In the spring of 1966, my family moved from the parachute tower compound in Beiguan, Baoding to No. 46 Chenghuangmiao Street, where I spent six unforgettable childhood years.
Chenghuang Temple Street starts from Chenghuang Temple Terrace in the north, reaches West Street and Tianhua Market in the south, with a total length of about 350 meters, and the east, south, west and north streets of Baoding Old City, and the horse number together constitute the most prosperous urban business district in the city.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, Chenghuangmiao Street was excavated due to the popularity of Chenghuangmiao Puyu Market and Tianhua Market. It was not until it reached its peak in the fifties of the last century, and then began to gradually decline. When our family moved in in 1966, the temple was in ruins. The only impressive thing is the temple platform surrounded by the white marble guardrail and the high stone steps that enter the temple gate, as well as the pair of male and female stone lions, standing on both sides under the temple platform, silently looking at the old street in front of them, telling the vicissitudes of time.
At that time, there were probably no children who ran crazy in the old Baoding Sijiu City who had not climbed the pair of stone lions and had not played the slide on the high steps of the temple platform. I remember that there were still several stone tablets of Wang Ba on the temple platform at that time, but they were also disappeared later.
At that time, in addition to the remnants of the main hall, the biggest highlight of the City God Temple was the Peace Cinema. This theater, which dates back to 1957, was built at the back of the main hall, and I wonder why it was built there at the time, but in any case it was an important entertainment and leisure place for the residents of this area. In the 60s of the last century, whenever a new film was released, there was always a long queue at the ticket office on the temple platform, and it was difficult to find a ticket. Later, in the years when the cinema was forced to close, the temple often showed open-air movies at night. "Tunnel warfare", "mine warfare", "guerrillas on the plains", "southern expedition and northern war" and model plays, these classic lines from old movies have long been memorized and have not been forgotten to this day.
Entrance to the Peace Cinema
Above the temple platform is the bird market, which is the world of the bird uncles. Those varied, blue cloth covered exquisite birdcages lined up from the jade railing of the temple platform, and all kinds of beautiful birds sang songs that we can't name into a beautiful morning song.
There is a special world to the east under the temple platform, crickets, gnats compete in the arena, that gathers masters from all over the world, with the crickets that they think are the most harmful, the grubs come to this gladiatorial fight, and the winner is the king. It is also a trading market. Those "old cannons" who played with insects back then really had "treasures" in their hands, and those cricket cans handed down by their ancestors are all valuable cultural toys today.
The temple platform of the city god in the thirties of the last century
The deepest memory is also the public toilet for men and women in the southeast corner of the temple platform, there are about a dozen toilet stalls for people to pay respects, and the residents who live in a radius of several hundred meters are willing to come here to solve the major problems of life, because the toilet seats in the compound are far from carrying the toilet needs of many people. That's when we love this, listen to all kinds of market news, anecdotes, and get life inspiration.
The east side of the temple is the famous land shrine, this was originally a three-entry compound, there is a stone wolf on the left at the door, there is a stone tiger standing guard for the land lord on the right, this small street has a beautiful homophonic title "Yaohu Street". At that time, the status of the land lord was far inferior to that of the city god, so the shrine has been deserted, and it was later occupied by the school. There was a well at the entrance of the land shrine, which was later changed to a pressurized water pump, and then changed to a tap water tap. In winter, the water pipes in many courtyards on the street are frozen, but the water pipes here never freeze, probably because of the appearance of the Lord of the Land. Neighbors like to fetch water here, men queue up to fetch water while exchanging various national events, housewives go to the well to wash vegetables and clothes, gossip about all kinds of parents.
That's how I learned to carry water. At first, I carried a bucket of water with my mother, then I tried to pick up half a bucket by myself, and then I picked a load of water to get home in one go, the whole journey was more than 100 meters, and I could also change shoulders in the middle, when I was 10 years old.
There is a square under the stage of the City God Temple, where there was a theater in the early years, which was demolished in 1946. It was once the largest wholesale market for dried and fresh fruit in the city, and until the mid-60s of the last century, it still maintained the tradition of a market, where farmers from all over the country came to sell their agricultural and sideline products. The most beautiful scenery in the market is those rural ladies who sell eggs across baskets, lining up the baskets on the ground, with wheat oranges on the inside and eggs on the top. The eldest lady wrapped the money from selling eggs in three layers of handkerchiefs and three layers outside her arms, which was the family's oil and salt money. In those days, one yuan could buy fourteen eggs, and a dime and a half cents could buy a pound of tofu.
City God's Temple Square
Different from the government offices and mansions in other places in the old city of Baoding, the famous mansions are lined up on both sides of the Chenghuang Temple Street, most of which are front shops and back houses, large businessmen and small and medium-sized owners live in groups, quite a bit of the taste of the big fence at the front gate of the capital.
In the thirties and forties of the last century, the southern section of the traditional business of Chenghuang Temple Street was mostly bamboo shops and local miscellaneous products, and the middle section was mostly shops of antiques, calligraphy and paintings, glass frames, ready-to-wear, white iron, etc. At the north end are fresh and dry, fruit, candy, and snack bars. After the liberation, until the 60s, many shops in Chenghuang Temple Street were closed and relocated, but the basic layout was still retained.
On the west side of the square is a pork shop that specializes in raw meat and cooked food. The pork at that time is cheap, don't buy two cents of meat before the ticket, the family can eat a fried sauce noodle, and more than six cents can cut a pound of meat enough for the whole family to eat dumplings.
The tea house next door with a large awning existed before liberation, and it is also the last remaining tea house in the Chenghuangmiao business district. After years of polishing, there is no longer the leisure tea customers who used to drink tea and listen to books, and people at most spend two cents to pour a big bowl of "Gao Zhen" or people with conditions to make pots of boiling water here and leave. Boiling water for a penny a pot. There will also be a kind of water truck pulled by suburban farmers, which is specially used to deliver water to the lonely and widowed elderly, and a few cents a load of water.
Next to the tea house is the vegetable market, which is a typical Hui style building composed of white walls, black tiles, and horse-head walls. It used to be a long-established "Yihua Grocery", and later became a state-run vegetable market, but in my memory, there was really nothing to buy here except cabbage, radish, vermicelli, pickles, soy sauce and vinegar.
Opposite the east of the road is the first aquatic market, dealing in all kinds of fish, shrimp, crab shellfish, seasonal aquatic products, to the later ticket era, the only aquatic products that can be seen in its house are kelp, shrimp skin.
Further south is a halal restaurant, I sent Xiao Anzi and his family's business, after the public-private partnership, it became a snack bar, selling some oil cakes, fried cakes, haggis soup and the like. What I remember most about his family is the stick noodles sold in difficult times, the white flour mix, and the oil cake fried in sesame oil. There was no way, at that time, the residents' grain and oil supply was 30% white flour, 70% cornmeal, and even the peach crisp in Daoxiang Village was made of mixed noodles. His house is the only restaurant on the street.
After the square, the first one in the east of Xiangnan Road is "Deshunxiang Dry Fresh", a time-honored store that deals in north and south pastries, dry fresh, tobacco, wine, sugar and tea. This is my favorite place to visit. I often come here to buy cigarettes for my dad, the most common cigarettes I buy are Daqianmen, Evergrande, occasionally I have bought phoenix, peony, and the rest of the change I can buy some of my favorite hawthorn cake, fruit dan peel, maltose melon, and occasionally buy Jiang rice noodles, "honey". I like to save cigarette cases and stack "big noses" (also called "triangles"). There is a kind of game in the era of small friends, according to the price of cigarette brands to exchange the "big nose" in other people's hands or to win others by shooting a "triangle" game on the ground. At that time, cigarette packs were divided into high, medium-high, medium-low, and low-grade cigarettes.
High-end: Zhonghua, Peony, High-end: Phoenix, Daqianmen, Evergrande, Pegasus, Low-end: Haihe, Jiabin, Huangjinye, Sun, Low-grade: Green Leaf, Economy. At that time, China Tobacco was 0.65 yuan, green leaves were 0.12 yuan, and economy was 0.08 yuan. Jiabin and green leaves are produced in Baoding.
Cigarette case
Diagonally opposite our yard is a black and white iron shop, every day the sound of nailing and knocking on foreign iron sheets from morning to night, operating some cigarette pipes, changing the bottom of the pot, repairing bicycles and other work. The scene is similar to the blacksmith shop next to the mosque in the movie "Walt Defends Sarajevo". It is said that before the public-private partnership, there were more than a dozen black, white and iron shops on this street, and later merged into two, one in the south and one in the north. In modern parlance, this craft is actually sheet metalworking. Today's sheet metal work has long been digitally stamped, and now there are fewer and fewer people who know this craft.
By the way, there is also a paging phone that provides original telecommunications services to the residents of the entire northern half of the street.
Fu Yuxing food store is directly opposite our hospital, and later renamed the beef and mutton store department. In the mid-sixties of the last century, the supply of Baoding City was still normal, and the meat and eggs did not need tickets, so they could buy them casually. In addition to raw meat, his family also sells some cooked lamb head meat, haggis and the like. The cooked food seller was a fat old man, who was good to the neighbors in our yard, and when the store was about to come with delicious food, he always stopped us on the street and said, "Tell your lords, I will come to the haggis tomorrow, I will keep it for you, and come to get it after work."
Until the early 70s of the last century, the original architectural pattern of Chenghuang Temple Street was basically undamaged, and it still retained its original style. Here is a large area of old houses in the Ming Dynasty, flying eaves and corners, carved beams and painted columns, large courtyards set small courtyards, two in, three into the quadrangle courtyard than Bibi is. Although the high wall separates the courtyard, it is very close to each other, forming natural alleys that are connected to each other and have winding paths. Most of the shops facing the street are high steps, and the doors and windows are still old-fashioned door panels, which are removed when the door is opened and hung up when the door is closed.
In the fifties of the last century, in the first decade after the founding of New China, with the in-depth development of the socialist transformation movement, a large number of capitalists, small and medium-sized property owners took out their properties and real estate to participate in public-private partnerships, and the housing management bureau rented out these properties to the common people. When my family moved in, the ancient City God Temple and the old street in front of it were no longer the hustle and bustle of the past, but they were still full of thriving life and rich market fireworks.
Courtyard No. 46 is located in the east of the north section of Chenghuangmiao Street, which used to be a time-honored Yonglixiang shop, and later became a warehouse of a local product company. When my family moved in, there were 10 families in the house, all of whom were new immigrants here.
The courtyard sits on the east and faces west, which means that the east house has become the upper room, and the north and south houses have become the wing rooms. Because Chenghuang Temple Street runs north-south, many courtyard houses that open along the street are in this pattern.
We have five families in the front yard and five in the backyard. The pattern of the courtyard is regular, with blue bricks and gray tiles, standing bricks to the top, and adobe sandwiching in the middle. Hard gabled roof, five ridges and six beasts, the foundation of each room in the courtyard is high and cushioned, bluestone slab steps, hardened ground, and the small courtyard of the ear room on both sides of the east room There is also a moon gate. There are two rooms in the north and south wings of the front yard, and the south house lives in my family of four; the north house is three generations of Uncle Wang's family of six people; the east room is three rooms wide, with the middle hall leading to the backyard, the right room and the small courtyard of the ear room live in Uncle Lu's family of three generations and seven people, and his family has four sons; the left room lives Uncle Liu's family of six, with two sons and two daughters; Uncle Xu lives in the moon gate courtyard on the left hand of the east room; the west room in the front yard is also three rooms wide, two are storefronts on the street, one is the gatehouse, the store door is open on the street, and the other is the back door through the courtyard, and the southernmost one in the west room is the gatehouse of the courtyard.
The backyard is also in the same pattern, with three families of old cadres and two families of their nannies. In the upper room of the east house in the backyard live the Lian family of eight, the old two are high-ranking cadres in the Ting'an era, and they have six children.
The gate of the hospital is open on the street, there are two drum stone piers at the door, two black lacquer doors are open, there is an iron ring to call the door on the door, and there is a movable threshold under the gate, which is removed during the day to facilitate the entry and exit of bicycles. The doorway is covered with bluestone slabs. The shadow wall facing the door is the west gable of my house, and the hut on the right hand is the gatehouse, and the left hand turns into the courtyard.
The whole courtyard is neat, decent, low-key and not luxurious, and it is a typical "socialist sunward courtyard" derived from the private residence of the former merchant tycoon.
At that time, there were more than a dozen children in the hospital, and the world was turned upside down every day. At that time, we played all the children's activities of that era, such as smashing the crutches, "smashing donkeys", pushing hoops, smoking "lai wife", pinballs, bouncing apricot pits, playing hide and seek, smashing briquettes with "steaming cylinders", holding coal stoves, spreading briquettes, etc. But our hide-and-seek is in three-dimensional form. There is no limit to the location, on the house, under the house, inside and outside the house, as long as it is not discovered. Thanks to this labyrinthine alley, the courtyards and small courtyards are strung together in a natural environment, and we can easily climb all the walls and walk and jump on the roofs of each house...... I don't know how many roofs I have stepped on, how many disasters I have had, in short, it is the norm to be found at home and complained.
I learned to ride in the yard. Started to "pick out the legs", then rode the big beam, and then got on the mount. Three or four children can ride bicycles around the yard at the same time. The courtyard couldn't hold it anymore, so we went to the tax corner to practice more difficult projects: big sass, riding a donkey upside down, five people in a car and other acrobatics. In order to practice driving, I scrapped my dad's "permanent" wire brake transmission car. The gear shaft was a British item that he had bought at the Dongsi Trust store in Beijing. The car was bought by my grandmother for my parents when my family moved from Mancheng to Baozhou in 63 years. My mother's car is the "Phoenix Big Bend Beam". I built these two cars upside down until I left Baoding in 1982 after graduating from university.
在学校停课的那几年，由于我们年岁小，课又没得上，只好天天在城里四处游荡。 Later, Uncle Lu was afraid that we would cause trouble outside, so he organized us to study.
At that time, I was only in the second grade of elementary school, and I didn't recognize a few characters of Douda. I can't read any other books except children's books. 我有几本自己认为不错的像小说的书。 I remember that there are: "Fighting in the Heart of the Enemy", "Red Rock", "Dedicate Everything to the Party", "Sorghum is Red".
At first, Uncle Lu gave us a lecture, talking about "Behind the Enemy Lines" and "Gao Liang is Red"; later, we listened to more and more books, and gradually we recognized more and more characters. There are also a lot of books that my friends exchange and read. Like "Fighting Youth", "Three Generations", "Lin Hai Xueyuan", from then on I became interested in literature.
In fact, our generation, due to the special circumstances of the year, in the past ten years of primary school and middle school, only 1/3 of the time when they studied seriously and steadily, which is quite good, including the college entrance examination later, is basically self-taught. In addition to being grateful to the teachers who trained me at school, Uncle Lu is my off-campus counselor, and I must be grateful and never forget.
It has been 60 years since I left Chenghuang Temple Street, and it has been a whole reincarnation of Jiazi. At that time, the old street had undergone several "transformations", and its soul had long since disappeared, and the former scenery was gone, leaving only a piece of chicken feathers.
The No. 46 courtyard of that year is now submerged in the garbage of history
The old neighborhoods, the old neighbors were "transformed" by the old streets, evacuated to all directions, and cut off contact with each other.
Fa Xiaochunhua is magnificent, and rides the world alone for thousands of miles
However, after so many years, every courtyard and every attraction in the old street is imprinted in my mind like a knife, and the voices and faces of the old neighbors often flow before my eyes like a movie. Old neighbors, are you all okay?
The second male of the Lu family danced on the ice
Nostalgic for childhood, nostalgic for the good old days!
The people are gone, but the living are like this. 在此祝福老邻居们，小伙伴们健康，长寿，平安，顺遂！
I asked Aoyama when I was old, and Aoyama asked me when I was free