Tale of two towns: the best of times, the worst of times preserved in old memories
Print Edition
MINHANG District has several old towns with centuries of history. People born and raised in the towns often left when they grew up, but some stayed put their entire lives.
For those remaining, childhood memories of the towns are vivid.
Let’s revisit the past in the memories and stories of people who made Zhuanqiao and Qibao their home.
Living in the modern concrete jungle of Zhuanqiao Town, Zhou Wenquan misses the hometown of his childhood: moss crawling up stone walls, layer upon layer of tiles on roofs, small passageways paved with cobblestones.
His nostalgia led him to participate in a group that wrote the recently published “Memory of Zhuanqiao: 1950s.” The authors are senior citizens who grew up in the town when it was small and undeveloped.
“With urbanization, Zhuanqiao took on a whole new look,” Zhou said. “Changes everywhere. Most of them have been good, but I always feel that something is lacking. I guess that something is my roots.”
Zhou remembers his childhood in the 1950s as the happiest time in his life. School was fun and local children played basketball and soccer in the streets.
“At that time, we called soccer ‘small exotic ball,’ which, of course, no one would say nowadays,” he said.
Like most places in China, Zhuanqiao bears the marks of changing fortunes. Successive political campaigns affected the daily life of the town. During the “Great Leap Forward,” from 1958 to 1960, production teams in the town exaggerated that the rice output to meet targets.
“Imagine claiming that about 666 square meters of rice paddies produced 90,000 kilograms! It sounds ridiculous today,” Zhou said, “but at that time, everyone did what was expected of them.”
Zhou, a retired Chinese-language teacher with writing skills, drew on his childhood memories in 2012 to write a story entitled “Recalling Zhuanqiao Town in the 1950s.”
The story revolved around the Liuleitang River, then the main river in the town, and people who lived along its banks.
“As prose, it was based on memories,” he said, “so it might contain details that were not accurate. But the feelings I expressed were true, and that’s what important.”
The story became a springboard for other memories among old-timers in the town. When Zhou’s childhood friend Chen Zhenhua read the story, recollections of his own resurfaced.
He remembered a mutual friend named Wu Yiren, who had become an artist. When they were young, Wu made slide shows at home and neighborhood children often gathered to watch them.
Chen shared Zhou’s story with Wu, who in turn shared it with Tang Zujian, another Zhuanqiao native.
Connected by memories and a collective cause, the group of seniors decided to compile a book about the town in the 1950s.
“We were all born and grew up in the town, and our memories were generally good,” said Chen. “But they were not enough to support a whole book. We needed more stories.”
So the group went about interviewing other old-timers and collecting more stories. They recorded how locals started businesses, got married and raised families, fulfilled dreams and ambitions.
“Not everyone wanted to dredge up the past,” said Zhou. “For example, we tried to persuade the family of Zhou Yilong, the richest family in the town back then, to write some stories for us, but they hesitated for a long time and finally declined.”
Still, success prevailed on most fronts. The most precious finding in all the research was an old map of the town in 1950s.
It came from an elderly man named Zhang Zuxing. After he was interviewed by the group, Zhang asked if he had any additional material he could provide. A search of his apartment produced the map.
“I drew the map myself,” Zhang told them, “when I was a junior high school student.”
Zhang said he lived in the countryside to the west of town, and every day he walked to school in the east of the town. His route made him intimately familiar with the layout of the town.
“I have the habit of not throwing things out,” said Zhang. “That’s why the map was still there. I remembered putting it in a book I was reading back then. And sure enough, it was still there.”
The authors of the book are proud of their achievement. They view it as a tool linking the present and the past.
“I think this is the most significant legacy that I could leave to my descendants,” said Zhou.
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