Hengmian, the forgotten "old Shanghai"

Since Fenghuang, Xitang and other ancient towns have been transformed into scenic spots among network celebrities, ancient town tourism projects have become more and more popular. During the Golden Week, those quaint bluestone streets are gradually congested.

Everyone goes to the ancient town for different reasons. Some people want to escape from the fast pace of city life, while others want to feel the charm of history. However, once I really set foot on the land of Eden, my dream collapsed instantly.

The population density of ancient towns is even greater than that of cities!

In the past, in order to have a look at the Border Town written by Shen Congwen, I rushed to Phoenix and was blocked on a narrow arch bridge. At night, the gurgling stream reflects the brightly lit shops on both sides of the strait, like the milky way in the sky flowing into the stream, which is beautiful and always lacks that tranquility and nature.

In fact, if you can go to a little-known antique town, listen to the local old people telling history, and recall the lost time with the breeze, it will really be a particularly pleasant thing.

0 1 Hengmian was once a trading hub of Shanghai and one of the 18 towns in Pudong.

In Shanghai, where the market is in full swing, there is actually an ancient town that has been low-key for thousands of years-Hengmian.

According to historical records, Hengmian area was formed from the end of Tang Dynasty to the end of Jin Dynasty in the Five Dynasties, with a history of more than 1 100 years. Because the terrain is like a disk, it is also called "Jimsky disk". In the Yuan Dynasty, because of the abundant water, the stream was often full, so it was renamed Mianxi.

The name of "Horizontal Sleeping" began in the Ming Dynasty. According to legend, the Mianhe River passing through the town looks like a flagpole, so there is a local saying "The flagpole falls-horizontal sleeping" and it is named.

In the era when transportation was dominated by waterways, due to the crisscross of waterways, Hengmian's trade with other places was quite frequent, and it gradually became an important commodity distribution center in Chuansha, Nanhui and other places, also known as "one of the 18 towns in Pudong".

There are many shops in the street, including oil mills, cotton stalls, department stores, flour shops, restaurants and pawn shops ... large and small 100 or more. There are even two "small ships" that travel to and from Shanghai every day, and cargo ships come and go frequently. Folk arts such as silk and bamboo, pipa, shadow play and storytelling are widely circulated.

"Hutong Garden": a century-old Yiyuan Garden

Yiyuan Garden, also known as "Chenjiayuan", covers an area of 2 hectares and is located in the east of Hengmian Town. There are different opinions about its construction, but they are all related to the history of Hengmian people.

* Old photos

Some people say that Chen is the housekeeper and adopted son of Jewish real estate tycoon Hatton. He modeled a garden on Hatong Garden and named it after its nickname Yibin. It is also said that Harbin invited Chen to choose a site for construction. Later, because his wife suspected that the surrounding environment was not good, she gave Chen a place to live.

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However, it has already become the second mental health center of Shanghai civil affairs and is not open to the public.

It is said that Yiyuan Garden is famous for its strange stones, ancient trees and landscapes. There are pavilions, lakes, mountains and flowers in the garden, and the scenery is infinite. Five-colored stones and porcelain tiles are laid on the ground, and there are auspicious patterns such as "Feng Dan facing the sun", "Kirin pine nuts" and "Songhe Yannian".

There are also Lingbi Stone and Ruiyunfeng in the park, which are the treasures of the town garden-lead-filled white marble tablets. The inscription is drilled with small holes and filled with lead water. This technology is very rare.

Forgetting fades away under the washing of time.

Later, due to the increasingly developed land transportation, water transportation was gradually replaced, and the horizontal (township) government moved to the horizontal new town two kilometers away. The horizontal old street declined year by year and showed little interest.

Naturally, young people who leave their homes rarely come back, and the aborigines in the old streets are gradually left with only ancient and rare old people. The long streets are silent, and the old houses stand silently in time, and few people hear them. Only when the fire is lit at noon to cook, can the sparse kitchen smoke float across the roof.

When the weather is fine, the old people will also take out the bedding to dry. The old-fashioned mattress was placed across the bridge, flapping gently in the sun, and tiny dust flew out. With a wave of his hand, he turned back to the house.

Occasionally, kittens pass by the roof and wag their tails, as if they were patrolling their own territory.

The once prosperous trade hub has fallen into silence day after day, and it is difficult to see the lively street scene again.

Due to disrepair, Hengmian has become increasingly marginalized, depressed and dilapidated, and gradually forgotten in the minds of the new generation in Shanghai. ...

A single spark can start a prairie fire.

However, the appearance of Disney Resort awakens the deep sleep.

In the 13th Five-Year Plan of Shanghai International Tourism Resort, Hengmian was included in the protection and development plan. The focus of the renovation of the western resort area is an ecological demonstration area with Hengmian ancient town as the core and integrating ecological conservation, ancient town leisure, cultural experience, ecological human settlement and rural recreation, which will complement Disneyland.

The houses in Hengmian Old Street are all double-decked, with people living on the upper floor and shops on the lower floor. The doors of the shops are painted with lines of slogans, and now they are all mottled.

At the corner of Zhong Street, the word "barber shop" is written on the wall on the right hand side with charcoal pen, which is quite casual and has a street flavor in some dramas of the Republic of China.

According to the people in the town, it used to be "Xiao Li Barber Shop", and now the boss is an old man who has helped his neighbors trim their beards for nearly 47 years.

I usually like to keep myself clean and fresh, and even my shoes are polished. The red light radio in the shop plays Shanghai opera all the year round. Whenever guests come, he smiles and greets people in front of the rusty old square mirror, and the operation of the razor is quite sophisticated.

"He has good craftsmanship and low price. He washes his hair, cuts his hair and shaves, which costs only 7 yuan. " People in the town praised. However, this once-popular "Internet Celebrity Barber Shop" is now closed, and there are no cats meowing.

There is also a dentist's shop with a wooden sign hanging on the wall, which is dangerous. The wall was devastated, and part of the lime wall skin fell off, revealing uneven bluestone wall tiles.

Looking through the locked window of the old house, the furniture is already empty, only the calendar that has not been removed from the wall shows the traces of the owner's life.

Turning left is a low wooden arch bridge that spans both banks of the river. I don't know when it was built. Just looking at the lines on the surface, it really seems to have experienced some wind and frost.

Walking up the steps, you can see the dilapidated houses extending far away along the river bank line. Some tiles on the low roof have fallen off, and the broken asbestos tiles are hanging low.

The breeze caressed, the waves rippled, and the floating grass on the river rippled, and time suddenly became slow and long. It turns out that the heavy feeling of the years will also present a different kind of beauty.

The dusty two-story building in the distance has obviously been abandoned for a long time, half hidden in the lush and tall weeds, adding a few minutes of rare mystery.

In the former site of the township government, the locked iron gate is rusty and fragile as if it could be easily broken. broken walls is everywhere, but all kinds of nameless green plants are growing tenaciously.

Maybe I was in a hurry when I moved out. The lonely little yellow car was left on the side of the road and appeared at the same time as those old things. There is a sense of consternation that dreams and reality overlap.

Postscript countdown to reconstruction, looking forward to witnessing the rebirth of Hengmian.

Inquired about the development information of the lower horizontal plane, some old buildings will be preserved and some dangerous buildings will be rebuilt.

On the basis of combing, repairing and renovating historical sites and intangible cultural heritage, we will dig deep into the historical and cultural connotation of Hengmian ancient town and create a cultural and leisure ancient town with characteristics, quality and charm.

In a few days, Hengmian Old Street, which bears the memory of several generations, will return with a brand-new look. At that time, we will step into this historic town that has experienced the baptism of years, feel the flow of time, and record the rebirth of Hengmian again with the lens in our hands!