see the small balcony of No. 8, although it has been deserted for many years, but it is also full of greenery, those naturally growing plants make the small balcony look still beautiful, visually this house is also a building of the Republic of China period, when the family that can have a small balcony, it should be regarded as a well-off home.
There is a door opposite No. 8 Gongzu Lane to enter, I guess it should be No. 7, who knows to go in, not only No. 7, No. 7, No. 9, No. 11 are connected to a string. There was a well in the walkway, which had now been covered.
Standing at the wellhead, you can look at the second floor opposite, which is an old Cantonese-style house surrounded by sugar gum trees. Although this tree is said to smell not very good, but the color is elegant, the shape is charming, the old house is particularly ancient, and at the moment I actually feel that it must be a very comfortable thing to live on such an upstairs.......
(3) Sanminfang
Coming out of Gongzu Lane, walking more than ten meters to the north, I can see the Jinshoutang Medicine Shop, now called the Thirteen Lines Herbal Tea Shop, this shop has also been open for more than twenty years, boiling herbal tea for many years, so that the whole alley is filled with the lingering smell of Chinese medicine, I secretly wonder if the animals and plants that are edified around this will live longer than the outside world?
Turn left from the intersection next to the thirteenth line and enter it, and there is Sanminfang. Inside there are two Cantonese-style houses connected together, the house number is one of the 17th Minsheng Road, the second, I heard that it is an overseas Chinese house, the owner of the house surname Is Xiao.
These two large houses used to be rented, but now there are no renters, the doors are locked haphazardly, there is no door panel, and standing at the door can see the situation inside the house. Perhaps because of the years of rental, the original house structure has been completely changed, and the valuable things have disappeared.
Although the inside of the house is already dilapidated, the stucco sculptures outside the house are still well preserved, which can be regarded as leaving the last dignity of this old house.
The side of the large house has a passage leading to the back garden, which has been locked. Once I came to hang out here and found the door open, so I took the opportunity to visit it.
There is a peach tree planted at the entrance of the back garden, and it is the fruiting season, and the golden fruit has fallen to the ground, and no one cares, and the garden is full of the sour taste of the fruit after fermentation.
It was such a place of peach that suddenly made people feel that this garden was alive. Maybe in the old days, when the people in this house were prosperous, the garden was also full of peaches every year, but there will always be people who appreciate it, and there has never been such a lonely scene, right? If the big tree also has thoughts, it must witness the prosperity and decline of this small courtyard, how will it feel?
In this garden, there is also a garden, which may have planted many valuable plants before, but unfortunately it is no longer there, and only a few wild cats are left running around here as their own paradise.
The other side of the garden is directly connected to Xiaojia Lane, and from the entrance of Xiaojia Lane, you can also see this back garden.
When I passed this time, I found that the garden had been locked, and the garden doorway seemed to have been repainted, and it would be a good thing if the big house could be revitalized, after all, it was a pity that such a large piece of land was so abandoned in the city center.
(4) Shin-kaido
From the 17th, there is the new hato (Xīnyútáng).
There was a time when I thought that the upper part of the word "畬" was a She character, and I saw it as "She", so I read the new [shē] Hall, and later I learned that the original person had a "Yu" character on it.
畬 is a strange word and is a polysyllabic word that can be pronounced as [shē] or [ yú ]. When pronounced [shē], it means "a method of incinerating the grass and trees in the field and using the ash of the grass and trees as fertilizer." The fields cultivated in this way are called the fields. When pronounced yú, it means "a field that has been cultivated for two years."
Why this place is called Xinqitang, I don't know, but because its pronunciation is [yú], I dare to guess whether it is because this place was originally a field, newly reclaimed and made a house.
Coincidentally, there are no old pre-liberation houses in the area of Xinqitang, which are basically residential buildings built in the 1980s and 1990s, equipped with neat and uniform bicycle houses unique to that era.
A row of sugar gum trees pierced through the roofs of these bicycle houses and pointed straight into the sky, forming a strange landscape. I guess no one would plant a tree in their house, right? It is estimated that the trees were planted first, and then the shed was added, and they were unwilling to cut down the trees, so there was such a strange house bag tree.
These tall sugar gum trees, because of some years, are all straight into the sky, just standing shoulder to shoulder with the 6-storey building, so from top to bottom, each floor is covered by the sugar gum tree. Because of this layout, it is no accident that every autumn when the sugar gum blossoms bloom, the residents here should all enjoy the grace of the special floral fragrance... I can only express my deep sympathy for this.
(5) South Park Lane
Nanyuan Lane, starting from the south section of Minsheng Road in the east and reaching the end of the lane in the west. It is 112 meters long and 3.8 meters wide. Originally built in the late Qing Dynasty, it is reported that it was originally a large garden surnamed Li, named South Garden, the alley is also known as the name of the garden, and later the north was bought by Liang Honghu, and the South Garden was demolished by the Japanese. In 1967, it was renamed Jiefang Middle Road Ninth Lane, and in 1981 it was renamed to its current name.
This arch is closed all year round, and I don't know if this is the South Park of that year.
No. 37 Minsheng Road in Nanyuan Lane
"Zhongshan is my home, the beautiful environment depends on everyone - the times inherited", on the wall in the corner of Nanyuan Lane, there is still a slogan familiar to the old Zhongshan people, and the telephone number at that time was still 7 digits.
In the past, when I visited Liaohou Village in the Southern District, there was a North Garden Lane in it, and at that time, I secretly thought that this place was not related to the South Garden Lane in Shiqi? There is no connection, it is purely coincidental.
2 South Park Lane
South Park Lane turns right at the end and is Minquan Road. For South Park Lane, I go less, it is relatively unfamiliar, if there are friends who understand this lane, welcome to leave a message to correct.
This issue will be written here first, the next episode content: Gonghe Lane, Cai Jia Lane, DongshanLi. When will it be launched? Stay tuned.
PS: To be clear, I just like to walk around the old streets and take some photos in my spare time, in order to record the beautiful side of the city and how I felt at that time. But because I am not a historical researcher, so I may not have too deep understanding of some humanistic history, if you have more understanding, welcome to leave a message in the comment area, but don't always ask me why I don't write this, don't write that, because I only write what I know and my feelings, I don't know what I don't know, of course, I can't write ah.