Wei Zhuoran
【Editor's Note】
In the Spring Festival of 2021, due to the new crown epidemic, the government called on everyone to celebrate the New Year as much as possible. Our longing for home only increases.
The Paper/Vision collects old photos from family photo albums, and asks you to tell us about the unforgettable stories behind the photos. The gaze of old photos, like a review of the past of the self and even the entire family, and the connection with the past, those stories also unconsciously constitute the evidence of our existence. It gives us a short period of comfort and also provides the power to continue this year.
From south to north, from east to west, a vivid family story also carries vivid memories of the times, and I hope to write a family photo album of the times.
Wei Zhuoran, Shanghai Normal University/Photography Major:
Photographed in the late 1980s in The head of the river in Tangqi Town, water transport loquat.
My hometown is by the ancient canal, a typical Jiangnan water town. My grandfather's name was Wei Jiuyuan, and he said that he relied on a small wooden boat to sell his own agricultural products in the town, the city, and even by the Taihu Lake, so that he could have a prosperous life. I remember when I was a child, when the loquat was ripe in mid-May, my grandfather and my father rowed together to the fields to pick loquats, and my father would teach me how to row, and my mother and I became the audience in the boat listening to them gossip about the past. Just like in the photo, in the 1980s, the father and son carried loquat baskets full of baskets and rowed to the town to sell. Now loquat has become the seasonal fruit of my home, and this little wooden boat is already older than my age.
Mr. Ye Shengtao once wrote in the article "Rice", "The ship is loaded with new rice, which presses the hull very low. Father said that this was the same scene he had seen when he was a child, in the early summer with his grandfather to load the early rice on the boat, they always competed with the people on the river who rowed faster, just so that they could get to the town as soon as possible to pay the grain, otherwise what awaited them at the head of the river was a long line and a small boat. The joy of handing over the public grain in exchange for food stamps did not last long, so he hurried home and began the hard work for the next six months.
For my father, Wei Guohai, the most exciting day when he was a child was to go to Hangzhou to sell winter melons. We set off at dawn, even if we don't arrive until late afternoon at the earliest. The wooden boat full of winter melons seemed to be just flush with the water. At the beginning, the boats out of the country channels were always smooth, and once they entered the Grand Canal, people would have a sense of fear like ants, and even when I stood on the bridge and looked down at these ships, I could not help but sigh, not to mention the small wooden boats driving side by side with the fish-lined steamboats, father and grandfather would have some uneasiness. The tide is constantly pouring into the wooden boat, and only by constantly scooping the water can we escape the doom of overturning the ship. How many times have I had a thrilling experience, in the meals prepared by my grandmother, in the deep sleep, I was soothed. The next morning, the winter melon was picked up and sold at the market, and in addition to shouting, it was necessary to mentally find change. My father always said that I was slow to calculate the math because I did not follow my grandfather out to set up a stall, and he threw me the math problems that my grandfather did for him at that time, so a problem of "chicken and rabbit in the same cage" became the "best" Olympiad problem when I was a child. No matter how poisonous the summer sun is, they have to wait until the winter melons are all sold out before they are willing to leave, and when they leave, Grandpa's pocket contains dozens of dollars, and his father's pocket contains a few candies that can't be eaten in ordinary days.
The small boat at home is only available after the charter production reaches the household, especially cherishing it, in addition to the "big responsibility" of transporting goods, every summer when the farmer is idle, Grandpa will brush the wooden boat with tung oil, so that it can enjoy a "sun bath". The family came together and lifted the boat to the ground, four benches aside, the boat slowly fell, coated with brown oil, wrapped in oil paper, waiting for its new appearance in half a month. Even when her aunt got married, she went away with the boat, and in the photo, she was dressed in red, and her family was clustered on the boat, and they said that Grandma stood on the river bank for a long time, looking at the place where the boat disappeared.
Photographed in the 90s, at the doorstep of her home, her aunt Wei Haidi was married.
Later, the family's life got better and better, new buildings were built, and the boat was no longer the only one to rely on. When I was born, the joy of my family was imprinted in the photos without reservation, and I don't remember anything at that time, but now I have an infinite sense of intimacy whenever I see the photos. I toddlered with the newspaper and cried in the arms of my family. These photos obscure the stories of the past, leaving behind the happiness that follows, and I am content.
Photographed in the late 1990s at Chaoshan Mountain, my mother Zhang Jianfen and uncle Zhang Jianfeng climbed the mountain to commemorate the occasion.
Photographed in the late 1990s, Super Mountain, my mother, uncle and grandparents climbed the mountain to commemorate the occasion.
I remember that there was a word on the title page of our family photo album, that is, "Dream", as if consciously or unconsciously giving the book a name, and when I opened the photos inside, most of the time it was happy, and I often joked that my dad was now happy fat. Like a child, he would show off to me the motorcycle he had bought in the photo. Many things seem to hover between remembering and not remembering, and those photos become a medium that spans the two. The story told by the photo may not be all true, even the person who personally experienced it will bring new feelings to re-recall the past when looking back at the old photos, whether it is really happy is unknown, and we prefer to believe that it was a happy time, at least it seems to be the most beautiful moment.
Photographed around 2000 next to the stairs of my grandmother's house, dad and I.
Photographed at my grandmother's house around 2000, relatives and I.
Photographed on the grass next to my grandmother's house around 2000, my mother took me to learn to walk.
Photographed in my uncle's new house around 2005, my grandparents and I.
I think the interesting thing about the family album is that each of its photos comes from people who are far or near to the family, there is no fixed author, everyone knows each other well, some families arrange photos neatly according to the year, some just add photos to the album at will, it records the family history in the ordinary, and its unique arbitrariness is also given the general aroma of aging by time.
It was a spring afternoon, and according to my mother's recollection, the rape flower field in front of my grandmother's house was still endless, the path in front of the house was still potholed, and my uncle pressed the shutter in front of the door for our family of three, so there was this earliest photo of us. When looking through the photo album at home, there are many such similar photos, the shooting date, the camera model has long been impossible to verify, the framing and composition seem to be lackluster, perhaps a momentary capture, perhaps a commemorative group photo, the reason for the shooting at that time seems to have been slowly forgotten, more is the deep meaning of time behind the photo and the past that connects our hearts.
Photographed in front of my grandmother's house around 2000, a family of three.
Instructor: Dai Fei, Shanghai Normal University/School of Humanities and Communication, Majoring in Photography
Editor-in-Charge: Liang Yanjia