Shao Zhihui
Issue 756
I'm looking for a deceased emblem merchant.
When I was a child, I often heard the elders say that before the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Jixi Emblem Museum was in the limelight in Shanghai. In the 1920s, 148 huiguans were opened, which was the most proud of the huishang article made by the Jixi people and even the Huizhou people in the Shili Yangchang. Perhaps driven by the accumulation of the business complex of my ancestors and fathers and the historical responsibility of the descendants of Huishang, 20 years ago, I began to have the idea of investigating the Huiguan industry, a strong brigade of Huixi Huishang. Thus, in the spring of 1981, a long, almost obsessive investigation and research began.
My ancestors and fathers are all emblem merchants, and they are naturally my first investigation subjects. Since the materials recording my father's business travels had been destroyed by me during the Cultural Revolution, the old people could only tell me the stories of the hardships of the Hui merchants through their memories.
In the Qing Dynasty, my grandfather went into business in Shanghai. During the Republic of China, my father had opened a joint venture with people in Shanghai Tilanqiao to open a number of Hui restaurants such as Da Jia Fu, and he had shares in 18 Hui Guan. After liberation, the stock list, agreement, etc. have been collected in the ancestral home of Fuling. In the summer of 1966, when the Cultural Revolution broke the fourth old era, my father was still working in Shanghai. With my mother's consent, I made an exception by prying open the iron box that only my father could open and had the right to read, and found that among the large stacks of beautifully printed stock lists, several of them jumped out of the names of "Director Shao Zhihui" and my brother, and I couldn't believe my eyes. According to the chronology of the stock list, I was only two or three years old at that time. In the historical background of "overthrowing the feudal capital repair", I was scared out of a cold sweat.
When I continued to read these iron boxes that could bring disaster to my family, I saw the name of "Lu Wenbin" for the first time among the many shareholder names on several agreement contracts. I hurriedly burned all the stock lists in this box, and the information in my hands turned into ashes, and what remained in my memory, except for my father who was the chairman of the board of directors and my brother and my brother, were the three words "Lu Wenbin" that were always in the front of the list of most agreements. Because the surname of the road is rare, it is very impressive.
Who is Lu Wenbin? Where are they from? What kind of eminent figure is he?
Since the spring of 1981, intermittent investigations have been conducted for half a year, and among the fifty or sixty chefs visited, the old Emblem merchants will invariably mention the name of "Lu Wenbin". I learned that he was a native of Jinkeng Village, Dashimen Township, and was an early Huiguan entrepreneur in Shanghai. And how many emblems did Lu's open? Which was the first one? And the material that is slightly more detailed about its people is almost impossible to know.
Since I was a person near the big stone gate, I focused my attention on Lu Wenbin's original hometown. I have been to three times in succession and inquired about several elderly people, some of whom only know that he eats noodle rice (Jixi people call it "eating noodle rice" in Huiguan), some only know that he is a big boss, and some have heard that he has done some good deeds for repairing bridges and roads in the village. They all only said "shadow", but there was no substantive material, which made me very disappointed.
Later, I entrusted my elder brother Shao Zhiquan, who worked in the Shanghai education department, to find this information for me. He went to the Shanghai Library three times and collected some historical materials about the Hujixi Huiguan and Lu Wenbin. It is known that the first emblem hall founded by Lu Wenbin in Shanghai is called "Juyuan Garden", which was held in the Guangxu Decade (1884), and Lu Wenbin was known as the "Leader of the Performance Gang" in Shanghai.
This is not a small gain. However, more information is lacking to find out the details of Lu Wenbin's business. For more than 20 years, I could not collect more information about Lu Wenbin, which almost became a piece of my heart disease. This is because, in order to study Hui cuisine, in any case, it is impossible to get around lu Wenbin, one of the founders of the Shanghai Huiguan industry and the famous "leader of the Performance Gang".
In the early 1990s, my colleagues and I went to the Huizhou District Archives in Huangshan City to collect materials, and at noon, I wanted to find a place to eat. In the colorful signs of the small restaurants lined up behind the city department store, the word "New Su" came straight to my eyes. Because during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, when a large number of emblems migrated from Nanjing and other cities in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River to the southwest, many hotels were named "New Su". Is it a coincidence? A keen sense of the history of the emblem hall led me into this small restaurant with only two facades.
The restaurant's stove is located at the entrance of the shop on the left, and a chef in his early 30s is seen nervously cooking. Somehow, I especially enjoyed watching the chef's sharp movements and hot flames, and the chef's occasional "tap" or two on the edge of the pot with a maza to emphasize the beat of his operation, which gave me a cool thrill.
After ordering three dishes and one soup, we took advantage of the waiting time to greet the chef. I asked with Chinese, "Master's surname?" Answer: "Exempt from your surname Lu." "Where's the house?" "Jixi Dashimen." wow! Or a fellow! Master Lu's unexpected answer suddenly froze me. I immediately asked urgently in Jixi dialect: "In the past, there was a big boss of the Emblem Hall in Shanghai called Lu Wenbin, have you heard of it?" Master Lu, while bowing his head to stir-fry, replied with a smile and unhurriedly: "I know!" He was my great-grandfather, how could I not know! "Ha! What a coincidence! Master Lu's reply made me glad that this coincidence had a great sense of willow darkness and despair!
Maybe we think that we are fellow countrymen and collecting Lu Wenbin's information, and we seem to have more layers of relationship. After completing the work at hand, Master Lu sat down at the dining table and talked with us. I learned from this that Lu Wenbin has been from the kitchen for five generations; his father has gone from Shanghai to the southwest to open the Huiguan during the War of Resistance; the Xinsu Hotel is indeed the same as the old name of the Huiguan that moved from Nanjing to Hengyang, Liuzhou and other places; and his father now runs the Huiguan in Jiangxi. He promised to ask his father about his great-grandfather later. The news was enough to surprise me. He's still very young, and I can't expect him to provide me with more information.
From the moment I entered the store, I had a feeling that in addition to the signboard, I could not find the second word in this restaurant, the wall was blank, and I always felt that the store was too "naked" and there was no cultural packaging at all. Chef Lu is both the chef and the owner of the restaurant. He listened to my advice and said happily, "Okay! I have no culture, today I happened to meet you, a cultural fellow, just bother to leave me some ink treasure! So I beckoned him to buy pens and paper and advertising paints. One side found a blank menu to start a draft. The manuscript was drafted in more than 300 words, summarizing the causes of Hui cuisine, the historical situation of the Huiguan industry outside the Jixi Brigade, and the status of Lu's huiguan in Shanghai. And written in a book and immediately nailed to the wall. When the road boss looked at it, he shouted with joy: "Pengxun is full of brilliance!" It's glorious! ”
Bidding farewell to the New Su Hotel, saying goodbye to the great-grandson of Lu Wenbin, who is called Lu Renqun, the heart disease accumulated for many years seems to be better by more than half. After more than a year, because I have not received a letter and information from the road boss, I can't help but feel uneasy. One day, I decided to go to Tunxi again to run to the door to explore the reason. But when I walked to the original site of the New Su Hotel behind the city department store, wow! The area was flattened, and the original hotel complex is now surrounded by a large construction workshop. It is said that a Hong Kong boss wanted to develop and build a trade city here. This vicissitudes in front of me have caused me to have a new round of great disappointment in the collection of Lu's information. After decades of unsuccessful search for Lu's information, it is time to start looking for Lu Renqun again.
On February 1, 2001 (the ninth day of the first lunar month), just after the Spring Festival Golden Week, I received a phone call claiming to be Xiaolu, and when I asked, sure enough, I was looking for Lu Renqun for several years. According to him, when the site of the new Suyuan store was demolished, he changed to another business, and in the past few years, he has been tormented, and his father has been ill since his death, during which he has been filial piety for several months. Therefore, I apologize for the delay in the information I have requested so far! He said he wanted to tell me a lot of things, could you take a moment to go to Tunxi in the near future and come to see his new store?
Since he had been eager to find his heart for several years, he would have to go to the meeting this time no matter how busy he was. The next day, I rushed to Tunxi. According to the address he showed, a Hui restaurant still titled "Xinsu" was found opposite the municipal government hall in the lotus pond. About a kilometer north of the store to Tunxiyuan Bus Station, it is a food and beverage street, and all kinds of snack stalls are concentrated in this area, and the Xinsu store is located at the southern end of this street.
The moment I stepped in, the first thing I saw was the one I had written for his old shop years ago on the wall in the middle of the store. What particularly touched me was that the painting was not only preserved, but also covered with a layer of transparent plastic paper on the outside, and although the smoke was a little yellow, the handwriting was still clearly legible. I said, "Oh path! Thank you for valuing my words so much! At that time, because of the rush, it was written in white newspapers with advertising paint, and there was no grade. After I go back, I will use rice paper to frame and send you, which is definitely better than this picture! ”
He said: "It should be that I thank Uncle Shao, you are right, you don't underestimate the words you wrote for me, in this snack street more than a hundred shops, only my "New Su" has this kind of advertising materials, this word has brought me good business! He also said, "Xu Huanshan, a famous actor from Xi'an Film Studio, came to Huangshan to travel, chose a restaurant to eat, started from my shop, walked this street, turned back to my shop to sit down and eat, read this picture while looking, said that this is a good writing, and said that my small shop still has a little cultural atmosphere." The couple immediately decided to stay in Huangshan City for three days and come to our restaurant to eat. ”
Xiao Lu happily pulled out the business cards of Xu Huanshan and others and said, "Xu is not only an actor, but also a national calligrapher!" Here! This is an oil painter, an actor... They came to dinner to see your writing and gave it a high evaluation! I said, "It was your emblem dish that was cooked so well that it attracted these scribes!" Koji said seriously, "That's one thing. After I came to such an incident, I felt that even if the store is small, it can not have a little cultural content, and I have no culture but to do cultural things, haha! I said, "You are a cultural person, this is called culture!" ”
Xiao Lu said on the right topic, "The purpose of my invitation to you is: My uncle Lu Yuan called from Hengyang, Hunan Province, saying that when his son and son-in-law came to Jixi for tourism, they bought a book containing the articles you wrote, "Fuling Hui Kitchen Goes to the World" and "Shao Tianmin Breaks into the Southwest". He wants to meet you, and if he has the chance, he wants to talk to you about the situation of the Road family. ”
Immediately, Boss Lu hung up the phone of his uncle Mr. Lu Yuan in Hengyang. The other party heard that it was me, and turned Chinese to a local tone. I can hear that the 83-year-old Lu Lao is a little excited, and the unchanging hometown tone makes me imagine the old man's strong homesickness. Elder Lu said: "Five generations of our family have been cooks, traveled south and north, worked hard, suffered hardships, and had several ups and downs in the sea of commerce, and the past is vividly remembered." He earnestly invited me to go down to Hengyang. When I explained that I really didn't have time to visit the house in the near future, the old man promised to write a little material about his grandfather Lu Wenbin and other emblem officers breaking into the southwest as soon as possible.
Soon, he successively received memoirs such as "My Grandfather - Huiguan Entrepreneur Lu Wenbin" and "Memories of the Past", as well as family photos of him after settling in Hengyang. What particularly touched me was that soon I also received a huge photograph taken by lu Wenbin on the 80th birthday of the 20th year of the Republic of China (1931) at the behest of his nephew Lu Xiangfei Lu. According to Xiao Lu, during the Cultural Revolution, in order to escape the revolutionary action of the rebels to "break the four olds", this photo was superimposed on the back of Chairman Mao's portrait to avoid misfortune.
Seeing this somewhat stale photo is very emotional. I finally found Lu Wenbin, found the information of the Lu family's kitchen, and more importantly, found the bumpy entrepreneurial trajectory of a generation of famous chefs and the precious history of the Hui chef family. Because Mr. Lu carefully cooperated with my investigation and actively pursued the past of Lu's kitchen, he has written articles such as "Sixty Years of Vicissitudes from Cooking", "Difficulty in Starting a Business in the Smoke and Flames", "Memories of Shanghai Emblem Pavilion" and other articles, which greatly enriched my first-hand information on the operation of Shanghai and the Great Southwest Emblem Museum.
(The author is the director of fangzhi office of Jixi County, a researcher of Huangshan Hui Cultural Research Institute, and the winner of the Anhui Provincial Culinary Career Lifetime Achievement Award)
Production: Tong Daqing