In Guangzhou, there are many ordinary and ordinary streets and alleys, but almost every one of them has a special name. Or beautiful, or quaint, or solemn, or gentle...
Dig into the stories behind these names, and you'll find that behind them is a whole history of urban development. Guangzhou's geographical development, political events, economic changes, and cultural inheritance can all be deeply imprinted in the names of the streets and alleys around us.
【Searching for the City】The story of Shishu Road
Shishu Road is a north-south road in Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, China, located between Haizhu Middle Road and Renmin Middle Road in Guangzhou, guangzhou, which is bordered by Huifu West Road to the north and Dade Road West to the south. It is 489 meters long and 8 meters wide. It was originally called Shishu Street, which was called Shishu Road when the road was opened in the 1930s, and was renamed "Red Book Road" during the "Cultural Revolution", and it was not renamed Shishu Road until 1985.
The story of Guangzhou Road Name - Shishu Road
The name of Guangzhou Shishu Road is quite related to Zhang Xu in the Ming Dynasty.
Zhang Xue (1456-1515), also spelled Tingshi , was a native of Panyu County , Guangdong at the time ( also known as Nanhai County ) . He was trained under Chen Xianzhang (i.e., Chen Baisha, a Ming Dynasty calligrapher, whose writing instrument, Mao Long Pen, sold well throughout the country), and in the tenth and twentieth years of Ming Chenghua, he was a zhongren and a jinshi, respectively, and thus entered the career. However, because Zhang Xue had a personality of Geng Jie and was indifferent to fame and fortune, and hated the official atmosphere, he later decided to resign in the name of begging for his mother's illness and returned to his hometown, which was quite a bit of "not bending his waist for five buckets of rice". After resigning, Zhang Xu bought the Xipu building "Kanzhu Pavilion" (located in the present-day Dade Market) on the site of the former Renwang Temple in the Tang Dynasty, where he spent twenty years in seclusion where he lived in seclusion where "red dust could not fly", and wrote "Dongsuo Anthology" and "South China Sea Miscellaneous Songs". At that time, when passers-by passed by the "Bamboo Pavilion" other business, they often heard Zhang Xue reading and chanting poems, felt his elegant cultural atmosphere, and left a deep impression. Zhang Xue, who was famous for a while, was called "Lingnan Lonely Phoenix". Because people respect Zhang Xue's moral style and have the desire to inherit a good reading style, when the "Kanzhu Pavilion" was moved to a newly opened street nearby, people named it after the word "poetry book" with a cultural heritage. Later, it was changed to a road, which was naturally called "Poetry Road".
Shishu Road in the old map of Guangzhou
In ancient times, the vicinity of Shishu Road was a place where private schools gathered
In ancient times, the vicinity of Shishu Road was a place where private schools gathered. There are many cultural monuments in history: in the Song Dynasty, this is the harbor where foreign ships are moored - "Western Australia", as well as the beautiful and majestic "Fruit Bridge" and the solemn and majestic ancient building "Gongle Building". There are Arab historical records that when the Huangchao Rebellion invaded the city of Guangzhou at the end of the Tang Dynasty, there were about 120,000 Muslims and Jews in the city! This number may be exaggerated, but it is true that during the Song Dynasty there were more merchants in and out of Guangzhou than in the Tang Dynasty. In order to strengthen the management of overseas Chinese, the government has specially set aside blocks for foreign businessmen and overseas Chinese dependents to live in, called "Fanfang", also known as "Gongle Lou", which is a bit of the meaning of the world's unity and harmony. Because the sea voyage depends on the monsoon to help, in order to take advantage of the wind for the ship often have to wait for months or even half a year, so many foreign businessmen simply bring their families to do business. After making money in Guangzhou, he sent his subordinates to return to China to transport goods, and he sat in Guangzhou or trafficked the goods to other places in Chinese mainland, and some even lived for ten years without returning to China, and there were many people who got rich quickly. Someone once saw a wealthy businessman from Vietnam who built a mansion in Guangzhou, spent money every day, and the family casually placed pearl shells on the bed to show strength. People can't help but guess that Guangzhou at that time was not only "dressed in all countries, endlessly", but also had a very good social order!
Historic building on the inner street
Historic building facing the street
In the Ming Dynasty, there was a "Zhishu Building" built by the university scholar Fang Xianfu to collect the MingLun Canon. In the Qing Dynasty, the Qianlong Emperor gave the officers and men of the Eight Banners of Manchuria to Guangdong in the south with a wood-carved gilt statue of Guanyin Buddha, and the officers and soldiers were stationed and offered Buddha statues here, so it was called "Guanyin Lou" or "Wanshan Zen Temple", that is, the place where the Manchu people of Guangzhou city studied in friendship today - "Miao Ji Xiang Room".
The ruins of the watermelon garden are now the Guangzhou Daily Newspaper
On March 8, 1924, He Xiangning, the women's minister of the Kuomintang Central Committee, initiated and presided over China's first commemoration of International Women's Day on March 8 at the Watermelon Garden near Shishu Road (now the site of Guangzhou Daily), calling for the unity of women from all walks of life to strive for liberation. In December 1927, the Guangzhou Uprising also held a mass meeting in the watermelon garden and announced the establishment of the Soviet government "Guangzhou Commune".
The "Seven Ancient Banyan Trees" have long ceased to exist, but the sound of reading aloud can still be heard in the old streets.
There is also a place called Seven Banyan trees on Shishu Road, which is a very elegant place name. The street was named after the original seven ancient banyan trees, which no longer exist. Now in the seven Rong Primary School, the remaining one, outside the primary school, there is also one tree left at the side door of Yuexiu District Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, and the rest was transplanted around 2005. There is a stone plaque in the street that records the source of the street name. The "Panyu Xuegong" in Xuegong Street is the ancient "official school", and the "provincial examination" is held here, and its architecture is very typical of the south.
Part of Jinlingtai before it was demolished (network photo)
The history of being forcibly demolished by the hook machine - Jinlingtai
Jinlingtai is located in Shishu Road, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, and was built in 1946 by a joint venture of Hong Kong businessmen to use the word "Tai" as the street name, probably following the custom of using Hong Kong street names. Each house has two and a half floors, each floor is about 100 square meters, and the exterior wall inside is made of brown-red Italian wholesale, acid branch furniture, as well as the underground garage and sink, which is very precious.
The two Republic of China buildings in Jinlingtai and Miaogaotai were suspended by the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Land and Housing In 2012 due to their historical value. But the old house that was "suspended" for demolition still could not escape the iron arm of the excavator - from the late night of June 10 to the early morning of June 11, 2013, the old house was quietly demolished by the hook machine, triggering strong condemnation from all sides.
After the restoration, the Jinling Terrace (partial) has been "protected" by the wall, and the vacant land next to it is temporarily used as an internal parking lot
Near the children's hospital side is piled up garbage cans, and the restored "historic building" has become a specimen left idle.
"Heartache! This is a panda-level building! Feng Jiang, an associate professor at the School of Architecture of South China University of Technology, who participated in the on-site discussion organized by the Mingcheng Office, sighed after hearing the news of the forced demolition, "I was very impressed." In Guangzhou, the architecture of the 1940s is very rare. There are many Republic of China buildings in Guangzhou in the 1930s, and there are also a number of buildings after liberation, but there are very few between the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, and these are the buildings that introduced the modernist tendency style of the West at that time, which is a witness to the architecture of the times. In addition to a few buildings in Yuexiu North, I can't think of any other places in Guangzhou that have this style of architecture.
Compared with the building itself, the event of the restoration of the Republic of China building on Shishu Road has greater protection and warning significance for the history and culture of Guangzhou. "This is a milestone event that reminds people that Guangzhou's cultural resources cannot be destroyed at will, and historical buildings cannot be demolished if they want."
Photo: Zheng Jianping The text is synthesized from the Internet