The Paper's senior reporter Li Jing intern Duan Wenxin
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Walking into Shanghai People's Park in summer, visitors can often hear the melodious melody.
It turned out that at the lotus pond, there were often old gentlemen playing musical instruments. This has become a scene of people's park, which attracts people to stop and admire from time to time, adding a different style to the lotus flowers blooming in the pond.
Recently, the surging news reporter visited and found that Mr. Shen, 74, was a "resident guest" by the lotus pond. The piano in his hand is very unique, with a wooden body, keys and strings. Mr. Shen was radiant when he played the piano, and he told reporters that this was a phoenix piano. Behind him and the piano, there is also a twist and turning story.
Mr. Shen who is playing the phoenix piano The pictures in this article are all the pictures of The Paper's reporter Li Jing and intern Duan Wenxin
In childhood, he was married to the phoenix piano due to illness
According to the 1982 "Musical Instrument" magazine, the Taisho was produced in Nagoya City in the Taisho era of Japan and later introduced to China. Mr. Shen's phoenix piano is small and light, the wooden piano has five strings, two rows of black and white keys, the player has one hand buttons, the other hand plucks the strings, the piano sound is classical and clear.
Mr. Shen told the surging news reporter that since 2014, except for rain and snow, he has played the phoenix piano in the People's Park almost every day. For a while, he was busy moving without coming. When we met again, the old friends in the park asked, why didn't they come for half a month? Only then did he know that everyone was thinking of himself.
Netizens used "resident guests" to describe him, and some people thought that the piano he played was ancient and emotional, saying that he was a typical "old Keler". At home, he is the "old Shen Tou" in the daughter's mouth, this nickname comes from the protagonist in the third grade text, and the daughter feels that her father is as kind as he is.
On weekdays, Mr. Shen prefers to call himself a "friend", the park is full of people, he is a friend of tourists. When he meets children, he plays a song "Jingle Bells" for them; when his peers gather, he often plays classic songs, such as "Spring in the NorthLand" and "Friendship Lasts Forever". Many foreign friends also gave him a thumbs up, and there were companions who loved to sing, and if they wanted to pull him to perform in a team, he would sit in the corner of the pavilion to accompany him.
For Mr. Shen, Fenghuangqin was his earliest playmate and spent a boring childhood with him. Growing up in Shanghai, Mr. Shen was diagnosed with tuberculosis when he graduated from primary school, so he took a break from school to recuperate at home. The days of recuperation are long, the neighbor's family has a phoenix piano, kindly lend him to play, without the guidance of the teacher, he relies on his own groping, and soon learned.
During the three years he took a break from school, he practiced the piano except for the time for eating and resting. Later, everyone gradually knew that there was a child who played the piano very well in the street, and the owner of the piano also generously gave him the piano. "Speaking of which, I also want to thank that illness." Mr. Shen laughed.
However, at that time, everyone thought that the phoenix piano was a toy. Until a few years later, he took the piano to the northeast to join the team, and played a song "Horse Racing" in front of the music teacher, and everyone was surprised to find that the original toy-like instrument could also play difficult music.
Mr. Shen said that he never read the score when he played, but relied on listening. A song has been heard many times, remember the melody can pop up, so that there are hundreds of "listening" songs.
By the lotus pond in People's Park, tourists are taking pictures.
Lost piano memories in the middle of life
In addition to playing the piano, Mr. Shen also has a lot of research on photography. When he was in the northeast, once, he organized his troops to go to the countryside to inspect the work of Zhiqing and asked him to take a few photos. Traditional photo studios usually have to wait a week to develop photos, and everyone did not expect that the next day he would develop the photos. It turned out that he used plastic shells, light bulbs, wooden clips, laser mirrors and other tools to assemble the "darkroom" by himself. Later, he was transferred to work in a photo studio.
In the 1970s, he worked out a method of using expired film, which reduced the cost of photography, and everyone was willing to look for him to take pictures.
After photography became the main job, there was less time to practice. In 1995, when Mr. Shen returned to Shanghai from the northeast, his wife threw away his only remaining phoenix piano. In the blink of an eye, more than ten years have passed, and the city fashion has been renovated several times, and the expensive toy piano in the stationery store has long been lost.
"If I knew where it was, I would buy one for whatever it was." Mr. Shen said that until 2013, several old intellectuals and young people gathered together, and someone told him that there was one on Taobao. Only then did he retrieve the lost memories.
Later, he asked a friend to bring back an "electric Taisho harp" from Japan, which was technically updated and could be played by electricity. The factory that made the violin had long since closed. "No one is playing this," Mr. Shen lamented. A phoenix piano, across the ocean, played the afterglow of the year.
After practicing at home for a year, he wanted to walk around the park, one to practice his face, and the other to promote the culture of the piano. He ran through Baoshan and Jing'an, but still prefers the People's Park in Huangpu. He told the surging news reporter that the People's Park has a large flow of people, listens to a lot, and the environment is good. "There is a lotus pond in front, a bayberry tree in the back, and there are camphor trees and cypress trees there.", take the quiet in the middle of the noise.
Every morning, Mr. Shen sets off from his home in Baoshan, rides a 40-minute "little electric donkey", and goes to the park at nine o'clock to eat his own steamed buns and salted duck eggs for lunch until he returns home at about 4 pm. He kept a few parts in his bag at all times in case something went wrong and interrupted the fun of playing.
Mr. Shen believes that playing the piano teaches people to focus and forget their worries, and they are exercises for the body and mind. He wanted to pass on this happy sound to everyone in the park.
"Old Lady Uncle" by the Lotus Pond
Although the lotus pond is only a corner of the People's Park, it also stages a variety of human forms.
In 2014, a Finn came to Shanghai for a tour, and he was impressed by the phoenix piano played by Mr. Shen. Three years later, when he came to China again, he came to visit Mr. Shen and brought his own electric guitar, and the two staged an ensemble across national borders.
Two years ago in the winter, a girl came to the park to relax, and saw that she had frostbite on her hands, so Old Shen Tou took out his own hand cream and wiped it for her. The girl photographed him and the piano, as well as the little hand cream, as a souvenir. She came again this summer and thanked Mr. Shen.
Because he is kind, many tourists love to find him to "nag". The strife of colleagues in the company, the emotional conflicts in the family, the quarrel between children and parents... He would be persuaded when he heard it. He has his own philosophy of life, "life should be simple, people should be content", filial piety to the elders, good health is the most important.
Today, Mr. Shen, 74, lives with his wife and daughter. He eats regularly, gets up at five in the morning, drinks a cup of espresso, goes out during the day to play the piano, comes home, and rests after dinner. In his old age, his spirit was full of energy.
"I couldn't even afford autumn pants back then, but now I can play the piano every day, and I am very satisfied." When the family got along, he occasionally quarreled, and he put on his headphones and listened to familiar songs. The tablet used to play the song was bought for him by his daughter.
Mr. Shen has been playing the piano in People's Park for 7 years, and from time to time there are media reports on him. The neighbor saw that the reading volume was rising, and teased him that he had become famous and should take some money. Instead, he thought he had taken advantage of it, "People are promoting for me, and they haven't asked me for advertising fees." He laughed.
Editor-in-charge: Zheng Hao
Proofreader: Luan Meng