On the morning of December 18, 2021, I visited Tianzifang, Shanghai with my wife, and walked to the Tianzifang Scenic Area at 11 o'clock. A street is less than 200 meters long and 5 or 6 meters wide. There are Shikumen doors on both sides, so it is called Shikumen door-to-door. There is a well at the entrance. In the years when there was no running water, the well water was the drinking water source of people in Shanghai. The ones built on the street are public wells, and the ones dug in their courtyards are private wells.

Some people came to Tianzifang to see the old houses. Tianzifang was originally part of the French Concession area. There were frequent wars in the late Qing Dynasty. Rich businessmen, landlords, and officials from Jiangsu and Zhejiang rushed to Shanghai with their families. Foreign real estate developers followed the trend to develop. Many houses and Shikumen buildings suddenly emerged here. Shikumen is indeed a product of Shanghai's mixed-blood culture from the source analysis.

The old houses in Shanghai are famous for their Shikumen. They absorb the style of Jiangnan folk houses. They use stone as door frames and solid thick wood as doors. This kind of building with stone strips to enclose the door frames is called "Shikumen". Ningbo people who came to Shanghai pronounced the word "hoop" as "ku", and "Shikumen" was mistakenly rumored to be "Shikumen".

Almost every house in Shikumen in Tianzifang is a shop. Walking past a customized cheongsam shop, an old man was stepping on a sewing machine, No. 31, Lane 28, Taikang Road.

A Shikumen is hung with a nameplate "Say No. 46", which describes that this is a standard Shikumen building. It was built in the 1930s. The Wei family has lived in this house for more than 50 years. With the development of Tianzifang, the Wei family of four moved elsewhere in 2007 and rented the house in "Towcheng". The Wei family improved their life by renting a house, and the house expanded from the original 25 square meters to a three-bedroom apartment of 110 square meters. The owner of the "Towen City" maintained the original factors of Shikumen during the decoration, leaving behind the original ecological style of Shanghai's residential buildings.

At 11:30, I visited Yang Du's former residence, No. 13, Lane 155, Jianguo Middle Road. Yang Du was a figure of the hour in modern Chinese history. He moved to Shanghai in 1928 and later became a secret member of the Communist Party of China. He used his identity as a social celebrity to do a lot of work for the party to collect intelligence and cover comrades. In the white terror environment of Shanghai at that time, Yang Du's residence once became an intelligence station and transportation station for the Shanghai underground party special department under the leadership of Zhou Enlai. In the winter of 1975, when Premier Zhou Enlai was seriously ill, he specifically explained to his secretary that when revising "Ci Hai", Yang Du's joining the Party in his later years would be included in it. There is a photo of Yang Du on the wall of Shikumen, where he lived from 1929 to September 1931 when he died.

Walking through each street building, the light and shadow are mottled, making full use of the masterpiece of space. The small alley couldn't be smaller, pocket and labyrinth. At noon, the air is filled with the aroma of food, and the little boy delivering fast food suddenly passes by you.

Shikumen in Shanghai is politics and the birthplace of the Communist Party of China; Shikumen is culture, where Tian Han and Nie Er's "March of the Volunteers" and Lu Xun's "Collection of Qiejie Ting" were born; Shikumen is economy, during the growth of the "Lilong Factory"; Shikumen is a city lifestyle, which is related to the seasonal culture, clothing, food, life, wedding and funeral activities, and social interactions in modern Shanghai.

The high-rise buildings in Lujiazui are Shanghai, and the Republic of China style and market life in Tianzifang are also Shanghai. In Shanghai dialect, most of the words "Tingzijian","Second Landlord","White Xiangren's Sister-in-law", and "Seventy-two Households" thrive in Shikumen and alleys. Tianzifang retained a large number of old buildings through the renovation of the old city, retaining the city's cultural context and urban memory.

The Shikumen Lane Building has become Shanghai's city business card. Shanghai has a special Shikumen Cultural Research Center. Shikumen is considering applying for a cultural heritage, and the Shanghai City CPPCC has special personnel preparing it.

Send WeChat at 22:43 on December 18, 2021, 112 likes, 9 comments:

Wang: Architecture can be read, and life has temperature.

Tang: Shikumen's past and present life.

Guo: Sister Hong once lived in Tongyili, Shikumen, Suzhou.

Wang He: Thank you for remembering.

Ding: It is all-encompassing and a microcosm of history!

Gu: I feel that Shanghai people have temperament, understand life, have life sentiment, understand the world, are also very humorous, and are very enthusiastic towards strangers. Zhao: We are playing back Dragon TV's "Greater Shanghai". It talks about the First Congress of the Communist Party of China being held in Shikumen, the Communist Party of China. If the application for a cultural heritage is successful, we must say that the founder of our party has great foresight.