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Young people do fieldwork in Taizhou
In 2020, among those who left Beijing,
17.2% went to third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities.
Do people who leave Kitakami Hiroshi regret it?
In Taizhou, Zhejiang,
There's a bunch of young people,
withdrawn from the fierce competition in the big cities,
and unwilling to live a step-by-step life,
They went out of a "middle way" .
Some people graduate from Cambridge and give up tens of millions of annual salaries to open a library in their hometown;
Some people only rest 10 days a year to rescue the intangible culture of the old city;
Some people stay up late to run summer camps,
A few years ago, I still had a monthly salary of about 2,000 yuan;
Some people work in the hospital during the day and run theater troupes at night;
There are restless bank clerks who not only write poems themselves,
It also held a "Taizhou Anonymous Novelist Competition".
Bungee in the old town of Linhai
They said, stay in Taizhou,
Not for refuge,
Not to lie flat,
It is to find your ideal life.
Written by Hong Bing Toad, responsible for editing Shi Ming
Photography by Shen Weihao
Taizhou Sanmen Old Town
The permanent population of Sanmen County, Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, is less than 380,000, the place is not large, and you can run from this end to that end by car in 15 minutes.
A few years ago, Lu Ying, who had just graduated from college, never expected that working in a public welfare library in such a county town would have to work overtime until late at night every day. Ten thousand steps a day, except for sleeping with your eyes closed, there is not a moment when you are not working.
The three young people gathered for dinner in the evening, and all they talked about was the work of the library
When she got up at 7:00, she began to take the practical activities of middle and high school students.
In the evening, revisit the day, write a small note to the children to communicate their feelings, and rehearse tomorrow's arrangements.
At 12 o'clock in the middle of the night, her dormitory was also crowded with volunteers working on the floor. They lay on the floor and discussed the design logic of the summer camp and the operation of the library.
Her residence is just a wall away from where she works, "When you commute to work just to and from the stairs, it seems that there is no difference between whether you are off work or not." ”
Uncle Ge often climbed the roof of Yong'an Road, which was his secret base
In Taizhou Linhai, an hour's drive from Lu Ying, Uncle Ge, who is a post-80s, has to work two jobs a day. The one that gets paid during the day and the one that goes unpaid at night.
At 7 a.m., he went to work as a photographer. He has been in this position for 11 years, not to get a promotion and a raise, but to have a stable income, that little free time.
At 5 p.m., he left work on time, rushed to the courtyard on Yong'an Road, and worked until 11 o'clock before returning home. The cultural company he founded here, May, has become Taizhou's most famous group promoting local culture.
Uncle Ge chatted with the old man on Ziyang Street
In the past year, he has only had 10 days off. Working 7 days a week, sleeping 5 hours a day, drinking 6 cups of coffee, the top of his head is getting thinner and thinner, and his speech is as fast as his steps.
He is too busy to do public accounts, to run art festivals, to organize city activities, to operate spaces, and to link up with cultural organizations in other small cities.
"Not only 996, my wife can't find me." But she was relieved to know that I must be busy. ”
After closing, Ran Yu read a book at the "Re-Looking Bookstore"
There is more than one uncle who is so busy in Linhai.
Just a few streets away, there is a bookstore called "Zaiwang". Ran Yu, the owner of the bookstore, and the volunteers of the bookstore, Lao Wu and Chen Eighteen, are both working two jobs at the same time.
Ran Yu is a gentle and gentle post-85 girl who speaks softly. When the bookstore opened in 2017, she was pregnant with her second child, and she opened the bookstore to "do what she wants to do."
There are no best-selling books on the shelves, no teaching materials are sold, and books on art, photography and literature are mainly used. The books didn't sell well, but they didn't stop her from having fun.
Now, she comes to the bookstore early in the morning and doesn't come home until late at night. "My family couldn't see me, and my husband still quarreled with me, saying he didn't understand why he had to spend so much energy on doing this."
A weekend poetry reading session at a bookstore
Ran Yu's Zaiwang Bookstore was like a site, attracting Lao Wu and Chen Eighteen, who were also literary and artistic youths.
The fifth is a medical device, and most of the time, he has to stay in the operating room. But as soon as he has time, he runs to the bookstore, spends at least 2 hours a day turning over books, and when he sees good ones, he contacts the publishing house and helps Ran Yu enter books for the bookstore.
He also created a troupe in the bookstore, did "King Lear" and "Pillow Man" reading clubs, and also wrote his own scripts and directed themselves, the actors are all locals, and the rehearsal progress depends on whether everyone is busy with their own work.
A small courtyard by the sea
Born in 1991, Chen Shiba works as a bank clerk and writes poetry in his spare time.
On weekends, he held a sharing session at the bookstore to introduce Shuang Xuetao and Yang Chaoyue (he is a passionate fan). He also held the "Taizhou Anonymous Novelist Competition" with only one session, and found that there were very few writers living in Taizhou, and after being busy, a lot of energy was spent inviting others to participate.
Taizhou's economy is developed, and taizhou ranks 43rd in the "2020 Top 100 Urban GDP List". Locals pay attention to the need for a "Buddha (comfortable)" in life, and the small restaurants here close their doors after dinner, never delaying their lives in order to make more money.
These 996 young people seem to be an outlier here. When they get to the town and are still so busy, what do they want?
Taizhou Linhai Old Town
Taizhou is in the middle of the rain, Uncle Ge lit a Liqun cigarette, a mouthful of broken bean noodles, a mouthful of yellow wine.
A job recruitment opportunity, he came to Linhai, a year of income of more than 100,000, here enough to spend, the work content is easy and stress-free. He fell in love with the town's "slow, wild and inclusive" and decided to settle down.
After a few years, the girlfriend of a foreign company in Beijing, seeing that he had no intention of returning to Beijing, moved over, and they started a family here and had children.
Uncle Ge's "Hundred Workers in the Sea"
10 years ago, Linhai was still a "cultural desert", and no one was engaged in the cultural industry. There are many craftsmen in the town, but their children are working in the field, and the ancestral skills are not learned.
Uncle Ge, a photographer, began to take pictures of these craftsmen in his spare time- weaving straw fans, playing cotton, making rod scales, and making brown beds. He spread their stories online and gathered the first wave of young people.
Lao Hu and his friends went to Old Street to do oral and hand-drawn paintings
Lao Hu, a girl born in 1995, is one of the young people who were attracted to "May" and stayed in Taizhou.
Lao Hu is from Hunan, but she really likes to explore the small town of Linhai. She is known as the "Little Bully of Ziyang Street", Ziyang Street is the most important street in the old city of Linhai, and almost every family knows her.
When he first joined "May", Lao Hu's income in the first month was 1800 yuan, and now it has risen to normal levels. "In a small city, it is a good way out to go to the public examination, but I have not thought about it." After graduation, she did not go to the big city to find a job, but followed Uncle Ge full-time.
She knew that uncle Ge couldn't make money doing things, but she recognized in her heart that this matter was valuable, and she was still young anyway, so it was better to try it. There is a tax authority person to check the accounts, and before leaving, he advises them, how can you live like this? Do you like to eat as a meal?
I am also doing book storage work
There is a library in Sanmen County, where Lu Ying works, and the new librarians are also selecting books and sorting books. She is 28 years old and three weeks ago she was working as a teacher at an international school in Shanghai. When she came to three jobs, her salary dropped by 60%.
A few years ago, she used to volunteer here. This summer, she felt that "the day of squeezing 1 hour on the subway to work, I don't think about a minute or a second." "Immediately quit my job and came to three doors.
She felt that the original job made her different from herself, "consuming every day and every day", "I have always believed that people should create value in labor, so I came to the three doors to find a job that not only does not consume me, but also nourishes me." ”
Zhang Jin was on her way to school when she was a child, and everyone called her "second sister"
There is a library, which was founded by a post-80s Cambridge graduate.
Her name is Zhang Jin, a three-door person, and her life trajectory before the age of 30 is a perfect model for small-town youth: attending the best local high school, leaving the town through the college entrance examination, completing her studies at Cambridge University, and doing IR (investor relations) at a top financial company.
In the words of the three men, "The only daughter of the Haiyou Zhang family went to buy oil fields for the boss and had a chance to make a difference." ”
In her circle of financial elites, most people plan to achieve financial freedom by the age of 35, with an annual salary of 20 million, and if possible, buy a private jet.
There are three old libraries for the library
Zhang Jin, now 40 years old, with a monthly salary of 0, quit her original job and did not take the salary of the library. She wanted to prove that young people doing small actions can also pry a place and have their own value.
Her primary goal of running the library is to solve the dilemma of "small town problem solvers": how to find your own interests, what major to choose at university, what reading you can read outside the classroom to expand your horizons, and what the latest information is available in the social and professional market.
The library is open to everyone and books can be borrowed for free. In addition, it also held activities such as reading promotion, community schools, summer camps, etc., and gradually developed into a public space for the citizens of the three doors.
Since 2012, the library has a cumulative readership of 230,000, while the population of Sanmen is less than 400,000, and there are activities in the library almost every day.
There is a Merry branch of the Library
The children of the library
Li Chen, the first three children to read in the library, was encouraged by volunteers studying in the humanities, and finally chose to go to St. Petersburg, Russia to study sociology, and now returns to volunteer as soon as he has a holiday.
Her mother came more often and was active in the women's club. This is a women's mutual aid group formed by the library's mothers, who recently did sexual abuse protection for girls and boys in the countryside.
Every year, more than 10,000 people donate to the library, 80% of whom are three-door people. There are hardly any unproducted objects in the museum, and even a pack of tissues and an umbrella are written with the name of the donor.
Most of the young people we meet in Taizhou are not locals.
Uncle Ge once interviewed employees, and a large family came to the door, saying that they were afraid that children would mistakenly enter the pyramid scheme organization.
"I'm hurt inside. Later, I moved the office from the first floor to the second floor, the first floor is somewhat simple, I am worried that the parents will come to see it, feel irregular, and do not let it dry. ”
"May" in the Yong'an Road courtyard
The "May" and "Youwei" teams met at Ziyang Street,
Young people from Linhai and Sanmen often visit each other
Zhang Jin also wants to meet the parents of employees. She was at peace with her parents not supporting it, because it was so common.
Once, Gina, a librarian from Quzhou, said that her father had an opinion on her coming to the three doors and wanted to come here to see. Zhang Jin immediately asked his father to come forward to do the east, and the two fathers and daughters had a meal. During the meal, the two fathers poured bitter water on each other.
Zhang Dad said, "Having given birth to such a strange daughter, do you think it is oh?" ”
Gina's dad said, "Yeah, I owe them in my last life." ”
There was a grumble, and the fathers talked very happily, and the idea of taking Gina away was no longer mentioned.
But the young people themselves will go. Most of the librarians from other places will resign after staying for about two years, and ask if they will stay in the three doors in the future? Also said, I never thought about it. The people in Uncle Ge's team are also old employees who stay for a year.
Summer Camp Working Group Discussion
Old Hu do public sharing
Lao Hu has been working in "May" for 5 years, why didn't he leave? Talking about this topic, Lao Hu stopped talking, sinking deeper and deeper in the sofa chair, with his head hanging low.
She was a left-behind child as a child and is still introverted and sensitive. A group of people chatted, she always sat in the seat on the far side; walking on the road, she always followed the crowd at the end, but the people on the sea side were very gentle, gave her patience, and let her grow into an independent team core.
In the past 5 years, the contacts and vision accumulated by Lao Hu are unimaginable in a regular job position in a big city. External contact, content selection, she is fully involved.
"People told me that because of what I did, she felt that her life in Linhai had changed. I was so happy to hear that I had created something new, not a drop in the bucket. ”
Mom opened a factory in Dongguan, and euphemistically told Old Huti whether to come back to help. Old Hu did not respond. This later became a joke of Uncle Ge: if May can't be done, Lao Hu will have to go back to inherit the factory.
Lao Wu shares Wang Zengqi in the bookstore
The fifth is a Qiandao Laker, who came to Taizhou in 2012.
Ran Yu still remembered that when she first met him, there was a young man who often came to the bookstore to buy coffee, and he was very silent. Always drink half a cup first, put it on the bar, then go for a run, and come back and drink the remaining half a cup.
It was 2018, and the old five had lost love. This would have been a perfect time to leave Taizhou. But because he met Zaiwang Bookstore, he dismissed the idea of leaving.
He likes drama, so Ran Yu changed an area of the bookstore into a small theater to fulfill his dream of drama.
The old five rows of "I Love xxx", can not find the actor, dragging Chen Eighteen, Ran Yu as a lighting engineer, the sound is the kind used for square dance. The day of the premiere was a mess, Ran Yu almost did not press the right lamp, and when Old May spoke, the lamp on Chen Eighteen's head lit up. There was even an audience watching, and everyone was very happy.
Old Five and friends bounce around in Urn City
In fact, the bookstore has been losing money since it opened, and this year it is difficult to break even, and they all feel that the bookstore has hope. But Ran Yu had to move to Ningbo in order for his two children to go to school.
Upon learning of this news, the fifth elder quit his job in medical equipment last month to run the bookstore full-time, staying here from morning to night.
He is 36 years old, in the conventional sense, an age when he has to surrender his will for the sake of family responsibilities and realistic foundations. What if I want to get married? What if I want to raise a child? But in order to save this "small town self-help group", the fifth elder made such a very risky decision.
On a rainy afternoon, Lao Wu had been rehearsing a scene of emotional outbursts, holding a thick piece of paper and throwing it at the people on the other side one at a time.
He wants to live according to his heart's wishes, throwing away something: "I have transferred the basis of my life here." It supported my drive in life, and all my ambitions. ”
"Reunion Island" where friends from all over the world gather
When Uncle Ge first came to the sea, he couldn't understand a word in local dialect, and when others scolded him, he smiled and greeted him.
Now he calls himself a linhai man and calls on friends to bring in new people. He just called his small family from Shanxi to Buy a house in Linhai last week and settle down.
Before that, he invited documentary filmmaker Zhang Disheng to open the craft wine bar in the courtyard of "May", called "Reunion". As soon as Zhang Disheng came, a group of friends who were engaged in movies also came.
In 2019, "Fish Paradise", which won the "One Kind of Attention" award at the FIRST Film Festival, was cut out in this tavern.
Zhang Disheng still remembers that the bar had just moved into the yard, the workers were renovating, and one day, Uncle Ge's children suddenly ran over and cried urgently: "They are going to destroy May." Everyone laughed and said, "You want to inherit this place when you grow up." ”
Kids don't lie, there are good days to look forward to.
Yi Jin and his friends live in seclusion by the Sanmen Sea, and Acha takes pictures
In the "Taizhou Anonymous Novelist Competition" held by the bookstore, the first prize author was a librarian of the Sanmen Youwei Library, called Yijin.
Yi Jin came to the three doors because of the library, resigned and decided to stay, living in seclusion on a mountain, facing the sea, doing some farm work, and writing full-time.
The award-winning novel, written by a man who couldn't stand married life, cut off a finger, held it in his hand, and from time to time, opened it to see.
Lao Hu still did not decide where to go in the future: "Life here gives me too many possibilities." ”
As for the fifth elder, he said: "I will take staying here as the only choice in life." When there is only one way left to go, I will not be overwhelmed by any difficulties. ”
*Some of the pictures are provided by the "May" and "Youwei Library" teams, special thanks to Mou Zhiying
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