Recently, on the social networking platform loved by the post-90s and post-00s, there have been many notes that come to Yuyuan Garden to punch in, and the unique national style scene of Yuyuan Garden has attracted many young people to take photos and share, and has become a new landmark that everyone is willing to punch in and share on social networks. Especially in recent years, Yu Garden and many buildings around it have been upgraded, each with its own characteristics and self-style scenery. For tourists, this is an antique Jiangnan garden, and for those who have lived here, it has become a "symbol" in the impression, representing "life". From the perspective of memory, this article takes us to visit the former Yu Garden and the old buildings around it that are full of memories, and there is a warm human firework between the lines.
Aerial view of Yu Garden and its surroundings in and around the early 21st century (Shanghai Municipal Archives Collection)
Ring Dragon Bridge
The Liberation Daily published an article: Chen Cong's three incidents on Tuesday. Chen Congzhou (1918-2000) is a famous expert in ancient architecture and gardens in China, a professor at Tongji University, and is still somewhat related to Xu Zhimo, and his wife is Xu Zhimo's cousin. The text mentions the ancient stone bridge in Yu Garden- the Huanlong Bridge.
Old photo of the Huanlong Bridge in Yu Garden
At that time, the Inner Garden and the Yu Garden (commonly known as the "East Garden" and the "West Garden") were divided into two by the East Garden, so the East and West Gardens were not connected. The Huanlong Bridge is adjacent to the black lacquered garden gate in the inner garden, and the flowing water under the bridge is connected with the lotus pond under the Jiuqu Bridge and the stream in the Yu Garden. On both sides of the bridge, at that time, they were full of face-to-face word testing stalls, some open-air, and some occupied a small room in Langfang, which was a bit like the examination box of candidates in the imperial examination era.
Schematic diagram of the location of the Inner Garden and Yu Garden by the Shanghai Municipal Commission for the Preservation of Cultural Relics, 1966 (Shanghai Municipal Archives Collection)
Huanlong Bridge is a semi-circular stone arch bridge, the deck stone steps are made of large stone strips, pedestrians can climb up the stone steps. The low stone parapets on both sides of the bridge had been caressed by people for a long time, and they had become slippery and slippery, glowing blue-gray, and they would never have reached such a smooth without more than a hundred years of work. To the east of the Huanlong Bridge was the Hongyuelou Bookstore, and below it was the Yimiao Children's Library. At that time, there were some small shops and small vendors in that area, the more famous ones were Gu Songji Antique Jade Shop, and then to the west was the Vegetarian Xiang Zhai Vegetarian Noodle Restaurant (now the location of the "Sea and Sky List" in Yu Garden), in addition to small workshops selling peanut crisps and framed painting shops.
Green Wave Gallery Restaurant
The LuboLang Restaurant in the Yuyuan Mall is now very famous, but its history is not very distant, in the past, there was no such restaurant in the Laoyi Temple Market.
No. 131 Yuyuan Road, originally songyunlou restaurant. The earliest place was Fei Dan Ge, and later it was favored by a wonton stall owner named Wang Deyou, and opened a restaurant, named Song yun Lou Restaurant. Next door to it is the Lupu Lang Tea House, and downstairs at the escalator entrance, which was a stall selling raw fried steamed buns and crab shell yellow.
Guests come to the City God Temple mainly to visit the Yu Garden (which was the private residence of Pan Yun, the envoy of the Ming Dynasty, and was one of the most classical gardens in Jiangnan). For a long time, you always have to find a place to rest your feet, drink tea, eat some small snacks, rest and rest, so the famous teachers of various restaurants and dim sum shops in the mall at that time were gathered to make a variety of tea and small snacks for tourists to taste, so the Green Wave Corridor Restaurant came into being.
1979, Shanghai Yu Garden, Tai Chi and Kung Fu Morning Exercises. In the background is the famous Huxin Pavilion Tea House. Children are practicing the famous "Shaolin Boxing" and sword dance
At present, there are many long-established stores in Yuyuan Mall, such as Songyue Building, Songyun Building, Shanghai Old Hotel, Tong Han Chun Tang, etc., most of which have a long history of hundreds of years. In the past, the scale of these shops was generally not very large, many of them were small workshops, husband and wife shops, and most of the host families were picky and running halls. For example, like Chen Youzhi (selling open onion oil noodles), old restaurants (originally help Tongshengguan), Old Tongsheng (monopolizing soup dumplings), Lao Tong Chun (monopolizing gluten and blind leaves, divided into "single stalls" and "double stalls"), as well as selling peanut crisp, pear paste candy, spiced beans, crab shell yellow, sake stuffed balls, eight treasure rice, chicken and duck blood soup, rotten field snails, oil small yellow fish, etc., were originally some small vendors; some even did not have fixed stalls, and made a living by selling along the street.
Because business is difficult to do, these initial entrepreneurs have used their brains and painstaking efforts in production. They continue to innovate in the characteristics of their products, strive for excellence, and strive to create their own brands. After a long period of unremitting practice and exploration, they later succeeded and became a popular local snack on the beach. Of course, there are many more people who are eliminated, which is the law of the market, and no one can resist.
Spiced bean shop and Darmei photo studio
The original scale of the Shanghai Spiced Bean Shop was very small, and it was not a store, but just a small vendor. The original site is at the mouth of the lane in Qingxuefang, that is, the back lane of Lane 283 of the original Fangbang Middle Road. This lane is also called Qujia Lane, and the section leading to the Yuyuan Mall is called Qingxuefang, which has now been demolished. The stall owner was called Guo Yingzhou, and at that time, the large iron pot of fried spiced beans was set up under the street in the alley, and the fried broad beans were directly spread in the wind outlet (a kind of bamboo weaving), and after the air dried, they could be sold at the stall at the mouth of the alley.
Early years of spiced bean wrapping paper and trademarks
The reason why spiced beans are popular is because they are cheap and good, sweet and salty, can be stored for a long time, and the packaging is also very beautiful, and its taste is still the same as the old, so it is quite respected.
The spiced bean shop is at No. 104, Yuyuan Road, Yuyuan Mall, in the past, here was a small photo studio, mainly to take small art photos, the name of the store is Dalmei, the scale is not as good as another big new photo studio in the mall. In the glass vitrines of Dalmei, the art photos of Xu Yunzhi and Yan Xueting, which were on display at that time, were displayed. On its left side, No. 102 is the Osmanthus Hall (which is still there), and on the right is the Dachang Ivory Jade Shop (now demolished).
Xu Yunzhi
At that time, there were still residents on the upper floor of Dalmei. In fact, at that time, other shops in the mall were the same, such as Songyue Building, Manyuan Spring, Liyuan Tea House, Daxin Photo Studio, etc., and there were also residents in and out of the store. Residents usually buy small vegetables, take out garbage, and carry toilets through the hall. This situation is simply unthinkable and unimaginable.
Tong Han Chun Tang
Tong Han Chun Tang Guo Yao Is a century-old shop in The Yu garden mall, founded in the 48th year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, and its store sign is said to have been written by Lu Runyu (1841-1915), the head of Suzhou in the Qing Dynasty.
Lu Runyu, a native of Wu County, Jiangsu Province, was a member of the Jiashu Family in the thirteenth year of Qing Tongzhi (1874). He once entered the South Study, worked as Puyi's teacher, and was an official to a scholar of Dongge University. His calligraphy is clear and bright, which is close to Ouyang Inquiry, and he is called the "Three Absolutes" of calligraphy with the other two emperors at that time, Tonggong and Liu Chunlin. When Tong Han Chun Tang was counting, he once used the four words of the store sign "Tong Han Chun Tang" as the total asset appraisal, and the opening price was 800,000 silver taels, equivalent to 1.12 million silver dollars, which showed the gold content of this signboard.
The owner of Tong Han Chun Tang, whose original surname was Zhu, was later given to a drug dealer surnamed Tong due to poor management. The medicine merchant surnamed Tong was Tong Shanchang (1745-1817). He is a native of Zhuangqiao Town, Ningbo, and has been smart and clever since childhood, and makes a living from the pharmaceutical industry. First in his hometown to run the dock, and then to Shanghai to develop, in Xiaodongmen Li Xian Gua Street opened Hengtai Pharmacy, specializing in the wholesale business of Chinese herbal medicines. After the end of the plate, Tong Han Chun Tang ran it himself and gradually gained the law.
Asking Lu Runyu to re-write the shop sign is a matter in the hands of Tong Shan's grandson Tong Xiangquan. Tong Xiangquan is shrewd and capable, the grandson of Tong Shanchang's third son, Tong Jixia, and once studied in private school for several years. He knows that in order to make his career bigger on the beach, in addition to the authenticity of medicinal herbs, he must also use the celebrity effect. So he went to the people, and finally found Lu Runyu, asked this leader to appreciate his face, and wrote down these four big words. At that time, the cost of writing was 100 taels of silver per word, and later it was greatly appreciated.
Yu Garden at the end of the Qing Dynasty
At that time, the site of Tong Han Chun Tang was still at No. 23 Fangbang Middle Road (there is still a distance from the city gate, not the current location), only an open façade; a black lacquered gate, a Shikumen house. Unexpectedly, it later developed into a mansion with a three-bay façade and five deep entrances, and ranked among the famous chinese medicines in Shanghai, which Tong Shanchang did not expect.
When I was a child, I didn't know where Tong Han Chun Tang's medicinal herbs were really good, but I knew that its brass band was very famous. When Shanghai was just liberated, there were often parades organized by government organs, enterprises and institutions on the road, often beating gongs and drums, and also twisting and singing. Fangbang Road is also a major east-west road in the old city, especially during the "May Day" and "National Day", the staff of Tong Han Chun Tang also marched on the street, and children ran to the road to see its brass band performance.
Later, when I grew up, I learned that Tong Han Chun Tang was famous for its traditional Chinese medicine tablets that were selected in authentic materials, concocted by Zungu, processed with fine processing, and had remarkable medicinal effects. For example, such as ginseng remanufactured pills, Angong beef yellow pills, Zhou Gong Baisheng wine, etc. are its best-selling products, together with the other three big country medicines in Shanghai Beach at that time. However, Cai Tongde is from Wuhan; Lei Yunshang is from Suzhou; Hu Qingyutang is from Hangzhou; Wei tong Han Chun Tang is a local brand, and it has never left Shanghai.
Advertisement by Tong Hanchuntang in the 1930s and 1940s (Shanghai Municipal Archives Collection)
At present, the Tong Han Chun Hall in the Yuyuan Mall was relocated from Fangbang Middle Road after the reform and opening up, and the shopping mall adjusted its business outlets (the original site of this place is also a national medicine number, called the Spirit Society). Now the scale and scope of Tong Han Chun Tang's operation are of course much larger than before.
Sophia Elementary School
The Shangzhi Elementary School in memory is a worth mentioned building around Yu Garden. Shangzhi Elementary School was originally a Catholic church school, and after liberation, it was changed to Wutong Road No. 2 Primary School (No. 137 Wutong Road), although the school was small, but the auditorium was very spacious, belonging to the temple-like structure, antique house; the columns inside were very thick, and there were blocks of square brick floors underneath, and there were no windows around, so it looked very dim. The benches in the auditorium are also special, long and heavy and with backrests; on the backs there is a long shelf for teachings, and there are two prayer rooms on either side of the entrance.
1942, Floor Plan of the Private Shangzhi Elementary School (Shanghai Municipal Archives Collection)
At that time, Shanghai was screening the movie "Underground Route", and one of the shots was the prayer room of the church, so it was particularly impressive. At that time, we also thought it was strange, how could there be a prayer room in the auditorium? Later, I learned that the old site of the school was originally an old Catholic church. Earlier, this was once Pan Yun's ancestral home, Shichun Hall. Later, the Pan clan declined, the ancestral house fell into disrepair, and the descendants were unable to repair it, so they were purchased by one of Xu Guangqi's granddaughters and changed it to the Catholic Church (that is, the Jingyi Hall).
Jing Yi Hall in Pictorial Daily (Catholic Church in the City)
Xu Guangqi (1562-1633) was a native of Shanghai County in the Ming Dynasty and was a famous scientist in ancient China. When he was young, he followed the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci into the religion, and co-translated the "Geometric Origins" with Matteo Ricci, and was the first scholar in China to introduce the principles of Western geometry to China. Because Xu Guangqi entered the church, most of his people were influenced by it and believed in Catholicism.
According to the "History of Jiangnan Mission", in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, Catholics in Shanghai were mainly concentrated in several major families such as Xu, Ai and Shi, with a total number of thousands. The church covers an area of about 13 acres, in addition to the church, there is a large meadow, and the French also built an observatory about two meters high. Later, the Catholic Church was confiscated by the Qing government, and the original site was once changed to the Guandi Temple, and the missionary dormitory and garden next to it were also converted into Shenjiang Academy (the predecessor of Jingye Middle School).
Portrait of Xu Guangqi
On October 24, 1844, China and France signed the "Treaty of Huangpu", and the Qing government was forced to recognize the legitimate rights and interests of Catholicism in China, so the French missionaries proposed to return the confiscated Jingyi Church property. During the Qing Dynasty, there were three confiscated Catholic properties in Shanghai: one was the Jingyi Church on Wutong Road, the other was the former missionary dormitory and garden that had been converted into Shenjiang Academy, and the Other was the Catholic Cemetery and the Holy Sepulchre outside the South Gate. Because at this time these three religious properties had been transferred for other purposes, it was difficult to fully restore them, so the Qing government compensated with three other pieces of land.
Of the three parcels of land compensated to the church, one on Wutong Road was run by a church school, Namely Shangzhi Elementary School. The last two, one outside the northern city wall (now Sichuan South Road), they built St. Joseph's Catholic Church, and the other outside the eastern city wall (now Dongjiadu Road), they built St. Xavier's Catholic Church. These two Catholic churches were built later relative to the Jingyi Hall on Wutong Road, and in order to distinguish them, the Jingyi Hall on Wutong Road was called the Old Catholic Church, and the two Catholic Churches on Dongjiadu Road and Sichuan South Road were called the New Catholic Church.
In the 1950s, Jing Yi Tang became Wutong Road Primary School (Huangpu District Archives Collection)
After liberation, St. Joseph's Catholic Church and St. Xavier's Catholic Church were converted into schools (i.e., Sichuan South Road Primary School and Dongjiadu Road No. 2 Primary School) and factories (Shanghai Radio XVII Factory). The escalators, patios and classrooms of the second small old site of Wutong Road are still there, and the auditorium is also preserved, and now it has become the elderly activity center of Yuyuan Street.
Yu Garden today (Source: Wen Wei Po)
Magazine Editor: Xu Xuan
New media editors: Yi Cha, Fang Yaqi