Aerial photography of Whampoa Wenchong Happiness. (Photo/Photo courtesy of the interviewee)
Shenjing Village is like a peach blossom garden.
From the Whampoa Fish Pearl Wharf to cross the Pearl River to Cheung Chau Island, there are two forks in the road, and most tourists flock to the former site of the Whampoa Military Academy. Shenjing village road is narrow, a ride-hailing car according to the navigation to drive in, in front of the high wall narrow alley, the driver from the modern city occasionally entered this place, had to get off the car to the old man who is fishing to ask: "How does the deep well primary school go?" ”
Shenjing Ancient Village, on the south side of Changzhou Island in Huangpu District, Guangzhou, is located between The University Town and the Whampoa Military Academy, as its name suggests, quiet and deep. Overlooking the ancient village, the rake-tooth layout in the traditional villages of the Pearl River Delta, the teeth of the alleys like farm tool rakes are neatly arranged on one side of the street, and the main street is north-south and east-east, consistent with the dominant wind direction of the summer wind.
On May 13, 2022, after a torrential rain, the rain was pouring down, and Ling Weitian, a 64-year-old retired principal of Shenjing Primary School, walked in the village with an umbrella. Under the rainwater, the color contrast of masonry and materials of different ages is more obvious. A narrow alley down, the village of buildings are different, the houses are tight, along the way you can see both hard mountain tops, herringbone volcanic walls, green bricks and red sand rock feet, flower window gray sculptures and other Lingnan style, but also can see modern reinforced concrete, villagers live in it, come and go.
Urban people are not familiar with such a place. After years of termite grazing, natural disasters, and man-made destruction, some traditional villages have gradually disappeared. In these ancient villages, which have lasted for hundreds of thousands of years, the ancient buildings have fallen and the historical style has disappeared; Subsequently, the villagers moved out, and the former residence was deserted; Eventually, the ancient village disintegrated, and many memories were annihilated.
It is disappearing much faster than people think. From 2008 to 2010, the research team of the Chinese Village Culture Research Center of Central South University investigated the cultural relics of traditional villages in 902 townships in 113 counties (including county-level cities) in 17 provinces. As a result, the number of traditional villages has decreased by more than 41% in six years, with an average of 1.6 extinctions per day. In 2014, the expedition team returned to visit again, and 44.6% disappeared in four years, with an average of 1 extinction every 3 days.
These traditional villages were once expected to preserve historical information and cultural landscapes, and together with centuries-old village family stories and the life trajectories of all generations of villagers, they were protected from the danger of urbanization. In 2012, the first batch of "List of Traditional Chinese Villages" was announced, including 646 traditional villages, and so far 5 batches have been selected, and a total of 6819 traditional villages have been included.
Walk to one of the ancient houses in the deep well, No. 14 Qixifang. The wooden door was locked, and Ling Weitian pointed to the door and said, "I lived here until I was twenty years old." "Originally, the owner of the original house went to Hong Kong, and Ling Weitian's family paid a monthly rent of one yuan to the custodian of the house. Through the crack in the door, Ling Weitian, whose hair was already gray, looked inside, as if returning to his youth: "The screen inside is very beautiful, and you can see the golden characters." ”
In Ling Weitian's memory, there were many ancient buildings when he was a child, "this is a far-reaching street", and the village will always be clean. The scene he remembers most is when he was young, working in a small factory, coming home from work in the middle of the night, the moonlight shining on the path, and the scent of jasmine wafting everywhere.
Memories are being re-salvaged. In February 2022, the Huangpu District of Guangzhou City, where Shenjing Village is located, surveyed the "bottom of the home" - inventory of the "ten types of ancient relics" in the whole district - including ancient villages, ancient roads, ancient bridges, ancient docks connecting villages, ancient houses, ancient alleys, ancient temples, ancient towers, ancient wells, and ancient trees with humanistic stories, reaching a total of 701.
Nine of these ancient remains can be found in Liantang Village, Huangpu District, which has been established for more than 700 years, and they now have digital archives, including numbers, addresses, dates, legends and stories, and preservation status. Lu Qi, a professor at the School of Architecture of South China University of Technology, has investigated many traditional villages, and Liantang Village has impressed him: in front of the village, there are five ponds of different sizes for fire prevention, anti-theft and fish farming, and the ponds are separated by dams, resembling lotus roots surrounding the village, forming a village pattern of "back screen Xuanwu, jade belt around the waist". "It's unique in the country." Lu Qi said. He also praised Liantang Village's chongwen re-education, "When we study old neighborhoods and ancient villages, we can't just pay attention to what we see, but we must delve into some culture and folklore hidden behind it." ”
In the ancient ancestral hall of Shenjing, Wing Chun was passed down to teach boxing on the spot. (Lu Mingjie/Photo)
A landscape that lasts for hundreds of years
Ling Wenxing is the twenty-third generation of the Ling family, and after retirement, he became a "village sage" and was entrusted by the villagers to take care of the ancient buildings in the village. During the flood season, he posted a notice in the village early in the morning, reminding that "there will be heavy rainfall in the future, and it is necessary to prevent and avoid danger in advance." The annual rainfall in Shenjing Village is about 1694 mm, and the people in the village have long been accustomed to typhoons and torrential rains.
Ancient buildings, mainly ancestral halls and houses, account for half of the village's buildings. For hundreds of years, the ancient buildings of Shenjing Village have not only survived natural disasters, but also "dodged" several major "demolitions".
Historically, Shenjing Village belonged to Panyu County, and in the 1950s and 1960s it was under the jurisdiction of Huangpu District, with a remote location and little attention, Ling Wenxing said, "It was a very remote corner of Panyu at the beginning, and it was also the same (remote) after it was drawn to Huangpu."
In the 1950s and 1960s, the village was poor, and many people once demolished their houses to sell for money, and some of the ancient bricks in the deep well were demolished to build new houses in the surrounding area. Even then, ancient buildings such as the Deep Well Wenta escaped the disaster. Wen Pagoda was built in the late Qing Dynasty, in order to highlight the context of many jinshi in the Shenjing Village Examination, and also to inspire the younger generations to be named in the golden list. The plan to demolish the tower was abandoned because of the strong opposition of the villagers, and the ancient tower stands to this day. After the economic conditions improved, some villagers lived in Hong Kong, Macao or overseas, and their ancient houses in Shenjing Village were preserved.
In Ling Weitian's impression when he was young, some other streets outside Cheung Chau Island were "rotten and small", and the houses were mostly mud houses. But in the 1980s and 1990s, he saw that the nights were "lit up" – and the streets were undergoing massive renovations of the old city. At that time, Ling Weitian saw in the newspaper that he wanted to "develop Cheung Chau Island" and thought that there would be very big changes here.
The village of Deep Well was not demolished in the end. Cheung Chau Island, where this ancient village is located, was included in the control plan of the cultural tourism scenic spot in 1995. "At that time, others were acquiring land to open factories, but we were moving factories." Ling Wenxing recalled. Before that, the island's light textile industry was once developed, and large and small factories provided many jobs for the villagers. Ling Wenxing pointed to the river next to the Shenjing Neighborhood Committee, where bustling restaurants, shops, etc. once appeared across the river, but because of the new plan, they have been evacuated.
Cheung Chau Island is positioned as the "Historic Whampoa". According to the Cheung Chau Street Chronicle, from 1985 to 2019, a total of about 17 planning schemes were introduced to control the construction land and protect cheung Chau monuments. Yan Xinmin, director of the Changzhou Subdistrict People's Congress Working Committee, told Southern Weekend that Changzhou Island, including Shenjing Village, can only carry out restrictive protective development, "buildings can only be less, can not be increased, green space can only be increased."
According to the traditional village protection and development plan of Shenjing Village, the transformation scope of the entire Shenjing Village has increased from the original 37.21 hectares to 256.83 hectares. The new plan divides Shenjing Village into three protection levels: the core protection scope, the construction control zone, and the environmental coordination area. Shenjing Village cannot carry out large-scale demolition and construction, but can only carry out micro-transformation.
Ling Weitian recalled that in addition to partial repairs, the ancient architectural style of Shenjing Village has not changed much for twenty years. Even though the outside has changed dramatically, these ancient buildings are still preserved intact in the ancient village.
Ling Weitian taught for forty-three years. Walking in the alley, two primary school students saw Ling Weitian after class, bowed slightly, and shouted "Hello Principal". Ling Weitian said that a few years ago, Shenjing Primary School launched a cultural heritage protection project, as part of the curriculum, the teacher led students to investigate ancient buildings, fill out the form and summarize it, and publish it in class.
What the children saw was similar to that of their ancestors for hundreds of years: the machine cultivation road was lined with two ancient banyan trees, starting from the ancient banyan trees of welcome guests, passing through Zhengjiqian Street, and coming to an ancient well in Anlai City, the former foreign trade market in Shenjing Village, and there was an ancient well in Anlai City on the site of the market, which was dug in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Minchu, and was listed as a cultural relics protection unit in Huangpu District. After the 1980s, the village switched to tap water, but the ancient well remained, and when viewed through the wellhead, the water quality is still clear, and the villagers sometimes use the well water to wash their clothes. "Wells need to be raised to keep coming out of clean water, and children need to pay attention to the culture of their hometown from an early age." Ling Weitian said.
Starting from the ancient banyan tree of Chang Gung and passing through Qixifang Street, we came to the Shenjing Ancient Residential Complex, Guangzhou Xiguan House, Hakka Watchtower, Western-style Stone Pillar... When Ling Weitian was a child, he often played in the "Fool's Garden". The house was bought by Ling Hongnian, who was the director of the Guangdong Police Department during the Republic of China, and still lives in Ling Hongnian's eldest grandson, Ling Xiqu, who has more than 80 years, and his wife. The living room is placed with a piece of Great Wall brick left by Ling Hongnian, waiting for the children to visit Gugu.
From Qixifang Street to Zhengjifang Street, at the Linggong Ancestral Hall on Qianshan Mountain, Wing Chun's descendant Wu Shaohua is sweeping the court. In the middle of the hall stood two Wing Chun fist piles. Wu Shaohua would teach the children in the village to practice boxing two nights a week, which lasted until the 2020 epidemic was suspended. "I teach boxing all for free, and I never charge money," Wu Shaohua told Southern Weekend reporters with some pride, "it has been more than fifty years." Today, there are still eight such ancestral halls in Shenjing Village.
The three alleys perpendicular to the main street of Cong Gui West Street are all named after "Jin Shi". The monument in front of the Ling Ancestral Hall is engraved with the names of the ancestors of the village who were admitted to the examination as officials. Shenjing Elementary School is not far from The Deep Well Wenta, and teachers and students of the school will hold an "opening ceremony" in front of the tower every year on the day before the start of the new semester. The brick and wooden pagoda has three floors, the first floor of the stone gate Eyang carved "Mountain Ming Shui Xiu", the second floor is engraved with "Zhencai Gaofei", and the third floor is engraved "Chongxiao". Under the witness of the 127-year-old Wen Pagoda, the new students collectively recited the "Disciple Rules" and completed ceremonies such as cinnabar enlightenment and enlightenment depiction.
The children of Shenjing Elementary School have no shortage of highly educated talents. Ling's eldest daughter is studying for a PhD in urban planning at the National University of Singapore and will return to her hometown in 2022. The traditional industries of Shenjing Village, which are mainly agriculture, ship repair and commerce, have declined, and most of the villagers' income currently depends on migrant workers, housing rental and a small amount of collective economic dividends.
How to build a hometown is also a problem that the descendants of the deep well need to think about. A young man surnamed Ling in the village returned to his hometown to assist the community in building a base for bawanghua, and the first planting area was about 10 acres, all of which were used to plant bawanghua - deep well bawanghua and deep well roast goose are the most distinctive agricultural products and delicacies in Shenjing Village. Due to pests and diseases and other reasons, the villagers planted the bawang flower is easy to rot, the harvest is also extremely limited, the young man used the technology learned outside, and constantly improved the planting method, hoping to establish a brand of deep well bawang flower.
"Revitalize" ancient buildings
Lu Congtai, a villager in Wenchong Village, sat on his family's "Lanquan Lugong Ancestral Hall" and looked at this ancient building that was originally built in 1914 with satisfaction, stepping stones, platforms, and stone pillars in a neat and tidy manner, and he proudly said: "Now there is no need to go to special maintenance, and it is estimated that it will take hundreds of years to repair again." ”
More than 800 years ago, Wenchong built a village, and the Lu clan built private schools, ancestral halls and other buildings along the moat to form a village. In 2009, Wenchong Village started the renovation, as the first urban village renovation project in Huangpu District to start construction, in order to preserve these ancient buildings, Huangpu District spent nearly ten years to achieve a balance between the government, villagers and developers.
The restoration process of the Lanquan Lugong Ancestral Hall lasted more than eight months. When bidding, Wenchong Village even gave bidders a "question": in the open space in the village, using traditional crafts and materials, a small house was really built. Lu Congtai also directly excluded a bidder from the project party list because he could not distinguish between "cultural relics buildings" and "excellent historical buildings".
As a representative of the villagers, Lu Congtai supervised the whole project site to avoid damage, especially key parts such as hanging beams and foundations. If the components need to be repaired, they will also try to be consistent with the original appearance – the characters, flowers and birds on the beams now look a little mottled, which is exactly what was deliberately re-depicted.
The historical features of Wenchong Village have three major protection plans: in order to alleviate the contradiction between the protection of ancient buildings and the construction of villages in the city, the earliest "Wenchong Ancient Buildings Protection Plan" began to solicit the wishes of the village committee and villagers, and Wenchong ancient buildings were divided into five categories, emphasizing the protection and repair of the original sites of ancient buildings; After that, the intensity of cultural heritage protection increased, and the "Wenchong (Petrochemical Road) Urban Village Transformation Project Immovable Cultural Heritage Planning and Construction Plan" was introduced, which increased the protection requirements for those registered and identified ancient buildings; After the developer entered, the "Guangzhou Vanke Wenchong Demonstration Zone" was planned, in addition to protection, the ancient village area will be planned as a commercial and leisure area in the future.
The person in charge of the Wenchong community told the Southern Weekend reporter that the new idea of Wenchong Village for the protection of ancient buildings is to create an ancient building complex and "form an intensive effect." Southern Weekend reporters noted that in order to be consistent with the overall style of the village, in addition to "repairing the old as old", including the use of the same materials, some new buildings are intentionally "old" to preserve the historical style.
Since the beginning of the renovation of Wenchong ancient buildings in 2013, on the original site of the ancient village of about 13,000 square meters, "Guangzhou Happiness Li" has finally been completed: with the 300-year-old Lu Clan Ancestral Hall as the center, near the Wenchong Feng Shui Pond, surrounded by 26 ancient buildings, becoming the largest "historical relics reserve" in the city.
The planning of Wenchong ancient buildings is quite expensive, and its planning scope covers villages, landscapes, streets and alleys and buildings. Lu Congtai said that the cost of the renovation is all borne by the developer.
The ancient buildings that have been repaired and relocated now have their own uses, such as as canteens for the elderly and youth learning clubs. The WenBing Lugong Ancestral Hall was built as the "Wenchong Nostalgia Hall", using digital technology equipment to display the history of the Wenchong area; The Shijie Lu Gong Ancestral Hall was built as "Lu Liuqing Guang embroidery studio" for Guang embroidery production, exhibition and teaching; The Wenchong Artillery Tower, on the other hand, is planned to be built into a digital museum. On May 21, 2022, when Southern Weekend reporters visited "Guangzhou Happiness", in the Lu Ancestral Hall, the older villagers were nervously rehearsing Cantonese opera; The Guangzhou Children's Palace has set up teaching points in three other ancestral halls, and children in the village are learning magic, singing, and paper-cutting culture. The teacher of guangzhou Children's Palace introduced that taking classes in the ancestral hall is the "first time", and it is a more interesting attempt to use the ancestral hall to tell the ancient village culture to children.
The planning of Wenchong ancient buildings is quite expensive, and its planning scope covers villages, landscapes, streets and alleys and buildings. Nowadays, the villagers are living in plentiful and have moved into nearby relocation houses, ranging from 30 square meters to 150 square meters, and some have been allocated to multiple houses. Wenchong Village has 22 production teams, and every year they share dividends for the villagers to which they belong, and each person can get about 40,000 to 80,000 yuan. For the elderly over 70 years old, the village provides free lunch for them; The elderly's homes are even equipped with intelligent equipment, and once they suddenly fall ill, they can immediately get door-to-door assistance from the community when they call for help from the equipment.
"Our planning is good, put together, generation after generation. What is protection? It is neither random demolition nor random construction, but there are procedures, plans, and approvals. Lu Congtai told the Southern Weekend reporter, "We are gathered together, what activities are used for this, what activities can be revitalized, the ancient buildings are popular, it is not good to use it, for a long time, no one lives here, it will be broken." ”
Luo Huijuan Qiaopin "Guangzhou Baili Silk Road Style" part. (Photo/Photo courtesy of the interviewee)
Create in history
The ancient buildings in Hengsha Village are far denser than those in "Wenchong Happiness Lane", and there are 23 private schools and ancestral halls in the "Shuxiang Street" about 260 meters long in the south of the village, which is rare in the Lingnan region. Shuxiang Street was known as the "City of Learning" in ancient times, with green bricks and gray tiles, dragon's back goose ears, and still completely retains the architectural style of Lingnan in the Qing Dynasty. Walk through the deep streets and alleys, looking for the lingering charm of the ancient buildings, the traditional buildings of the historic district are gradually being revitalized.
This is no small project. "We have too much heritage, and almost every one of them needs to be (repaired), whether it's overhaul or minor." Luo Yulan, director of the hengsha community party and government office, told Southern Weekend reporters. Unlike Wenchong Village, Shuxiang Street was not included in the cost of renovation of the old city due to its high cost of renovation. How the existing municipal cultural protection units will be positioned will determine the scope and intensity of protection of their surrounding cultural heritage.
Luo Huijuan, 55, a native of Hengsha and known as "Sister Juan," has disappeared some of the buildings she remembered as a child. As a souvenir, she has her own way of doing "clever things". Every year on Tanabata, Hengsha Village holds a "Beggars Festival" in the ancestral hall. According to legend, the "Seven Tricks" are the heavenly weaving masters, and "begging" them can obtain exquisite craftsmanship. On the day of the festival, the qiao sisters will use chaff, bamboo sticks, bark, etc. to make flowers and birds and other "clever products" to display.
Sister Juan has a special affection for the village and tries to record the old houses that have disappeared with the craftsmanship of intangible cultural heritage. She used the materials she picked up to make a model of the old pawnshop that she used to play with as a child. The centenarian in the village mentioned to Juanjie a building that had disappeared, which Juanjie had never seen before, and made it according to the old man's description. The old man looked at it and sighed, "It seems! The old man kept touching it with his hand, and even the simple stairs that Juan Jie made to save energy were "crooked" in the old man's memory.
Juan Jie became "Qiao Jie" because of a "propositional composition". Southern Song Dynasty poet Liu Kezhuang's Five Absolute Songs of The Matter: "Melon and fruit stomp fist blessing, throat Luo fluttering sound." Cantonese people are very clever, and the lights are bright until dawn. Qiao Jie collected information on the Internet, and also found a scholar to speak poetry, and after understanding the content, she produced the Qiaopin "Southern Song Dynasty Cantonese Beggar's Night", which won the "Golden Qiao Award" in one fell swoop. Due to the innovation of craftsmanship and fine production, Juanjie has won numerous awards in her more than 20 years of Qiaojie's career, and the Huangpu District Cultural Center has also held an exhibition of her personal works.
Juanjie's inspiration always seems to flow. After the outbreak of the epidemic, she used clay to work as a group of anti-epidemic medical staff; Watching the live broadcast of the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, Juan Jie began to make Snow Ruyi, Ice Ribbon and Gu Ailing's gold ski jump. Her bigger plan was to make the history of Whampoa into a three-dimensional scroll with clever products.
As a celebrity in Hengsha Village, Juan Jie enjoys preferential treatment in the village, including support for her beggar studio and work storage room. In the old reform of Hengsha Village, some people moved the flowers and grasses left behind, and Juanjie moved to the courtyard of the studio, and now they have flourished.
When Juan Jie made smart products, most of the recyclable materials that people discarded, such as foam board, paper shells, beverage bottles, egg shells, disposable chopsticks, etc., were once ridiculed by her mother as "garbage women". She found inspiration from photography and Chinese painting works, learned the mood and composition, went to Foshan to learn the expressions, movements and folds of clothes of pottery dolls, and watched the master of the noodles outside the village, "tuition" is a drink snack that is carried from time to time... Finally, the self-taught Sister Juan transformed the "garbage" into a miniature version of the world.
"I want to leave a little trace here," Juan Jie told the Southern Weekend reporter, "after a hundred years, others know through my works that Qiqiao is not so simple." In the past, many people felt that The works of Tangram were not technical or exquisite enough, but I wanted to show them to others, and Tangram could be very modern or very traditional. ”
Hengsha Village, where Sister Juan has lived all her life, is also facing a creative transformation.
Luo Yulan told southern weekend reporters that after the positioning of Shuxiang Street is clear, the protection and development can be further advanced.
Along with the ancient architecture, some traditions remain in Hengsha Village. The "Deer Cave Legacy" influences the culture of the village. The grandson of the Song Dynasty scholar Zhu Xi once moved here, and there is now a Zhu ancestral hall with a portrait of Zhu Xi hanging here. Luo Yulan said that the village cadres have all studied and grown up here, and since 2014, the community has issued scholarships to outstanding fresh graduates who participated in the middle school entrance examination, college entrance examination, examination and research institute and PhD, accumulating nearly 800,000 yuan in eight years and rewarding 288 outstanding students. The ordinance was even written into the statutes of the village's collective economic organizations.
Luo Yulan introduced that in the ancestral hall of Hengsha Village, the villagers will talk and perform programs here, and large-scale celebrations will be held in traditional festivals. "When there was no epidemic, we were still there to put wine, happy wine, full moon wine and the like," Luo Yulan told southern weekend reporters, "for our villagers in Hengsha Village, these are not cultural relics, but the place where we grew up, which is a very familiar existence." ”
Sister Juan grew up in such an atmosphere, when she was young, she pulled sausage powder, steamed muffins, ran the dock during the day, and returned to the village after work at night, followed her own interests to make clever products, often stayed up until one or two o'clock, and became a "full-time" qiao sister after retirement.
After the development of the ancient village, the village plans to use a cultural protection building as an exhibition space for Juanjie's ingenious products. At present, Juanjie's trophies are all over the yard, and the works are piled up in the storage room, some of which have never even been shown. "I've been doing it for more than twenty years, and now the only idea is to make this work for future generations, and the value is here."
Southern Weekend reporter Zhang Rui Southern Weekend intern Wang Ruixue