Old Street
Text | White drawing
Love to visit Beihai Old Street.
The old street is not too old, counting its predecessor, the old street of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, it is more than 100 years old, which is still young compared to the old streets of the thousand-year-old city.
But it has a taste, a distinctive, a distinctive mark that belongs to it, and a vicissitudes that are different from the others.
I saw it for the first time more than ten years ago, the arcade-style buildings that combine Chinese and Western styles, the unadorned and mottled buildings, the wind and rain erosion scars on the walls, the quiet and deep alleys, the walls where ferns grow and the corners covered with moss, and the old-fashioned street lamps hanging on the streets, all seem to be nostalgic works carved by time, leading people to distant reverie.
Sometimes, I'll be in a daze at a telephone pole. There is a mark on the cement pole, which is a number that has been dyed by a hundred years of wind and rain. More than 100 years ago, Guangxi's first electric light was lit from Beihai, marking the birth of Guangxi's electric power industry. Legend has it that the "red turban" of the Yunnan army entered Beihai, saw the electric lights on the street and felt novel, and wanted to cut off and take back the barracks for lighting.
I pose with a bronze statue on the side of the street. It's a sculpture called "The Silent Filmmaker," in which a foreigner engrosses with an old-fashioned movie projector. The year after the invention of silent cinema in the United States, British missionaries brought motion picture cameras and films to Beihai, three months before Shanghai.
I myself have accompanied my friends to visit the former site of the Beihai Branch of the Daqing Post Office in Lao Cai several times. In 1877, Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Austria, Italy, Belgium and other countries all set up consulates in Beihai, and in the same year, the Qing government set up customs in Beihai. In order to handle the correspondence and parcel business of foreign mission officials, diplomatic envoys and family members, Beihai Customs has set up a "Customs Mail Bureau". In 1896, the Qing government established the "Daqing Post". In the following year, the Beihai "Customs Mail Bureau" was transformed into the state-run "Daqing Post Beihai Branch", becoming one of the earliest postal branches in the mainland. Around this time, some Western religious groups, hospitals, and schools also landed in Beihai, such as the "Puren Hospital" and the "Chinese Boys' School" opened by the Anritsuma Church in England, the "Lotus School" opened by the French Episcopal Church, and the "Lutheran Primary School" opened by the German missionary Bao Luxun, and so on. Eighty years ago, there were 3,000-ton steamers in the port to and from Vietnam, Myanmar and Malaya, and the domestic navigation was to Shanghai, Xiamen, Shantou, Hong Kong, Haikou and other places. The transportation around the city has also developed considerably, and after 1924, there was the Puyi Automobile Company between Beihai and Hepu for passenger transport business, as well as the charter business for cars. After 1927, the planes of Chen Jitang's sailors regularly sailed to Beihai, and in 1935, there were two flights a week between Guangzhou, Zhanjiang, Haikou and Beihai.
Lao Cai is a prosperous place of commerce, on this street where every inch of land is valuable, there are rows of shops, from food and clothing to pastime and entertainment, local, Nanyang, sea, and above, everything is available, and the signboards of every house are extraordinarily beautiful. Wandering in the old street, I really want to look back at the past through this blurred light and shadow, and see the early scenes recorded in the literature: the middle of the old street is full of silk shops from Suzhou and Hangzhou, and those soft and light, colorful, smooth and noble luxury goods are so eye-catching. The shops in the eastern section mainly deal in dried seafood such as squid, sandworms, dried shrimp, dried fish, etc., which is so close to the people and how down-to-earth. The western section is close to Waisha Port, and all the shops sell cables, fishing nets, fish hooks, fishing lanterns, windsurfs, boat nails and other fishermen's supplies, showing the material evidence that Beihai people beg for a living from the sea. But now, time has turned all this page, an era has a demand of an era, and the back of history has long disappeared in time.
The old street has witnessed the footprints of Beihai's modern and modern development. What holds up the old street is the thick historical and cultural heritage of Beihai.
Beihai has a rich historical and cultural heritage, and has presented a multicultural form in history: the background color of Lingnan culture, the radiation of Central Plains culture, the genes of farming culture, the tradition of marine culture, the main vein of Chinese culture, the integration of Western culture, the legacy of Baiyue culture, the accumulation of Hakka culture, the opening of port culture, and the persistence of Tanjia culture. It is not only a starting port of the Maritime Silk Road, but also a meeting point of various civilizations and cultural forms. It is rare to find a multicultural structure like Beihai in China, where multiple cultures come together to form a blended and self-contained structure.
The North Sea is a lush cultural mixed forest of symbiosis between the southern mainland of China and the South China Sea. Lao Cai is a flowery branch growing from this mixed cultural forest.
I love to visit the old street because it gives people that sense of casualness, and that kind of multiculturalism provides enough space for people to choose.
It's a leisurely place where you can take a walk, turn to a fashion store, and then stand at the mouth of the alley to look at the offering table with incense burners and offerings, and in the open air, a simple stone plank, where many people's devotion to the faith is placed. After eating the shrimp cakes, I wiped the oil off the corners of my mouth, and drank another glass of freshly squeezed sugarcane juice at a nearby shop. Swallowing an oyster the size of a fist with the garlic in your mouth, it doesn't matter, walk into a jazz bar and order a Sumai Dani for a slow drink. Bart Howard's "Fly Me to the Moon" rings in your ears, close your eyes slightly, and you'll float to the moon with soulful and infectious melodies and lyrics. That's right, it's the moon, the first human song to be brought to the moon by an Apollo spacecraft, and the heart moves with music, not to mention whiskey.
Also enjoyed spending the whole afternoon in the café. During the Spring Festival this year, I accompanied my little grandson to visit the old street, tired, so I stepped into a café named after English greetings, climbed to the second floor, one side of the aisle is a roll-up floor-to-ceiling window, a table is placed under the window, a row of books is stacked, flower pots are hung on the fence, the sun shines warmly through the open window, the grandfather and grandson sit there, I drink mocha, the little grandson eats ice cream, flips through the book and reads. Leisurely and relaxed, I couldn't help but think of Du Fu's poem: "On the sunset platform, when the spring breeze sipps tea." The stone is obliquely dotted with a pen, and the paulownia leaf sits on the inscription poem. "Although it is not a sip of tea, nor is there a paulownia leaf, but the coffee and sunset have added enough poetry.
There are also those Nanyang specialties, Vietnam's mahogany wood carving, the Philippines' dried mango, Malaysia's Qianli Chasing Wind Oil, Thailand's Golden Pillow Durian Crisp, and even Russian goods far away from the north are also here to join in the fun, binoculars, military watches, belts, matryoshka dolls...... An old street has become a window to the world.
You can not buy other goods, but there is one thing that you can hardly resist the temptation of, and that is pearls.
Lao Cai has a beautiful name: Zhuhai Road, pearls are a specialty of Beihai. The history of pearl collection in Hepu in Beihai can be traced back to the Qin Dynasty from 221 BC to 206 BC, according to the "Historical Records of the Goods and Colonies" records: there were pearl diving activities in Hepu at that time, and there were relevant records in the subsequent dynasties, such as in the "Later Han Shu Meng Wei Biography", "Jin Shu Tao Mo Biography", "Old Tang Book" and "Ming History" and other historical books have records of pearl diving.
The natural environment is unique, the sea area of Beibu Gulf is free of pollution, clean water quality, abundant inorganic salts, plankton and mild climatic conditions give birth to the unique quality of Hepu pearls, since ancient times, there is a saying that "the east pearl is not as good as the west pearl, the west pearl is not as good as the south pearl", the east pearl refers to the pearl produced in the Sea of Japan, the west pearl refers to the pearl produced in the Mediterranean region of Europe, the south pearl is produced in the mainland and the coast of Hainan, and the varieties produced in the Hepu sea area of the North Sea are superior, and it is called "walking the pearl" in ancient times , that is, if you put it in the plate and move it slightly, you can roll freely, and the grains will be light, and the pieces will go to the plate. It has been hailed as a "national treasure" throughout the dynasties and has been a tribute since the Han Dynasty.
After retirement, I chose to spend the winter in Beihai every year, and my friends came to Beihai and often accompanied them to buy pearls in Lao Cai. Lao Street pearl shop said that there are dozens, once to help Shaanxi hometown friends to buy a drop of round gold beads, is his wife to the golden wedding gift, gold wedding gold beads, his wife was very happy, and then I returned to my hometown, his wife personally cooked, fried a table of authentic hometown dishes for me, and also wore the bright gold beads to take pictures with me.
Visiting the old streets can sometimes bring unexpected surprises. One year, the National Association of Deans of Liberal Arts and Colleges was held in Beihai, and a group of dean friends went shopping in the old street and accidentally walked into an antique shop. There is an old jade in the store, I saw a piece of some taste, so I asked the boss to take it out of the counter, and after looking at it, it was determined that it was a Hetian jade jade pendant in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, without Qin, but the pulp was very thick, the shape was axe-shaped, and there was a dragon with a high head on the back of the axe, and the whole jade pendant was larger, and it was a pendant hanging on the waist. A group of friends asked me what kind of jade, really fake, carved something, I said it was a Qing Shi thing, the type of instrument is called "there is a dragon on the house", the axe house homonym, the ancients like to ask for a mouth, a picture of an auspicious meaning. Fu Xiaohong from Nanjing was tempted by this, she wanted to, and she was afraid that the boss would kill her, so she asked me to negotiate with the boss. The boss said that jade sells to know people, jade sells to destined people, and the asking price is not too high, Fu Xiaohong is happy to get the baby. After returning to Jiangsu, she showed it to the writer Jing Ge, Jing Ge played ancient jade, and gave her a positive answer after reading it, and she called me very happily, saying that she didn't expect Beihai to be a place of Taobao. She probably thinks that this is near the sea, and she can only pick up shells, but she doesn't know that this is a mixed cultural zone, and the traditional culture of the Central Plains is deeply penetrated. I told her: Beihai is a place with a deep cultural heritage!
Lao Cai is the epitome of Beihai, which writes the narrative of the Spring and Autumn Period of this southern city, its rise, every step it has taken, the ups and downs of its fate, its breathing and expression, all closely related to the national fortunes of modern China, the great historical waves, and the pulse of the times.
If you want to understand Beihai, you should first come to the old street to stroll, appreciate the colorful old age and fragrance, taste the taste of the old buildings of the arcade, look at the bluestone slabs in the narrow alleys, look for the stories hidden in every door and window, experience this unusual human customs, see how the vigorous triangular plum smears the city with charming rouge, taste the time like an arrow, explore the rise and fall of history, praise the endless, and feel the undefeated Orient.
Lao Cai has your reverie and your expectations.
Bai Shu, former executive vice president of Lu Xun Academy of Literature. He is currently the vice president of the Jade Culture Professional Committee of the China Arts and Crafts Society, the vice president of the China Reportage Society, the executive dean of the Chinese Writers and Calligraphy and Painting Academy, and a visiting professor at the Communication University of China, the University of International Business and Economics, and Yan'an University. He has published novels such as "Desolate Youth", "Man and Beast", "Grievances", "Love in the Wasteland" and "Secret Land", as well as long documentary literature and essay collections such as "Apples Bitten by God", "Human and Dog Stones", "On Lu Yao's Novel Creation" and "On the Quality of Writers", and his works have won national, local and publication awards for many times. He also writes several TV series.
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