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Peering into the past before it disappears
Print Edition
XI Wenlei doesn’t consider himself a dewy-eyed nostalgic and he doesn’t yearn to turn back the clock, but the transformation between yesterday and today in Shanghai fascinates him.
“I’m simply a recorder who takes note of the city’s urban development with my camera,” he said.
The Shanghai native, who is 47, takes photos almost exclusively of the city’s old shikumen-style houses, demolished buildings, narrow lanes, old villas and the daily lives of people living in the traditional back lanes.
His photo exhibition “Inside Shanghai,” featuring nearly 50 images, is on display at the Xuhui Art Museum through October 9.
The photos capture how ordinary people live. His lens has focused on about 400 families, all living in old houses built before 1949. The pictures provide a humanistic retrospective as well as a chronicle of how Shanghai has turned into a modern mega-metropolis in just several decades. They show how old-fashioned radios, homespun curtains, chamber pots, treadle sewing machines and the wooden furniture of 1930s have morphed into modern apartment living, crammed with every imaginable modern convenience.
“I mainly focus on old houses,” he said. “It’s interesting because few people take photos of their own living environment. We focus on life as it is now, but if we aren’t careful, we will lose the past altogether.”
Since 2007, with his digital SLR camera in hand, Xi has been trekking through the decaying neighborhoods of dilapidated houses condemned to be razed along Suzhou Creek downtown and through old foreign concession areas.
The first old houses he photographed were along the creek. At that time, Xi was a suit-and-tie worker in an advertising company.
“One day, I came across a house with a very unique architecture and took some pictures,” he recalled.
Doing some research, he found that the house was more than 100 years old and was once owned by the descendants of the famous Sassoon family, known as the “Rothschilds of the East” for their great wealth.
The following year, when he returned to the same site, there was nothing but debris.
“I remember that it was snowing winter and the place was covered in white, but there was nothing else left,” Xi said.
The experience made him realize how urgent and important it was to photograph the old city before it disappeared forever.
“Sometimes, houses I shot in the morning were leveled to the ground by the afternoon,” he said. “And I am not exaggerating.”
The scale and speed of urban renewal galvanized him into action. He reckons he has taken hundreds of thousands of photos.
Xi often returned to the same houses many times. It they were still standing, he would capture them into different light at different times of the day and in different seasons.
He was equally fascinated by the speed at which demolished, vacant sites took on new life with the construction of modern buildings.
Xi admits to mixed emotions about urban development.
“It’s inevitable that Shanghai is leaping forward and, of course, dilapidated houses should be torn down, but it really would be better if we tried to protect and restore those with architectural and historic value,” he said. “I can only record them based on my personal judgment of their architectural worth.”
He recalled one old house adorned with beautiful carvings on its doors, pillars and window frames. Its structure was so tough that hammers couldn’t dismantle it. A big crane was brought on site to raze the building.
“The dividing line between what is worth saving and what is not is rather vague,” he said.
His lens often captures local residents going about their daily routines even as rubble surrounds them.
“Sometimes it was ironic,” he said. “On the one hand, a place was being dismantled and the area was messy and dusty. On the other hand, people were still living calmly amid the debris.”
Xi’s pictures capture shirtless middle-aged men reclining on chaise lounges outside their homes to catch a cool breeze on a summer’s night; old women washing out chamber pots in drains at the entrance to a residential alleyway; women preparing supper in dimly lit, shabby kitchens.
“But my main focus was the architecture, the space, the environment and its details,” he said. “I’m very interested in the history hidden in those old buildings.”
A stranger carrying a huge camera in a narrow back lane was always going to attract attention. The reaction was mixed. Local residents could be curious, friendly, shy or offended.
Once, when he was photographing an old neighborhood, an elderly man waved at him and said, “welcome to Shanghai” in broken English.
“I didn’t know how to react, so I just smiled back,” Xi said. “He must have thought I was a foreigner because nobody but a tourist would be so interested in old buildings. It was a little sad to think that the old man’s comment meant Shanghai people didn’t care.”
His photos show the hard life of the old houses. Many households didn’t have modern conveniences like indoor plumbing and adequate lighting. While some locals seemed quite resigned to their fate, others complained loudly about it to Xi. He could tell the latter group were the people most anxious to have their homes razed and their families relocated to newer housing. Taking the picture of a city fast disappearing for almost 10 years has made Xi contemplative.
“I don’t see the contradiction between improving the lives of local people and protecting old houses,” he said. “There has been this theory for years that the only way to proceed is to knock down the old, relocate residents and build something new and modern. But whether people stay or go doesn’t mean that a house of historic value should be demolished. It could be renovated so future generations won’t forget the past.”
‘Inside Shanghai’
Date: Through October 9
Venue: Xuhui Art Museum
Address: 1413 Huaihai Road
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