Old photo of the northwest corner
Now when it comes to the northwest corner of Tianjin, everyone knows that it is the root of Tianjin's traditional food snacks. In fact, historically speaking, the northwest city corner, like the southeast city corner where the Temple of Literature is located, is the context of Tianjin. Old Tianjin Weisan Zongbao, Drum Tower Fortress Bell Pavilion, Bell Pavilion was once the Ancient Academy, just in the northwest corner of the city. Yan Fansun, the founder of Nankai School, mei yiqi, president of Tsinghua University, who was born in the old house of the Mei family, the clay man Zhang Shijia, the calligrapher Liang Qi, and the collector of Jinshi calligraphy and painting Yang Bonian all live nearby.
Mei Shi, one of the earliest clans since the Jianwei of Tianjin in the Ming Dynasty, lived in Meijia Hutong in the northwestern city. This big family has produced many influential celebrities in the cultural circles, Mei Chengdong once sang with Tianjin poets, engraved the "Collection of Gushang Inscriptions", and organized the "Plum Blossom Poetry Society" in Shuixizhuang. Drum Tower Minglian "High open fast climb, see the seventy-two gu to and fro sail shadows; bustling who wake up, listen to the morning and evening bells of the one hundred and eight pestles", the author is the Mei family's Mei Xiaoshu. Mei Yiqi is the president of Tsinghua University.
Yan Xiu, who co-founded Nankai School with Zhang Boling, lives in Wenchang Palace in the northwest corner of the city. He initially opened a family house, but also a women's school and a nursing home. After the establishment of Nankai Middle School, Yan's Girls' School moved from Yanzhai to the vicinity of Nankai Middle School in 1923, and the number of students increased to more than 70, becoming the central female center of Nankai. The Nursing Home is the earliest kindergarten, running schools according to the Japanese experience, cultivating children's habits of love cleanliness, hygiene, and discipline, educating children to be friendly with each other, respecting adults, cultivating children's language expression skills, and exerting children's creativity with courses such as folding paper, cutting and pasting, paper weavers, masonry, and drawings.
Northwest corner of Tianjin
The story of education in the northwest corner is not limited to the Yan family. The prefectural and county god temples here, built in the fourth year of Ming Yongle (1406), have been repaired repeatedly, the late Qing Dynasty people abandoned the temple to revitalize the school, the City God Temple bore the brunt of it, the establishment of the City God Temple Primary School, is the first public primary school in Tianjin, soon renamed the municipal Tenth Primary School, later changed to the Northwest Corner Primary School, and added the Fu Bureau Street Middle School in front of the temple.
"Tianjin Wei, Three Treasures: Drum Tower, Fortress, Bell Pavilion", The Bell Pavilion is in the northwest corner of the city, in the past it was the Jigu Academy, in 1901 Gao Lingwen founded the ordinary middle school here, which was the earliest government middle school in Tianjin, and later changed to Tianjin No. 3 Middle School, the former first secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee Ren Zhongyi, dramatist Hong Chen, endocrinologist Zhu Xianyi and so on have studied in this school.
The former residence of "Clay Man Zhang", which is also the birthplace of Clay Man Zhang, is in the first hutong (later Dafeng Road) in the northwest corner of the city corner of the city, in the east exit of Wei Dao Temple Street. Zhang Mingshan, the founder of Clay Man Zhang, is a neighbor and good friend of Yan Fansun. The house of the "Clay Man Zhang" family is a house on one side and a workshop on the other. There are often children in front of the workshop to watch the liveliness, and some also help the Zhang family to fight mud and fall mud.
Clay man Zhang
Zhang Mingshan's fifth son, Zhang Yuting, the second generation of "Clay Man Zhang", known as the "Old Fifth Master", is good at capturing the details of life and has excellent skills. He has a famous work called "Fat String Of Athlete's Foot", a fat man sitting on the ground, one leg coiled, one leg bow, one hand wrenching toes, the other hand rubbing the toe slit, grinning, frowning and inhaling, the expression is both painful and painful, it is he who made it after a long period of observation in the bathhouse.
Once, at the mouth of his hutong, there was a person who picked up the curium bowl, and the old fifth master watched the every move of the curium bowl man through the window: ballast, patchwork, entanglement, drilling, nailing... According to this, he molded a piece of "Curium Bowl Man": Next to the curium bowl picker, mazar sat a craftsman, wearing reading glasses, legs tightly clamped to the tied dish, pulling a bow in one hand, holding a drill in the other, concentrating on the bowl. It makes people feel that the hands of the bowl bowl are moving, the head is moving, and all parts of the body are moving...
There is a Yang family compound near the City God Temple, where Yang Bonian, a collector of Jinmen Jinshi calligraphy and paintings, lives. In the 1950s, Zheng Zhenduo, a collector and archaeologist of cultural relics, came to Tianjin to visit Yang Lao. Elder Yang's collection is rich, there is a volume of Shang Zhou Zhong Ding Yi ware original Tuoben, Zheng Zhenduo after reading it, fell in love with it, begged Elder Yang to give him this booklet, and gave Elder Yang 300 yuan in return. In the four treasures of Yang Lao's library, he selected a party duan yan and a small bottle of hardcover French ruby red pigment, but Yang Lao refused to sell it.
Liang Qi and his paintings
Painter Liang Qi, whose family lives in a semi-south room in a small courtyard in the northwest corner of the city, the cottage of about twelve or thirteen square meters is his studio, in front of the window is a desk, behind which is a bed, because it is a south room, there is no sunlight, dark and damp. Liang Qi was born in Jiaohe County, Hebei Province, Shuxiang Mendi, at the age of six, copied the famous painting "Songlu Tu" of the Eight Greats, he did not worship a famous teacher, relying on hard self-study, paintings are bold and clumsy, majestic and super-easy, extraordinary pen and ink skills, known as "painting cain". In 1986, he held a solo exhibition of calligraphy and painting at the National Cultural Palace in Beijing, and Beijing was shaken.
During the Republic of China period, there was a mainland cinema in the northwest corner of the city, and the south of Beimen West Road was the tianjin county station, and there were many bookstores nearby, there were used bookstores that sold Chinese and Western books, and there were shops that sold both books and stationery.
In the past, there were no wells in Tianjin, and the people could only go to the South Canal to fetch water. In 1901, Tianjin established the Ji'an Water Supply Company, which supplied more than 1 million gallons of clean water every day. A water tower was built in the northwest corner of the city, which became a landmark for a long time and can be seen from a distance. At the end of the 1980s, Tianjin Television station filmed the TV series "Longzui Big Copper Kettle", the story took place in the northwest corner of the city, the film crew set up a real scene in the compound of the Radio and Television Bureau, there are streets, hutongs, city wall corners and more than 30 businesses and houses, built a water tower, reproduced the old appearance of the northwest city corner, leaving a rare picture for future generations. However, now only food is left in the northwest corner. But even the food sold is getting less and less. (Text: He Yuxin)
Northwest corner snacks