"You're so beautiful and don't need money"
Growing up in Hankou, he has been repeatedly instructed since he was a child: you can play anywhere, that is, don't go to Pizi Street.
Why don't you let you go to Pizi Street? I was confused the whole time as a teenager. Now that Pizi Street is going to be demolished, I don't believe in evil anymore, so I must go and see it.
Crossing Qiaokou Road to the triangular tip where Jiefang Avenue and Jinghan Avenue meet, is Pizi Street, which used to be regarded as a marginal area outside the railway.
There is a classmate in elementary school, who is in high school and is in the 26th middle school, and he walks across the street from the school gate to Pizi Street. He said that Pizi Street is a good place, Internet cafes are branching in, game machine rooms are hidden in private houses, there are countless cheap snacks, and there are late-night snack shops for all tastes.
My aunt who lives in Qiaokou also didn't let me go to Pizi Street, but she herself was a frequent visitor to Pizi Street, and the spring rolls, lotus root balls, roast chicken, Qima crisp, and mung bean cakes that came to my house were all delicious. ”
Pizi Street, Pizi Zheng Street and Pizi Back Street are all Pizi Street, and Lao Qiaokou may not be able to distinguish clearly.
The house in the back street of Pizi, connected to Renshou 12345 Lane, is densely populated with wires, and the narrowest aisle can only be passed sideways. On this street, the neighborhood does small business at home, repairing clothes, selling fried goods, opening a game machine hall, and repairing leather shoes......
The most lively is Pizi Street, which leads from Jinghan Avenue to Jiefang Avenue, with an arched archway in the middle, and the red gold characters say "Pizi Market", which is now a paradise for snacks and sharp goods.
The snacks eaten in the childhood of the post-80s generation can be found, such as Qimasu, cat ears, old egg rolls, cloud cakes, and drop-off ...... It is sold in several stores, and you can shop around. A cold batch shop only sells old ice cream, taro cones, pineapple whirlwinds, melon ice, and old mung beans.
What's even more interesting is the early snack, there are flavors all over the country, and you can have a full meal for ten yuan. Every store hides a story of a foreigner breaking into Hankou.
The old noodle steamed bun shop in the north, many people in this Wowotou come to buy by car, and it is made by drying corn and grinding it by hand.
Crispy chicken bones with salt and pepper flavor, 10 pieces for a large portion. The chicken comb dumplings opposite the chicken crispy bones have a pure old Wuhan flavor, crispy at both ends, and a little green onion meat in the middle to taste.
Yangzhou steamed buns have been opened in a tiled house for twenty-five years. Run by a husband and wife, freshly made early in the morning, with a soft taste and soup, the price is cheaper than that of the supermarket.
The couple are from rural Anhui, "Pizi Street used to be chaotic. The proprietress said that many years ago she often saw people on the street snatching bags and fighting. Every time, the well-meaning neighbors advised her not to speak out. She bought a few steel locks and locked the doors, windows, and storage cabinets tightly. "Well, thank goodness. ”
I asked her why she didn't open it over there because Renshou Road next door was better and had a large flow of people. She shook her head firmly, "It's all locals over there, and we can't get along." ”
The bakery on the street has a traditional taste, and it also sells rice cake with a strong aroma of wine.
The old neighbors said that the owner of the water dumplings is a conscientious businessman, and the rice dumplings are wrapped with lotus leaves every day.
Chongqing beef noodles have been open for a longer period of time, nearly 30 years. This shop is a youthful memory of 26 middle school students, and has also been praised by food bloggers as one of the most authentic Chongqing noodles in Wuhan. The spicy oil is fried by the boss, mixed with two kinds of chili peppers, Shizhu red and rocket head transported from Sichuan and Chongqing, and the entrance is warm.
The regular customer said that the boss was a Wanzhou guy with a strong temper, and some people thought he was spicy, so he said "I love to eat or not". Now the Wanzhou guy is in his forties, and he has learned to fry the rice with hot dry noodle soup powder, and Chongqing noodles are still in the first line of the menu, with a special note (spicy), but it is not changed.
In contrast, the proprietress of Chaoshan rice noodles is softer, and the first thing she did when she came to Pizi Street from Chaozhou was to learn to make chopped pepper sauce and pickled radish, and there was always a sister-in-law who came to buy vegetables and came to patronize it. She also knows a lot about Pizi Street, pickled radishes in clean jars seem to be sold for a good price, and when the neighbors ask the price, she says, "You are so beautiful and don't need money."
The most relaxed, of course, are the local Qiaokou aborigines. Ding of fried spring rolls and lotus root balls always retains Hong Kong-style three or seven points. The last generation of his family was a state-owned factory, he did not enter the factory, and the neighbors said that he was a team that fished for three days and dried nets for two days.
His stall is indeed three days of fishing and two days of drying nets, "Sometimes the weather is quite good, he does not go out of the stall to make money, he wants to bask in the sun by the river." However, Mr. Ding's spring rolls are fried really well, the local vegetables with meat, the crispiness is just right, and it is cheap, and there are always a bunch of children guarding the pot to eat. Every time Mr. Ding "surfs the Internet", his wife's phone will be blown up by the neighbors.
Mr. Ding's fried lotus root sea, you must guard the side of the pot and eat a portion.
Today, as the demolition is approaching, Pizi Street still retains its most primitive vitality, and there are newcomers on the street who pick up the flat pole to fight guerrillas, and the picks are covered with cloths, and a basket of live "jumping" (frogs) croaks when they are uncovered. A live chicken pecks open the burlap bag to reveal its head to breathe. The vegetables that are wilder than wild celery, and the flat dan only knows the name of the township, "dog tip", and I don't know if I can eat it. As for what roe deer meat, turtles...... It's okay to have an eye addiction.
If you give a Hankou man a wall, he will make a hole in the wall to do business, and this is the case with Pizi Street. Countless handwritten signboards with paper shells attached to the wires and windows of houses are open to welcome customers. Two steps away is a barber shop, next to the stool is the master's own washbasin and bed, and the haircut is ten yuan.
The small business of living in the family is that the people serve the people, the life is mixed, everyone is happy, and they make a little money. The aunt in the alley basks in the sun, and she also has to put a piece of cardboard next to her: "Flattened". Don't be afraid, don't just want to help you out.
The family's sewing machine is moved to the street, and it is also a livelihood to post a collection code, and then there is an iron to help people iron clothes. The sweater is children's clothing, and when it is finished, it is sold to the children's clothing store on Pizi Street. There is also a sister-in-law who is good at making dumplings, and the owners of several night snack shops on Renshou Road came to ask her to make pot stickers for raw dumplings.
It's too lazy, so buy two coin-operated laundry machines, put them at the door of your house, and rely on the sky to collect them.
By noon, hungry middle school students came over to forage for food, and an old couple cooked home-cooked food, packed in an iron box, with a luxurious lunch box of 15 yuan, including tamales, green vegetables, pork ribs, and white fungus soup.
Fathers gathered in the alley to repair leather shoes, change zippers, repair cabinets, and build stools, and they also wrote signs in paper shells and hung them on the wires. When business comes, I see no one on the signboard, so I look for a circle and people are playing poker on the side of the road.
Along the wall of the road, there is a message about the resale of mahjong tables. An aunt who washes vegetables on the side of the road complained that she could only lose money when she opened a mahjong room at home, and she had to eat deliciously, and she had to accompany the lack of corners. "She seems to have driven.
Pizi Street can smell the aroma of wine all the way, many people make wine and sell wine in the alley, old rice wine, sweet rice wine, rice flower wine, rice wine, miscellaneous grain wine, by the pound. I bought a copy of the sweet rice wine, and it was good to go back and make eggnog.
There is a wine owner who said that Pizi Street has a history of winemaking. I did my homework, in 1910, the French opened the Cannes Winery in this neighborhood, and later, the Yellow Crane Tower Winery also opened nearby, and the neighborhood grew up drinking alcohol.
There is a family who put up a sign of "snake venom rheumatism", claiming that beriberi gout, many years of stomach problems to the point of half paralysis, all can be solved with snake venom, and a poisonous snake is painted on the wall.
There are the most canteens at home, and some of them have no signboards, only the door is open, an old man lies down and watches TV, and there is a small counter next to the door, in which a few packs of cigarettes, a few bottles of water and snacks are placed. It doesn't matter if you can sell it or not, in Pizi Street, doing business is a kind of identity, and it is not easy to mix without business. Some canteens hide mysteries, and a game console handle is faintly exposed in the darkroom behind them.
The small business invisibly takes care of the children who are chasing and playing in the neighborhood, and the two children are gradually dangerous to play, so they are persuaded by the neighbors.
In every alley, you can meet an old lady who washes eggs and washes all afternoon. There are more than a dozen egg wholesale stores on Pizi Street, selling all kinds of local eggs, which are particularly popular. There are too many eggs and vegetable vendors can't wash them, so they pay for the neighborhood to wash them.
The neighbors here have been doing odd jobs since childhood, and in the past, the Wuhan Match Factory was next to it, and they could make money by pasting match boxes in the factory. In the evening, every household boils the paste with rice soup, and the whole family makes paste together.
At the end of the last century, the basic form of Pizi Street was an open-air vegetable market. The vegetable market is a formality, and everyone who comes here has it, such as those who beg for a living along the railway, those who are laid off, those who sell vegetables, those who sing operas, and those who fight cattle.
The open-air vegetable market has long since moved into a covered leather bazaar. The vegetables are fresh, with the soil, the vegetable sellers wash on the spot, walk in with a foot of mud, and can't stop the old Qiaokou who knows the goods from coming to buy vegetables.
Right now in season are celery, pea sprouts, ground cauliflower, toon, leek, and penny. These spring vegetables are not unusual, but the ones sold in the leather market are all claimed to be wild. Wild celery is a lilac stalk that is stir-fried at home, and the herbaceous flavor rushes straight to the nose. Wild leeks are more elongated, like green onions, chopped and fried in egg drops, who eats who knows. Many people take several stops of the light rail to buy it.
The production of wild vegetables is small, but the leather market can supply a large amount, the vegetables are transported by van, parked under the Pacific Light Rail Station, the driver is a fellow who is a vegetable vendor on the phone, picking vegetables and saying to himself, "This thing is tired of eating in the township." ”
Every afternoon, a few foreign guys came to buy tomatoes and onions, and I asked the vegetable vendor how they communicated, and the vegetable vendor complained, "They pick very much, they will say less money in Chinese, you say you can't do less, he 'can't understand' again." ”
There are vegetable vendors who bring glutinous rice balls from home to sell, and they can be tasted when they are warm.
There are narrow roads around the vegetable market leading to the back alley of Pizi Street. Most of the vegetable vendors here live on the back street, and recently some people pick gardenias to sell, and when they are bored, they water the flowers, and the flowers sell better than the vegetables.
The shrewd Pizi Street neighbors don't come to buy vegetables, so they wait for the evening, when the vegetable vendors collect the leftovers and go home, shout, make a price, and take away all the baskets.
The origin of the name of Pizi Street cannot be verified, some neighbors say that it is because the Huangpi people first came here to sell soybean oil skin on the street, and some people say that it is because the end of Pizi Street used to be a cowhide factory.
"Don't read Kepizi Street as a skin" is the words of Lao Qiaokou's parents to teach him. Daddy Li, who opened a lot of non-staple food on the street, said, "Pizi Street in the 1990s was very messy. "At that time, everyone had nothing to do and no money to spend. The faucet at the door of the house must be locked, and if it is not locked, someone steals water at night, and the window must be locked, otherwise someone comes in the middle of the night and the money cannot be stolen, so they will take away a pot of oil.
Locks are everywhere on Pizi Street, faucets, windows, flower pots, and shared bicycles are locked, and the stools used by the neighborhood to bask in the sun are also locked to the ground.
Daddy Li pointed to a basketball hoop made of a drying rack on the wall and said that this is the epitome of the childhood of the post-80s generation on Pizi Street. "The adults are confused, who cares about the little ones, they can only play by themselves. "It's good not to pay for food and school, but some parents have bad habits and ask him for money in turn. When he became a gangster, he also made evil, and he was shaky and hard-boiled, and he didn't know how many beatings he had received.
The representative of my high school math class, Xiao Han, lives in Pizi Street, the top 30 grades in famous schools, and he is used to speaking with a little suffix, and he is labeled as "beating a cow" by his classmates. He said that he would pay 200 yuan to the "forklift brother" on the street every year, and someone was blocking the road on the way home, saying that it was the forklift brother who covered it.
Xiao Han had a conflict with a few guys playing basketball, and in the following week, Brother Forklift picked him up from school on time at 8 o'clock every night. Xiao Han was admitted to the Department of Huake Optoelectronics, and Brother Forklift also invited him to Renshou Road to eat barbecue, "If you learn well, move away as soon as possible." ”
It is said that in the endless streets and alleys of Hankou, Pizi Street has always played the role of a receiver.
Qiaokou's aunt said that the workers of a state-owned factory lived on Renshou Road next to it, and they were able to pay a buyout when the wave of layoffs came. Those on Pizi Street do odd jobs for factories, and there are also small factories on the street, and the conditions are different.
Now there are blacksmiths, carpenters, and leathermen on the streets, and their crafts are somewhat "outdated", all of which used to make a living along the railway. In the 1980s, a blacksmith Lao Li, a native of Huangpi, built a shed outside the wall of the No. 11 Middle Courtyard on Chongren Road to make iron for the neighborhood. ”
After the Jinghan Railway was demolished, he came to the pot factory on the side of Pizi Street, and he is now over 70 years old. He said that he liked Pizi Street a lot, and he used to be lonely on Chongren Road, and there were neighbors and a few fellow villagers in Pizi Street.
When people fall to Pizi Street, they will always be taken in. On the rooftops of the surrounding buildings are tin houses, which constitute the aerial settlement of Pizi Street. The monthly rent of the tin house is several hundred yuan, and most of the tenants are young migrant workers who have just come to Wuhan, and there are some graduates who have taken the public entrance examination.
The photographer and I climbed up to the tin house settlement, and met a few takeaway guys who were also out of breath and climbed up to deliver food, and one of them answered the phone and said, "I'm at the pigeon house." "I asked, the takeaway brother himself lives here.
The pigeon house is a red brick house built by Daddy to feed the pigeons, you can climb the ladder to the top to see the scenery, I climbed up, and saw a large piece of gray pigeons flying around on Pizi Street, and the train of the Jianghan Iron Bridge in the distance is in the same frame.
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When I was eight years old, I went to my teacher's house in the early 11th year to take the Olympiad, and after school morning, I shook the street with my classmates, passed through the barracks village, walked through Renshou Road, and came to the mysterious Pizi Street.
In the labyrinth of countless private houses, it was natural for us to accept the invitation of a group of children of similar age to pick up trash and have a water fight.
This group of friends is much more interesting than my classmates. None of them were staring at the adults, and the older children bought popsicles and each took a bite. He had a master faucet key in his pocket, and when he was thirsty, he unscrewed it to drink tap water, and led a team to the vegetable market to play and touch melons.
When I got home, I was beaten, and I didn't say why, only warned me not to go to Pizi Street again.
My tablemate, who lived in the match factory dormitory on Renshou Road next to Pizi Street, was beaten when he went back, and was also admonished: Don't go to Pizi Street.
Later, every time I took the light rail, I could overlook the whole piece of leather through the glass, and the thick trees squeezed out of the private room one after another, messy, quaint and wild.
Pizi Street is going to be demolished after all. The world is so big, you can go wherever you want, and you can go.