In 2005, he took a photo in Nanshi Hutong
In 2007, the Nanshi area of Heping District, Tianjin was demolished and reconstructed. Tianjin Nanshi, which has a history of more than 100 years, is a gathering place for Tianjin folk culture. Before the liberation, Nanshi, along with the Tianqiao in Beijing, the City God Temple in Shanghai, and the Confucius Temple in Nanjing, was known as China's four "secular living areas", with smoke, gambling, prostitution, face-to-face, trick-or-treating, and practice style.
After the liberation of Nanshi became a civilian settlement area, the former large households of deep house compounds, dense alleys, street-facing shops have become the medium of the old Jinmen folk customs passed down from generation to generation, and the century-old Nanshi will become the eternal memory of old Tianjin.
From 2004 to 2007, I recorded that in Nanshi, Heping District, the second largest bungalow area in Tianjin, rows of red hanging money were pasted on the doors and windows of the streets and alleys of the Spring Festival. I picked up the camera to record the strong regional flavor of the year.
Sticking hanging money is an important symbol of Tianjin people and Tianjin as a city. Every year when the Spring Festival is approaching, every household buys hanging money, sticks hanging money, and decorates together with sticking Blessings, sticking window flowers, hanging New Year paintings, pasting Spring Festival, etc., full of New Year's flavor and full of fiery festive atmosphere.
Tianjin people are particular about sticking hanging money, and generally start to paste hanging money on the 29th day of the Waxing Moon, and paste it together with Fuzi, window paper flowers, and Spring League.
Unlike the secondary characters and window flowers, the hanging money must be pasted on the glass or horizontal edge outside the doors and windows, let the wind blow, let it swing and flutter, and let all the blessings and expectations (blessings and fortunes) blow into the doors and windows with the strong smell of the New Year.
Hanging money is generally carved with color cuts, and the content is rich and colorful, mainly reflecting the meaning of blessing, hope for wealth, longevity, peace and auspiciousness. Traditional vocabulary metaphors include: "Fortune into Treasure", "Fat Pig Arch", "ImmediateLy Sealed", "Rich Man Calling The Door", "Boy Picking Treasure", "Cornucopia", "Golden Horse Foal", "Fish for Many Years" and so on.
Modern vocabulary metaphors include: "Happy Family", "Auspicious wishes", "Family Harmony and Prosperity", "Peace and Auspiciousness", "New Year's Auspicious", "Every Year has more than enough", "Wishful Thinking", "Grain Harvest" and so on. The forms are diverse, colorful and profound, expressing the good wishes of Tianjin people for the Spring Festival in the form of hanging money, symbolizing the simple feelings of auspiciousness and good wishes, and the yearning and harmony of a better life.