Original Shanghai Collection Association Shanghai Collection Association September 29
”
Volume / First / Language
Since the opening of this column on March 5 last year, it has been published once a week, which has attracted the attention of Tibetan circles at home and abroad, and I would like to express my deep gratitude!
"Notes on Dayan Zhai" is the first note-style memoir in China's Tibetan circles, and it is also a new pen cultivation work by founding president Wu Shaohua. It lyrically uses people, remembers things with feelings, and records history with events, many of which are dusty old things. These stories show us the past footprints of the Haipai collection in the 1980s and 1990s.
We should not forget those who have made contributions to the Haipai collection. Remember, every Wednesday there is no dispersion, and please read it! Thank you!
"I wrote two books for a special committee"
As time passes, as I get older, more and more nostalgic feelings accompany my thoughts. During the more than 30 years that I was in charge of the Shanghai Collection Association, I wrote two books for a special committee, which is the Special Committee of Clocks and Watches, and the two books are "Antique Clocks" and "Antique Watches", which were published by Shanghai Pictorial Publishing House in October 2000.
Clocks and watches are both mechanical crystallizations after entering industrial civilization. In fact, human timekeeping instruments are synchronized with human development, when our ancestors came out of chaos, it was based on two cognitions, one was to learn to use fire, and the other was the concept of time. Because of the concept of time, there is a life of day and night rest, there are stars and moons, and there are four seasons throughout the year. The earliest human chronograph is not a sundial but a "standing table", which measures the scale of time according to the projection of the sun shining on the benchmark, that is, the "standing wood projection" recorded in the classics. In ancient times, the bell was a musical instrument, hanging on a shelf and sounding with a mallet, and at the same time it was a kind of chime, and the idiom "bell sound leaking" and "bell ringing ding food" have this meaning. When Zhang Sui and Liang Lingzhan of the Tang Dynasty made the armillary celestial instrument, it marked the beginning of the exploration of the mechanical clock, because the escapement appeared on this armillary celestial instrument, which is the most important symbol of the mechanical timer.
My earliest concern about clocks also came from when I was in elementary school in the 1950s, when I was in class, Mr. Xi, the homeroom teacher, told us that the school's general affairs department was engaged in technological innovation, and the bells were automated at the end of the class, requiring us to abide by discipline. The ringtone for class is still an early ringtone, but the accuracy is impeccable. I was curious, and when I inquired, I learned that this automatic controller was placed between the doormen, and this controller was connected to a wall clock on the wall. So, I was interested in the clock, went home and opened the back cover of an alarm clock to study, and the result was that the alarm clock was broken and I was almost beaten.
I am really interested in clocks and watches, I know the watch collector Wang Anjian, in his clock museum, I saw a variety of antique clocks, from the reed watch in my hand to the ground-to-ceiling newspaper clock, and what Nanjing clock, Pitong clock, advertising clock, four hundred days clock. There is a brightly colored Swiss enamel watch that can make a dance-like sound of "fluff, pop," which is still fresh in my memory.
Because of my interest in clocks and watches, in the early days of the association, I paid special attention to the collection of clocks and watches, and met many collectors in this area, such as Mr. Zhang Qibin, I met him from an exhibition in Huaihai Park, his home is in Taoyuan Road, I often go to his place to see the clock, because his home is full of bells. Later, Yao Zhu introduced Xu Ronglai. Xu Ronglai did duty work at the wharf of the Changhang Bureau, and during the day there was time, his home was in Xuenongdi Street, Henan South Road, and my home was very close to his home, so I often went to his house to play. Xu Ronglai loves clocks and watches, but his collection is not much, but his Tibetan friends are many, he and two other people formed the "Three Brothers of the Zhong Family", in order of age, Xu Ronglai is the second oldest, the eldest is Zhang Ruijun, and the third is Zhang Xinkang. Later, I interviewed them and put the story of the "Three Zhong Brothers" in the newspaper.
It is precisely because of the "Three Brothers of the Zhong Family" that on April 1, 1989, the Association was invited to changsha museum to hold the "Shanghai Folk Collection Exhibition", which led to the highlights of the watch exhibits, so that the clock exhibits of the Association became a hit. So we set out to prepare for the watch chapter. On May 1st, the Nanjing Qingliangshan Park Management Office invited me to hold the "Ancient and Modern Chinese and Foreign Folk Clock Exhibition", and the collectors who participated in the exhibition were not only the "Three Brothers of the Zhong Family", but also Mr. Liu Yuanding. This exhibition has sensationalized the ancient city of Jinling. On October 22 of the same year, the Shanghai Collection and Appreciation Association Watch Branch was established at the Yunfeng Theater of Jing'an Temple, with Xu Ronglai as the president and Zhang Xinkang and Zhang Ruijun as vice presidents. A commemorative cover of the founding was also printed, with the inscription of Mr. Wang Anjian, a famous watch collector. The reason why the watch chapter of my club was established at the Yunfeng Theater is because wang Fubao, the manager of the theater, is also a watch fan.
To welcome the new millennium, the "Exhibition of Chinese and Foreign Classical Clocks and Watches" was held at the Shanghai Confucian Temple.
Shanghai's folk watch collection has become popular, and I have paid great enthusiasm for this, and it has also established a feature of the Shanghai collection. On January 20, 1991, the association held a fourth anniversary celebration meeting at the Yunfeng Theater, and comrade Chen Yi, 78 years old, presented a calligraphy greeting message of "Collection Home" and visited the exhibition of "Hundred Bells Singing in unison to welcome the Year of the Sheep" with illness, and also expressed high praise.
As a carrier of history and culture, antique clocks and watches show people a unique style and attract many enthusiasts, but there are few readings in this regard. One day, I was approached by my friend Zhang Xichang, who was then the director of the editorial office of the Shanghai Pictorial Publishing House. It turned out that not long ago, when I was chatting with their president, Deng Ming, I mentioned the hot collection of clocks and watches, and he was entrusted by the president to find me, hoping to publish some books in this area. I readily agreed, but after searching all the people in the watch collector's world, no one could take on this task. What to do? Brother Zhang Xichang is cunning enough, he smiled and said, then you write. At that time, I didn't know why I agreed to it, maybe it was the fearlessness of the ignorant, or it could be a strong mentality.
I agreed, and Zhang Xichang quickly returned to the society to set up a project. When we met again, Brother Zhang Xichang brought a sentence: President Deng Ming personally made a decision to set up the project. He conveyed it to me as if he were conveying a superior document. In addition, he brought me a colleague, a photographer, and he was Tao Hongxing, who would become a good friend of mine in the future. Speaking from the heart, Zhang Xichang forced me to go to Liangshan in those years, but to this day, I am grateful to him. Without his pushback, there would be no later publication of my "Antique Clock" and "Antique Watch", and there would be no harvest of my research on artifact culture. This old man was familiar with many collectors, and later turned to the study of Shanghai lane culture, and also published a lot of books, but unfortunately, he unfortunately died of illness a few years ago.
After receiving the task, I felt stressed. Because the content of human mechanical timers is too broad and profound, at the same time, the research works on antique clocks and watches were almost blank at that time. In this case, I would like to thank my colleagues in the Watch Committee for their support and help in making my writing a success. We would like to thank the two deceased predecessors, Chen Yunyao and Liu Guoding, and both winners of the Haipai Collection Achievement Award, the former collecting Western clocks and the latter specializing in Nanjing clocks, who not only impart experience, but also provide practical information. We would like to thank the antique clock collectors Yu Mengru and Cao Weijun, who provided wonderful collections that made "Antique Clock" shine. In terms of antique watches, I would like to thank Cai Yongrui and Wu Zhixiong, who gave me a taste of the knowledge and style of the world's famous watches. Of course, there is also Mr. Jiao Tai Yu from Hong Kong, who sent me a lot of information about the "tourbillon".
I would like to focus on the work of Zhang Ruijun, the former director of the Watch Committee, who is not only the leader of the watch collection, but also my friend who is regarded as a brother, he is 6 years older than me, now nearly 80 years old, in good health, and not long ago he rode a battery car to my office to chat. He supported me in writing, supported me in every way, spared no effort to provide materials, and was a technical consultant for my two books. There is also a colleague, I still feel sorry, this colleague is called Liu Qinghong, known as "Little Guangdong", collecting antique clocks, the collection is of high level. I remember that night, my photographer Tao Hongxing and I went to his house to take pictures of the collection, and there was a weather clock that he was very proud of in the 1950s, and the memory seemed to be an old antique in Europe. In all the interviews and photographs, I set the rules that the owner of the collection should be moved. On this day, Liu Qinghong took out his beloved meteorological clock to take pictures, in order to avoid the light highlights, the angles were adjusted one after another, and when he left, a loud sound made the people present stunned and lost their voices, and the meteorological clock fell, and the glass shell was shattered. After a moment of silence, Liu Qinghong smiled calmly and said, "Break it off, forget it." "Many years have passed, and that scene is still imprinted in my mind. Today, I write this article and sincerely say to Mr. Liu Qinghong: "Really, I'm sorry!"
Zhang Ruijun, former director of the Watch Committee
Watch collector Liu Qinghong
Of course, the publication of the two books "Antique Clock" and "Antique Watch" must also be thanked by two important friends, that is, photographers Tao Hongxing and Weng Xuejun. They showed their wisdom in order to overcome the refraction of the clock face and the surface spherical glass. Today, Tao Hongxing has long retired, while Weng Xuejun has gone to New Zealand. I think back then, they were all partners who went south and north together, we had spent a few years taking photos of the ancient opera stage in the Jiangnan area, planning to write a "Jiangnan Ancient Opera Stage", which was bound to go to Beijing to get the award, but the result did not come as desired.
It has been 21 years since I wrote "Antique Clocks" and "Antique Watches" for a special committee, published in October 2000. A few days ago, Zhang Zhenghao, the current director of the Watch Committee, came to my place to talk about these two books, and Zhenghao told me that to this day, many watch appreciation articles will still quote "Antique Clock" and "Antique Watch", which are regarded as classics by Tibetan friends and have strong vitality. This is very comforting. I told him that I was a layman in watch collecting, and I was not good at watch technology, but I was writing about watch culture and watch history, so it could last forever.
Wu Shaohua wrote before the National Day