This is the memory of the last year of the 20th century.
In his memory, every weekend, he always took a bus from Wujiaochang where Fudan University is located, through the lively street market, through the bridge across the Suzhou River through the traffic flow, through the crowded Bund, to the bustling Dongjiadu and then get off the bus to board the ferry. As the boat moved, the river breeze blew on the face, and the singing urban area gradually quieted down and went away - according to the requirements of adults, this freshman who "how can he eat well in the university cafeteria" must go to his grandparents' house on the other side of the Huangpu River to "replenish his body".
Always at dusk, he walked into Weishan New Village, where his grandparents' house was. The scenery in front of you is very different from Puxi. Under the shade of the trees in the community, there are elderly people shaking fans to cool off, some people are rubbing mahjong, and when you enter the corridor, you can smell someone frying salted fish.
Everything was slow, and he felt as if time had stood still in this neighborhood. This stagnation made him feel anxious, he felt that this was not the place where young people should come, and he felt resisted. He gradually shortened his stay in the community: from staying for the entire weekend, to staying only one day, to finally rushing back to school overnight after dinner and ignoring the support of his grandparents. At that time, he said, he did not want to go to Weishan New Village, he wanted to plunge into the fiery rhythm of the city, and live like a real Shanghai youth.
As for what kind of life it was, perhaps from the beginning to the present, Jin Li has been pondering.
5-year-old Jin Li in Weishan New Village (courtesy of Jin Li)
1
There is a puzzle about the time when Weishan New Village appeared.
In the introduction of the real estate agent, Weishan New Village was "built in 1988". However, in Jinli's memory, adults firmly told him that after he was born in 1981, his mother carried him back from the hospital to Weishan New Village. In 1982, a short news in the city's media entitled "The City Opens a Batch of New Place Names" officially confirmed the appearance of the name of Weishan New Village in September of that year:
"With the approval of the municipal government, five new villages and thirty-two roads and new place names will be used from now on; Cancel two road names and change one road name. The five new villages are: Guixiang New Village in Putuo District; Shangnan New Village, Weishan New Village, and South Pier New Village in the southern urban area; Quyang New Village, Hongkou District. ”
Indeed, at that time, although Weishan New Village belonged to the Pudong area, it was administratively under the jurisdiction of Nancheng City, the political center of the old Shanghai County. The year Jin Li was born, it was time for new villages to be built in the Pudong area. In old reports, you can also get a glimpse of what it looked like when it was first built: "In October 1981, after the completion of some new villages in Pudong, the roads were uneven, the street lights were insufficient, and there was a lack of public toilets. After the deputy district chief and the cadres of the urban construction and housing offices inspected it, they immediately sent a construction team to the site. At present, a 200-meter-long rugged road in Shanggang Village 1 and Village 4 is being repaired, and the restoration plan for five roads, including Changle Road and Xujiazhai Road, has also been implemented. The 26 new workshops in Shangnan Village did not have street lights, so they discussed with the Pudong Power Supply Station and have installed street lights. The street lamp decoration plans of Jiaonan and Weishan New Villages have also been implemented. ”
In 2000, the Shanghai Municipal Government announced the abolition of the Nancheng District and the merger of the Nancheng District on the west bank of the Huangpu River into Huangpu District. The former Nancheng Huangpu River East Bank Area was merged into Pudong New Area shortly after the establishment of Pudong New Area in 1993.
2
Newborn children do not realize that they are almost the same age as themselves, and that their area is also "one year and three years old" in their own way.
Compared with the urbanization of the Puxi area at that time, Pudong has always been like a latecomer who catches up barefoot. But where should the definition of front wave and back wave, maturity and renewal, be divided? Standing in 1999, looking at Pudong and Puxi, there is no doubt which side is more fashionable and mature. But what if the clock goes further?
For example, pushing the time back to the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, Nancangdu, the predecessor of the South Wharf in the Pudong area of Shanghai, together with Dongjiadu and Yangjiadu, was called the Eight Great Ferry Ports of the Huangpu River, which was the largest private granary ferry port in the Pudong area at that time. In modern times, national industries have risen, and this has evolved into concentrated industrial areas such as chemical factories and shipyards. The reason why Jinli's grandparents lived in Weishan New Village was because they worked for the Shanghai Solvent Factory.
It was called the "No. 1 in the Far East" and was the largest alcohol factory in Asia at the time. Local chronicles show that the Shanghai solvent factory located in the South Wharf was originally invested by overseas Chinese Huang Jiangquan and Huang Zongxiao in 1933 and founded in 1934, called the China Alcohol Factory. "Using cane molasses imported from Nanyang as the raw material for making alcohol, it produces 7,000 gallons of alcohol per day with a purity of 96 to 97 percent." On January 19, 1934, in order to commemorate the patriotic spirit of his father Huang Zhonghan, Huang Zongxiao made and hung a plaque in the factory office building, with the four characters "Stepfather Qianhui", which is still preserved in the modern building complex of Shanghai Solvent Factory.
China Alcohol Factory was a large enterprise invested and built and put into production by overseas Chinese capital in China at that time. The Chinese experts involved in the preparation of China's alcohol factory included industrial microbiologist Chen Wansheng (1899-1992), Chinese microbiologist and applied chemist Wei Xiaoshou (1900-1973), a pioneer of modern industrial microbiology in China, and chemical engineer Gu Yuzhen (1907-1968), bringing together the elites of the domestic chemical industry at that time. ("The Old Modern National Industrial Factory in the Expo Village" Song Feibo)
At that time, most of China's alcohol was imported from abroad, and the factory filled a gap in the history of China's modern industrial development. However, after the Japanese invaded Shanghai in 1937, the factory stopped working and the factory site was idle. Until 1954, Shanghai solvent factory was prepared, and it was put into operation in early 1956, producing total solvents, acetone, butanol and ethanol, with a total solvent output of 2,000 tons and an output value of 4.16 million yuan. In 1980, it produced 28 kinds of products, with an output of 100,000 tons and an output value of 141 million yuan, which is one of the famous chemical plants in Shanghai.
When my grandparents worked here, the factory was pioneering, the work here was innovative, and it was fashionable to live in Weishan New Village.
On January 14, 2002, the modern building complex of Shanghai Solvent Factory was announced as a cultural relic protection unit in Pudong New Area. ("Shanghai Release" public account)
3
At the beginning of the new century, Jin Li, who was born in Weishan New Village and grew up in Weishan New Village, could not see the old and slow here, and felt that it was "not Shanghai enough".
He is a young child, and he will return to Wuxi Shuofang with his parents for more than half of his childhood. Shuofang is 10.8 kilometers away from Wuxi city center and 28.7 kilometers away from Suzhou city center. Every winter and summer vacation to Shanghai, Jin Li always found out with grievances that what delicious and fun was popular and what good TV series and movies everyone discussed, he always took a slow beat, and his cousins in Shanghai have long known. The distance of this beat, which seems easy to catch up, but always can't catch up, is maddening, making young Jin Li eager to become a "real Shanghainese". And living in Weishan New Village in Pudong - lest his grandmother who can't eat enough in the university cafeteria, the grandfather who slowly pickles the amaranth stalk in his hometown Shaoxing, the neighbor who comes over with a chicken and begs to cut it into white chopped chicken... The overly intimate relationship of acquaintance society, and the gray wind blowing from the factory by the south pier with a window, how undelicate, not "sycamore district", not legendary enough, not good enough.
At that time, the Shanghai in the young Jin Li concept was the Shanghai constructed in the "Shenjiang Service Herald" and "Shanghai Weekly" that the classmates went to buy every week, the Shanghai revealed in the increasingly exquisite clothing and makeup of the female classmates who went out for internships, and the Shanghai he imagined over and over again when he lived in the suburbs of Wuxi. He wrote a research paper on the topic of studying Shanghai urban fashion newspapers and periodicals, together with a classmate from Jinshan, Shanghai. Jin Li feared that the two would not qualify, but Zhang Xinxin, a teacher at Fudan University, encouraged them to examine the city's expression with eyes that were "different from the indigenous."
Also at the beginning of the new century, the "Shanghai Solvent Factory Modern Building Complex" was announced by the People's Government of Pudong New Area as a cultural relic protection unit of Pudong New Area. In order to retain the historical memory of the city, when Shanghai hosted the World Expo in 2010, some of the old buildings left by Shanghai Solvent Factory and Shanghai Port Machinery Factory were preserved. After protection, repair and rational utilization, the modern building complex of Shanghai Solvent Factory has become an integral part of the Expo Village with strong historical accumulation.
The old and the new are not the relationship between one and the other, but the relationship between each other. When the light passed and his grandparents died, and when the family gradually moved out of Weishan New Village and scattered into new homes, Jin Li had the opportunity to relive the evening he came to Weishan New Village in 1999. The residents of the new village are not at all as inactive as he thinks, and the new village itself, which witnessed the development and opening of national industry and Pudong, is not at all as "not Shanghai enough" as he prejudiced to believe. This is also Shanghai. It is not the kind of Shanghai built by fashionable girls and exquisite consumer goods, but it transforms Shanghai into a deeper daily life.
Today, from Weishan New Village, you can walk all the way to the South Pier River. The breeze blows on the newly repaired riverside promenade, and Jin dreams of fleeing here in disgust when he was in college. Maybe now, he finally grasped a little of Shanghai.
Junior Kim Lee and Father (Courtesy of Kim Lee)
Jin Li commemorates the old residence in Weishan New Village (provided by Jin Li)
Source: Author: Shen Yilun