If a person arrives in Shanghai without going to the alleys in Shanghai, you should feel very sorry. In the afternoon, when the people who went to work and school had not yet returned, they walked into the small road from the commercial street of Shanghai at random, and immediately you could see that there were spacious entrances under the plane trees, what was written on the lintel, some written on the bottom of the arcade building 1902, inside were rows of two- or three-story houses, and the small balconies next to it were warm with sunlight. The glass windows of people's homes in the depths reflect the cars that passed on the road, which is the lanes of Shanghai.
Li Shoubai - Heavy Color Painting - Spring, 2005
In the whole of Shanghai, more than half of the residences are lanes, and the vast majority of Shanghainese live in various lanes.
Often at the exit of the alley, there is a small cigarette paper shop, and in the unbelievably small storefront, there are inextricably displayed all kinds of daily necessities, snacks for children, needles and threads used by old ladies, stamps used by the city's postal service, and all kinds of things that are easy to suddenly lack in the days of home, and people can run out to buy them when they wear home-made clothes and shoes. There are often women in flower pajamas to buy a pack of snacks, and their toes are tightly clamped with red slippers that have collapsed heels, and people are not surprised in the alley. The people in the small shop are often very vigilant and enthusiastic, he drives a radio, listens to the host all day, and also hopes to come to someone, listen to him, he looks at the people who come and go on the small streets every day, the people who come and go in the alley, as long as they have a little imagination, they can be regarded as reading people.
Li Shoubai - Heavy Color Painting - Summer, 2005
Walking into the alleys of Shanghainese people, it can be regarded as the beginning of the life of Shanghai, the life behind the commercial street, the lights and wine, and the dignity of the people. Shanghainese love face, walking in shops, restaurants, bars, parks, everyone looks well-fed, but the alley is different.
Calm music was on; the smell of stewed chicken came from the public kitchen at the back door; where there was sunlight, the people on the ground floor pulled out the hemp rope and took out the family's quilts and mattresses to dry, the newly washed clothes were fragrant, the flowers and green flowers fluttered in the wind, and if you looked closely, you recognized that this was the fashionable style on the street this year; you saw the lady with the hair on the back door, wearing an old sweater with shrinkage, washing her hair with Shifen, and the wet hair under the sun was steaming There was also a shoe repair master, sitting in the alley, ping-pong tapping on the stiletto of a high heel, patching up a new eraser, and on the small stool next to it sat a well-dressed woman, barefoot waiting to repair the shoes, and they cursed the quality of the shoes and the profiteers who sold defective shoes.
Li Shoubai - Heavy Color Painting - Autumn, 2005
There was also the old man in the alley, sitting and talking in a place where there was the sun. The old lady was always more silent, and the old gentleman liked someone to talk to him, and listened to him talk about the things that had happened here before, and he liked it the most.
There is always a kind of serene practicality of daily life in the alley, and the Shanghainese value and love it. This is the background of Shanghainese life, since the nineteenth century in the Bund near the first Shanghai lane called "Xingrenli", serene and practical, not humble, not too much advocating the new school has appeared in the life of Shanghainese.
In the 1850s, due to the Shanghai Knife Society uprising in the old city, Shanghainese began to flee to the concession, foreigners in the concession in order to earn money for Chinese refugees, according to the appearance of the workers' houses in the industrial area of London, one by one, row by row built eight hundred houses, that is the beginning of the concession lane, by 1872, Ma Yiba built Shanghai Xingrenli, from then on, Shanghai people began to live in the lane.
Li Shoubai - Heavy Color Painting - Winter, 2005
Shanghai is a metropolis, so big that it is like the tablecloth used by the chef in the hotel. In the past, many pieces were demarcated by foreigners, one was made into the French Concession, one was done in the British Concession, leaving a piece of Shanghai Old Town, far away from the factory area, and many people lived in the area opened up for those who worked in the factory, that was the division of the former city, but in the hearts of the Shanghainese people, they felt that such a division of the area seemed to be divided into classes, and people living in different places had a less friendly attitude toward each other, and they did not like to identify with each other, so they did not communicate much. In this way, this place in Shanghai sometimes makes people feel like there are many small countries in it, just like in Europe, people look like the same people, and if you look closely, you can see that the Germans are on the board, the French are charming, the Poles are bitter, and the people who live in different parts of Shanghai also have different faces. Therefore, people who have lived in Shanghai for decades from childhood to adulthood dare not say that they know Shanghai, but only understand a certain part of Shanghai.
From the earlier refugee wooden houses, to the Shikumen Lane, to the later new-style Lane houses, they are distributed like blood vessels in more than 9,000 lanes throughout Shanghai, almost full of the same atmosphere.
Li Shoubai - Heavy Color Painting - "The Alley with a Well", 2006
That's where Shanghai's middle class has lived for generations. They are the majority of the people in society, have a life of food and clothing, but there is no great wealth; there is decency, but there is no soaring yellow; economical and practical, careful to be a person, not too much entertainment, not too much luxury, diligent and satisfactory to support their well-off days, enterprising, hope that they are getting better and better every year, but also know the current affairs, know how to leave the castle in the air. They are determined to live their lives in the economic space, but they can glance at the opportunities they may have and hope to go to the next level. They're not the kind of innocent people, and certainly not too bad.
There will always be no despair in Shanghai's lanes. The small balcony is dried with homemade vegetables and freshly bought soybeans, and under the window of the shaded north pavilion, there is a salted meat marinated with the best fresh meat, with peppercorns, and a piece of oil paper covered on it to prevent rain and sound in the wind. Someone on the edge of the window planted a jewel flower that was not afraid of the cold with a broken washbasin. Even in the most turbulent times, life in the alley was still proceeding in an orderly manner. Here like the sophisticated old man, moderate, sophisticated, follow the morality of the city, do not like any radical, but do not impose their own opinions, just live their own lives in a decent manner.
Li Shoubai - Heavy Color Painting - "Crossing the Street Building", 2006
At night, the back door of the house is open to cook rice, the aroma is fragrant, people come back to their homes, and people who look like country girls rush in and out of the back door, which is the busiest time for the hourly nanny. Most of the girls who come to Shanghai quickly gain weight because they have more to eat, and compared with Shanghai girls, they are a little swollen. They work silently and quickly in the public kitchen at the back door, and the current nanny is not as fond of talking and fiddling with right and wrong as the nannies who used to come and go here. But they are not so good at serving Shanghainese, so the delicate things in the kitchen are still done by the master himself, cutting white cut meat, adjusting the ginger vinegar dipping sauce of hairy crabs, Wen Shaoxing yellow wine, and then, the hostess uses a large tray to send to his room.
If you have been to the alleys in Shanghai and probably go elsewhere in Shanghai, you will understand more things. Because the alleys in Shanghai are the most authentic and open space in the whole of Shanghai, people really live here, that is, the beauties of Shanghai, and they are also dressed up at home, and they do not care to wear the collapsed heel slippers they are wearing at home to win the trust.
About the Author
Artist Li Shoubai
Li Shoubai, born in Shanghai in 1962, is a native of Shangyu, Zhejiang Province, and specializes in painting and paper cutting. He is currently the vice chairman of the Paper-cutting Art Committee of the Chinese Association for the Advancement of Chinese Culture, the deputy director of the Paper-cutting Art Committee of the Chinese Culture Promotion Association, a deputy to the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress, the vice chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Federation of Literature and Literature, the chairman of the Shanghai Folk Writers Association, a member of the Shanghai Artists Association, a master of Arts and Crafts in Shanghai, a visiting professor of East China Normal University in Shanghai and the Shanghai Academy of Arts and Crafts. The representative inheritor of the "Intangible Cultural Heritage" Haipai paper-cutting school has created more than 1,500 works and won more than 10 gold awards, including the "Cultural Heritage Day Award" of the Ministry of Culture of China and the "Mountain Flower Award" of folk art of the China Federation of Literature and Art. His works have been exhibited and exhibited in France, Germany, Austria, Cuba, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Beijing, Guangzhou and other places at home and abroad. It is collected by the Marley Art Museum, the China Paper-cut Museum, the Shanghai Art Museum Collection Committee, the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, the Starbucks Enterprise Management Co., Ltd., CITIC Pacific Plaza Co., Ltd. and other multinational institutions and private collectors around the world.
Writer Chen Danyan
Chen Danyan is a member of the Chinese Writers Association. Director of Shanghai Writers Association. In 1982, he graduated from the Department of Chinese of East China Normal University and joined the Magazine of the China Welfare Association as a novel editor. In 1992, he also served as the host of the youth program of Shanghai Oriental Television Station. In the 1980s, he began to create children's literature, and his main works include "Girls" (won the second prize of the Ministry of Culture's Ten Years of Children's Literature in the New Era), "Trilogy of Female Middle School Students" (won the National Award for Works on Women and Children's Themes), and "My Mother is an Elf". In the late 1980s, he was engaged in the creation of adult literature, and his main works include the novels "Heart Like Water", "Gossip", "A Girl", "Slow Boat To China", the Shanghai trilogy "Shanghai's Wind and Snow Moon", "Shanghai's Golden Branches and Jade Leaves", "Shanghai's Red Face Relics", the prose collection "Private Past For Girls", "The Aestheticist's Dance", "Flowers on a Long Skirt" and so on. At the same time, he created and published works on the theme of teenagers, such as "Declaration of the Only Child" and "Six Afternoons in the Trapezoidal Classroom", which were widely praised. Many of his works have won many awards at home and abroad.
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