Heavy load of history piled in residence
Print Edition
DENG Ping’an’s home is not like a home at all. Half of his two-room apartment is full of bricks. Pile after pile of bricks stack over one of the two bedrooms — in the hallway, the balcony and part of the kitchen.
All the 5,000-plus bricks — even Deng himself doesn’t know the exact number — were collected for the past three and a half years. All have Chinese characters or patterns carved on one side. Deng says he collects them because he believes there are stories behind each brick, and this is the real culture.
“I took these bricks back home one by one,” says the 60-year-old, a local retired security guard. “They are my biggest treasure.”
Deng does not have an advanced education. Like most Chinese people of his generation, his early life was spent in factories and farmland. He doesn’t know how to date or analyze the brick.
Before becoming a guard for a security company near his home, he was doing “publication work” for a school — making blackboard newspapers for teachers and students. His biggest hobby was taking care of stray cats. He raised at least 10 cats, all brought to his home from the streets.
His life changed one day three years ago when he accidentally kicked a brick at a construction site where old houses were demolished. He stopped and found that four Chinese characters “努力学习” (study hard) were carved on one side of the brick.
“I wondered why such words would appear on a brick and if there was a story behind it,” Deng recalls. “My curiosity was aroused.”
The “study-hard” brick seemed to turn on a switch in Deng. Since then he started to cycle around to look for special bricks at construction sites.
Hongkou District, where he lives, has been undergoing reconstruction on old residential areas for quite a few years. The old houses there have decades’ or even a century’s worth of history. This is exactly what Deng wants.
He goes to demolition sites almost every week. He believes the best bricks are in the lower parts of buildings and it’s hard to dig them out from the ruins.
“The bike is my only means of transportation, so I cannot go very far. Almost all bricks are from Hongkou or the neighboring Zhabei District,” he says.
Deng says he has had subconscious feelings for bricks for more than a decade. He told a story of a close friend who was a victim of low-quality bricks.
“That friend hired some workers to build a house in the countryside, and due to the tight budget he had to use low-quality bricks,” he says. “But somehow the house collapsed before completion and many workers were seriously injured.
“My friend spent years to deal with the compensation and eventually he broke down from the pressure and died of lung cancer at an early age. I think that since that happened to him, subconsciously I started to realize the importance of bricks and that’s why I brought the ‘study-hard’ brick home.”
An increasing number of bricks with different inscriptions found their places at Deng’s home: “福禄寿” (luck, fortune and longevity) may express the wishes of its former owner; “一寸” (one inch) may tell the size of the brick; the pattern of ancient copper coins or Chinese knot may be the logo of the brick kilns.
Deng’s favorite brick was one he found on Tiantong Road in Zhabei District. The characters on the brick read “圖書館” (traditional Chinese for “library”). Deng scratched his head hard but still couldn’t figure out why a brick from an old residential building would read “library.” He tried to find information online but failed.
The possible answer came one day when Deng went to the barbershop.
“The barber and I know each other well and I told him about the brick when I was having the haircut,” he says. “I didn’t expect that he had a clue.”
The barber told him that the Commercial Press, the oldest publishing house in China, was originally close to where the brick was found.
“Then I realized the inscription ‘圖書館’ may not refer to ‘library,’ but refer to its literal meaning ‘book house’,” he says. “The brick maybe belonged to the building of the Commercial Press, and after it was burned by the Japanese army in 1932, residents nearby used the leftover bricks on their own houses.”
The answer, however, is yet to be confirmed because the Shanghai History Museum has not identified the brick. They, however, did express interest in Deng’s collection.
Officials with the museum have visited Deng’s home, expecting him to donate at least part of the bricks for research, but Deng is hesitating.
“I don’t want money or anything, but I don’t know if they cherish them as much as I do,” he says. “I just can’t let them go.”
It is, however, a fact that the bricks cut down the living space for his family. The main room where he stores the bricks, formerly his son’s bedroom before he got married, is now a complete mess.
A chest of drawers serves as the desk, while a sofa bed is a chair. A shelf full of bricks is placed on the upper surface of the chest. The computer has to be put on the ground with the LCD screen on top of the mainframe.
Deng’s wife is not exactly happy with the situation. When Shanghai Daily visited their home, she said, “No other people would live in such a place. This is not a home!”
She asked that her name not be used.
“She doesn’t understand,” says Deng. “She doesn’t know these bricks are good. They are of good quality, and they are the witnesses of the history.”
Deng says he expects to reorganize the bricks and select some to make a rubbing of the inscriptions. He believes it will be beautiful.
“When the rubbing is done, I hope that it can be made into a wall to be displayed at some exhibitions,” he says. “I think this is a way to tell people that these bricks are the epitome of the city’s culture and history.”
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