The passionate and gold-making 90s in "Flowers" turned out to be only 30 years old

"Flowers" is one of the hottest topics at the beginning of the year,

"Times" is actually the invisible protagonist of this drama,

The book "Flowers" is ostensibly about eating men and women,

Inside are the mountains and rivers, the times have changed," said director Wong Kar-wai.

In Shanghai in 1993,

Po and a time of drastic change and passion

Collide head-on.

Magnum photographer Stuart Franklin,

He came to Shanghai in 1993.

Auctioned the first batch of stock traders in Shanghai,

The burgeoning private sector,

China's first batch of models......

▲

Stills from "Flowers".

▲

In 1993, a young man with a big brother on the streets of Shanghai

▲

The rise of private business, the opening of new beauty salons in Shanghai

Stewart was born in London in 1956.

Former president of Magnum Photos,

His Shanghai series,

It became a window for foreigners to understand China at that time.

▲

In the stills of "Flowers", Miss Wang took advantage of the trend of Shanghai's private economy and successfully started a business

▲

In the 90s, Stewart was at the Tanzhe Temple in Beijing

A video connects Stewart, who lives in Norway,

Asked him to recall his trip to Shanghai in 1993,

and the story behind these photos.

At the same time, we also found several related people in the photos,

For example, the first generation of stock traders, early models in Shanghai,

A return visit was made to them.

Written by: Ni Pujia

▲

Nanjing Road in 1993

▲

Woman shopping on Huaihai Road

In 1993, photographer Stuart Franklin was commissioned by National Geographic to travel to Shanghai to document the upheaval taking place in the city.

"I was filming in Shanghai for more than 3 months. For Americans who don't understand the changes in China, their last impression of China is that everyone wears the same tunic and the streets are full of bicycles. So to shoot the new Shanghai, it's a big report, a cover story. ”

▲

Wendeng Road, Pudong New Area (later renamed Dongfang Road)

▲

Pudong New Area

▲

The Yangpu Bridge is under construction

Just a year before he arrived, when Deng Xiaoping was in Shanghai from January 31 to February 20, 1992, he demanded that Shanghai "change once a year, and change greatly in three years", and China also established the goal of a market economic system. The lives of ordinary people are being changed at an unexpected rate.

Before leaving, Stewart knew that the Pudong New Area was under construction and that a new bridge was being built over the Huangpu River to connect Puxi and Pudong. The first object he photographed was the Yangpu Bridge.

▲

Shanghai Garden Hotel fashion show

Stuart went to the Garden Hotel to shoot the fashion show. "It's been almost 30 years, and I can't remember. But it's funny, fashion is about the expression of individualism, the beauty of individuality, and a generation like China is just beginning. Because it's not far from the era when everyone wore the same tunics. ”

In 1993, Stewart also took a photo in Shanghai, where hundreds of people were waiting for a red light, each wearing the same style of raincoat, which he believed would never be possible today.

▲

Furama Restaurant

He photographed private beauty shops and restaurants in Shanghai. "In the early 90s, when private commerce was on the rise in China, and many articles by Western journalists were reporting on China's new private restaurants, private boutiques, joint ventures, Shanghai was the first place to change China's economic structure."

It is a new trend for adults to go to business courses.

▲

Seagull Camera Factory

With the establishment of the market economic system, Sino-foreign joint ventures have emerged. Stewart photographed the Seagull Camera Factory, which was working with Japan's Minolta Camera Company.

Volkswagen of Germany cooperated with Shanghai to operate a car factory, which was the pioneer of the joint venture that year.

"I was very impressed by the people in the factory, they were very hardworking and would exercise in the morning before entering the factory. Compared to the factories in the West, I feel more unity here, and people are more united. ”

▲

Coca-Cola Factory

After the reform and opening up, Coca-Cola returned to Chinese mainland for the first time. In 1988, a national concentrate plant was built in Shanghai, and since then, Coca-Cola concentrates from all over China have been born here, bringing "happy water" to customers all over the world.

In 1993, in a western-themed bar in Shanghai, the waiters were all dressed as cowboys.

At that time, part of Shanghai's infrastructure was built by German companies, such as Siemens, which was building Shanghai Metro Line 1, so many European technicians and engineers lived in Shanghai, and this bar was obviously designed for foreigners living in Shanghai to make them feel welcome.

Hongqiao Development Zone, the newly built Shanghai International Trade Center.

▲

Gymnastics team

At that time, the diplomatic department arranged for guides and interpreters to accompany Stewart, and if he traveled with them, he drove a car. If Stuart is alone, he likes to ride his bike around.

"I still remember my tour guide in Shanghai, sometimes we stayed together all day and chatted, he was very smart and funny, he was a good companion on the road."

A school in Shanghai is doing pre-class eye exercises.

Shanghai market. On January 28, 1992, the Shanghai Municipal Government decided to cancel the tickets for sugar, fresh eggs and salt with immediate effect, and open the supply.

▲

Tak Hing Fang

Stuart rode his bike through a lot of alleys. "There are two sides to Shanghai, and there are both trendy and old districts."

▲

Residents on the Suzhou Creek

He was amazed to find that people were still living on the Suzhou Creek, and the whole family was living together on a boat, transporting coal, heavy metals, soap, vegetables, and other daily necessities needed by Shanghainese, which felt like a scene from the 60s and 70s.

In the eighties and nineties of the last century, Suzhou Creek was lined with factories with rumbling machines, lively wharves along the line, and small cargo ships shuttling through the river. This scene gradually disappeared after 2000, and in 2003 the last boatmen on the river came ashore, and the river was clean, and the factories and docks along the line were gone, and the buildings and homes were turned into high-rises.

▲

Stuart and the Zhang family spend Chinese New Year's Eve together

▲

Pilgrims of the Jade Buddha Temple during the Spring Festival

Stewart spent Chinese New Year's Eve with a family surnamed Zhang. "The whole family comes together around the table, there is a special respect for the older people, and it feels good that people come all the way back for the reunion, like our Christmas. I was amazed to see people smoking while eating, chopsticks in one hand and cigarettes in the other. ”

On the streets of Shanghai, people wear masks. "Because many families still use briquettes and briquette stoves, the air pollution is so high that I used to go out for a run every day, but in Shanghai, after running 50 meters away from the hotel, I felt that the air quality was dropping, which made a deep impression on me. I believe that now Shanghainese people no longer use briquettes. ”

After Stewart left Shanghai, the Yangpu Bridge was completed and opened to traffic on October 23, 1993, when it was completed, it was the world's first cable-stayed bridge, and the development of Pudong entered a period of rapid development.

Nearly 30 years later, what happened to the people and scenes in Stewart's photographs? In the process of searching, we re-interviewed the first generation of stock traders, the early model team members in Shanghai, and visited the former Zhapu Road food street in Shanghai.

▲

In 1993, he was the first generation of traders on the Shanghai Stock Exchange

The first generation of stock traders in China

In the memories of many old Shanghainese, the 500-square-meter Peacock Room in the Pujiang Hotel is synonymous with Western, gorgeous and modern. On December 19, 1990, the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the first stock exchange in New China, was officially established in the Peacock Hall. From January 19 to February 1, 1992, Shanghai issued stock subscription warrants for the first time in the country, and sold a total of 2,076,000 subscription warrants by winning the lottery with "stock subscription warrants".

Stewart came here in 1993 to photograph the first generation of stock traders. "At that time, the stock exchanges in Tokyo and London were much larger, and I remember that the Shanghai stock exchange was very small, but it represented an important link in the evolution of the economy. ”

We paid a return visit to Hu Shengyang, a first-generation trader, and when he saw this photo, he immediately replied: That's right, it's the environment we worked in back then. In 1993, at the age of 23, he found his first job at the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

"This job has no requirements for academic qualifications and work experience, similar to a salesperson. I study statistics, and I have colleagues who study animal husbandry and veterinary medicine. In the financial industry, this field is very new, and we envy people who work in banks because they feel that their work is not clear and unorthodox. ”

▲

In 2019, Hu Shengyang returned to the Peacock Hall, which has become a securities museum

Hu Shengyang remembered that after the induction training, he got the job certificate, and the director of the exchange said, "Congratulations!" This can be worth a master's degree or a doctor's degree. At that time, traders earned two or three thousand yuan a month, and they could get tens of thousands of year-end bonuses, while the salary of sales clerks in department stores was only 300 or 400 yuan.

The Peacock Room has nearly 400 traders, each with an IBM computer and a telephone, and they are noisy every day. At that time, it was a manual declaration, and traders could secretly divert the company's money to buy stocks, and they could get rich overnight if they made money, and they could be miserable if they lost. Hu Shengyang recalled: "Almost 40% of the traders have done this, and some have gone to jail because of the huge amount of losses, and we joked that Tilanqiao Prison could open another sales department." In those years, I have a better understanding of interests, temptations, and human nature. ”

Traders were also among the first jobs to be replaced by the Internet. In October 1997, when the stock exchange moved to the Securities Building in Pudong, Hu Shengyang resigned, because with the Internet, there was almost no need for traders, and there would be no more embezzlement of public funds due to manual declarations.

His work experience in securities trading has made Hu Shengyang's judgment of the situation more sensitive than ordinary people. He currently runs a corporate consulting firm in Shanghai, focusing on analytics in the hospitality industry.

In 2018, Pujiang Hotel became the China Securities Museum.

▲

In 1993, Stuart photographed models backstage at a fashion show

Shanghai's pioneering model team

In September 1980, the Shanghai Fashion Company formed the first "costume performance team" in the history of New China. We interviewed Gu Ying, who joined the Shanghai modeling team in 1988, when she was only 16 years old and 1.72 meters tall. "There are 2,800 girls who go to the exam, all of them are more than 1.7 meters tall and have a good figure, and after three rounds of exams, 100 people are accepted, and then they train for 3 months, and in the end only 8 of us are left."

The teacher of the training was Yao Peifang, the model performance captain of the Shanghai fashion company, the first batch of red models in Shanghai, and the teacher asked the introverted Gu Ying to practice looking directly in the mirror, and said loudly to herself, "I am beautiful, I am the most beautiful" a hundred times.

At that time, many people still thought that models were "scratching their heads", and the teacher explained to them, "Modeling is not as humble as you think, it is a performing profession, that is, an actor." ”

▲

Gu Ying is now a social worker and psychological counselor in Shanghai

Gu Ying earned 3,800 yuan in the first month, when her parents combined only 500 yuan a month, and her father was still a cadre.

With more and more commercial performances, she earns more than 10,000 yuan a month. But because of the opinions of family and friends, and the dislike of social occasions, she quit the modeling team at the age of 18. "At that time, the oldest of our eight-person model team was 23 or 24 years old, and after that age, we would usually quit. ”

After Gu Ying left the modeling team, she was taken on the road of drug abuse by her boyfriend, but she successfully quit and is now a social worker and psychological counselor in Shanghai to help with drug rehabilitation.

▲

In 1993, he was a private restaurateur on Zhapu Road

It used to be a food street on Zhapu Road

"This gentleman opened his own restaurant on Zhapu Road in '92. Zhapu Road is an emerging food street in Shanghai, with many private restaurants opening, and it is one of the first places to change the economic pattern. Stewart said.

In the early 80s, Ding Baogen, who was in Inner Mongolia, returned to Shanghai, exchanged a new workshop for a street house on Zhapu Road, and opened the only individual restaurant on Zhapu Road at that time, with "Individual Business License No. 001" in Hongkou District, and due to the booming business, it was transformed into a "Lilac Restaurant" a few years later.

In the second half of 1988, Qian Jin, a 24-year-old unemployed youth, took the lead in opening Mengli Restaurant on Zhapu Road. The boom in these two restaurants has worked.

After Deng Xiaoping's southern tour, the development of food shops on Zhapu Road sprung up, from 76 in 1992 to 108 in 1993, becoming the earliest food street in Shanghai. Many of the hotels are luxuriously decorated, with sightseeing elevators and welcoming girls along the street.

Due to the rise of various food streets, now go to Zhapu Road, which has declined, only the Golden Rice Basket is still in the big hotel of that year, and the Dynasty Hotel, which once dominated the market, has also closed down in 2019, and most of the street food bars remain.

▲

The Bund, Shanghai, 1993

Only 30 years have passed since the era of the growth of all things. These photographs taken by Stewart, the lives of ordinary people in the era, now seem particularly precious.

Initially, we left a message on Stewart's personal website hoping to interview him. Surprisingly, he accepted it quickly, and during the interview he would ask us how the scene was now, and he was still interested in China. Mr. Stewart said he hadn't been to Beijing or Shanghai for 20 years, and that he was in Norway and hoped to return to China one day.

图片由斯图尔特·富兰克林提供©Stuart Franklin/Magnum Photos