"The Story of Tian Jia An" Article 40 "The Chinese Time-honored Brand in Tian Jia An - Hendry in Huainan"
Author: Zhao Aili
June 5
The Huainan Hendry Watch and Glasses Store in Tianjia'an is well known to everyone, it retains the memories and nostalgia of generations before the 1980s, and talking about this topic now may arouse your good memories and expectations, in the era of material scarcity, here has carried the dreams and joys of countless people.
Maybe the three or five cards of sitting clocks that you once owned at home may be from Hendry, the Shanghai brand, Dongfeng brand, seagull brand, Zhongshan brand and other domestic watches were very popular, everyone was proud to have such a watch, at that time the "three turns and one ring" (watches, bicycles, sewing machines, radios) is the family's goal, even if you have the same will be like a treasure, the whole family is happy to follow the Big Year, than now have a BMW and villa happiness of hundreds of times stronger, Huainan watch shop was named by the Ministry of Trade" China's time-honored brand", which is also the only unit in Huainan City with this honor, it is the pride of Huainan people!
Clocks and watches, for people now, ordinary and ordinary items, but before the eighties of the last century is still a rare and valuable thing, more than three thousand years ago, China's ancients invented the "Tugui" and "Day Rules" two timing methods, becoming one of the world's earliest invention of timepiece countries, and then the dynasties and dynasties continue to have new timing inventions.
Clocks in the middle of the Ming Dynasty with the entry of European missionaries to China, in 1601 the Italian missionaries gave the Ming Dynasty Wanli Emperor two self-chiming bells, after which the Ming and Qing emperors showed a fanatical love and pursuit of clocks and watches, so that China's clock technology has been rapidly developed, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, China's clock technology has been quite developed, but at that time the clocks and watches were still limited to court decorations and playthings, and because they were very expensive, so they have not been popular among ordinary people, with foreign clocks and watches continue to flock to the country. People gradually became more able to contact and use and love watches, and China's watch industry has also been further developed, and by the beginning of the last century, clock and eyewear stores in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Nanjing gradually developed.
At the beginning of the last century, Tianjia'an began to rise due to coal, and by the 1930s and 1940s, there were several watch shops in the bustling Tianjia'an, which were in the forefront of domestic watch shops, the famous Yili watch shop of Zhou Yuqing, the Guanghua watch shop of Xie Defu, and the watch shop of You Jimin, etc. Before the liberation, the watch shops before liberation were smaller shops.
On January 18, 1949, Tianjia'an was liberated, the new government will be the pre-liberation private enterprises to be transformed and expanded and retained, Tianjia'an's watch industry is exactly like this, in March 1955, Chinese developed their own development of China's first watch was born in Tianjin, this initiative to the local watch industry to give great encouragement, Huainan Municipal Government also attaches great importance to the watch industry, and the Tianjia'an has been operating before the liberation of Guanghua Watch Shop, Yili Watch Shop and Youjimin Watch Shop three stores in one to be transformed and merged.
Xie Defu, the owner of Guanghua Watch Shop, one of the mergers, is the original owner of the real estate at the Huaihe Shopping Mall, and he is worthy of admiration for donating his real estate to the country free of charge! After the liberation, Xie Defu actively cooperated with the government's public-private partnership work, merged his watch shops, and made many efforts for the tianjia'an watch industry after the liberation, becoming one of the founders of The Hendry Watch And glasses store in Huainan.
In 1955, after the cooperation of the Tianjia'an watch industry, at the small building on the second floor of Huaishun North Road and Xinyi Road, the "Tianjia'an District Clock and Eyewear Cooperation Group" was established, which was the predecessor of the Huainan Hendry Watch and Glasses Store, the start-up capital of the watch shop was 2800 yuan, the person in charge Liu Longhai, Liu Longhai was originally the apprentice of Zhou Yuqing's Yili Watch Shop, the root is Miao Hong, the business is excellent, the people of New China have a new mental outlook, and everyone is full of enthusiasm for the construction of New China. The same is true of Liu Longhai of Tianjia'an Watch Shop, he has a strong sense of responsibility, conscientiousness, meticulous management, honest management, and then hired Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai technicians to teach technology in Huaihuai, coupled with thoughtful service, although the watch shop is not large, but the fame is getting bigger and bigger, and Liu Longhai has gloriously become a national model worker.
In 1981, the watch shop was linked to the Shanghai Watch Industry Company to establish the "Huainan Special Maintenance Point", and in 1983, the Tianjia'an District Watch Shop was renamed "Huainan Hendry Watch and Glasses Company". "Hendry" is a domestic watch industry tycoon, the country's most time to join the store reached more than three hundred, of course, Huainan is one of the more than three hundred, Hendry founder Wang Zuguang, in 1874 in Ningbo opened a watch repair shop, after the business boomed, in 1915 with his father-in-law apprentice to Shanghai to open a watch and glasses store, named Hendry, meaning "everything Heng Tong de Li, business Heng Tong, Li City a hundred times." After the joint venture between Huainan Watch Shop and Hendry, the business became more prosperous, and it was rated as an advanced unit in the country, and was awarded the title of "Chinese Time-honored Brand" by the Ministry of Trade.
In order to expand the operation, in 1987 Hendry watch shop moved to Huaibin Road new business building, but since the restructuring, Hendry's business has been a slippery slope, there is no former red fire, with the development of society, the progress of the times, clocks and watches are not the only way to keep time, people wear clocks and watches more for decoration or play, of course, that must be high-end clocks, I have been to Hendry several times, the business hall does not see a few figures, often think of my father with my first pair of glasses, On the small second floor of the old Hendry site, there are many people coming and going, some buying, some watching, some optometry, some wearing glasses, and now it is no longer prosperous.
In order to do this, I deliberately went to the old site of the Hendry Watch and Glasses Shop on Minde Street to take a look, the house is still the same, but it is completely different, it has now become a small restaurant, once a clock in people's homes, a piece of watch in people's hands, a pair of glasses, everyone is with hope, full of joy.
All along, I have not been able to understand why clocks and glasses will be in the same shop, the combination of clocks and glasses of the two items almost became a fixed collocation phrase, the original clock and glasses in China origin is very early, but the Europeans have early played it to the extreme, become the world's advanced items, but also become China's meal products, that is, foreign goods, and after entering China, foreign goods must be unified sales, coincidentally, clocks and glasses are unified together, which has a watch and glasses store continues to this day.
Now standing in the old site of hendry watch and glasses store, although the former situation is not there, but when you get closer, it seems that you can still feel the bright shops of that year, people come and go, when I was a child, every time I went to school here, I couldn't help but probe my head, maybe longing for beauty is the common wish of people, I believe that many children's first watch is the one that is drawn on their wrists with a pen, although it does not cost a penny, but in the hearts of each child, perhaps it is the most beautiful and valuable.
At that time, people's sense of happiness was strong, stemming from people's kindness, simplicity, sincerity, wearing a watch can attract people's pride from the heart, at 6:30 p.m. radio on time to broadcast Liu Lanfang's commentary "Yue Fei Biography", Wancheng Empty Alley, Dad riding a permanent brand bicycle, has always been a sister sitting on the girder, sitting on the back seat of the brother, butterfly brand sewing machine is always the best helper for the mother to make clothes for the children, this scene, like a movie, often replayed in the mind, And the watches people wear from practicality to decoration and collectibility, marking the development of the times, science and technology in progress, to this day, for the still dismal operation of Hendry only blessings, sincerely wish that hendry has brought countless good memories to the people of Huainan, still "business prosperous, a hundred times the city"!