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Welcome to Red Dust Lane (1949)
September 19, 2010, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
Now, as your would-be landlord-- to be exact, your second landlord, nifangdong-- I've lived in this lane for twenty years by the end of 1949. For a new college student not yet familiar with Shanghai, looking for a place characteristic of the city, a place that is convenient, that is decent, and yet inexpensive, Red Dust is the best choice for you. For the real Shanghai life, I mean.
Red Dust Lane -- what a fantastic name! According to a feng shui master, there is a lot of profound learning in the choice of a name. No point in selecting insignificant words, but none in pompous words, either. The evil spirit might get envious of something too grand or good. We're all made of dust, which is common yet essential, and the epithet red lends a world of difference to it. All of the connotations of the color: human passion, revolution, sacrifice, vanity ...
You are an honest, hardworking young man, I know, so I hope you will become one of my subtenants here. Let's take a walk along the lane, so you can really see for yourself.
The first record of the lane is from the late Qing dynasty. Look at this impressive street sign written in the magnificent calligraphy of a Qing dynasty Juren-- a successful civil service examination candidate at the provincial level. After that, it was developed as part of the French concession, though not as a central part of it. Indeed, so many changes, like the white clouds in the sky -- one moment, a gray dog; the next moment, a black weasel ... Of course, now things are changing again. The Communists are advancing with flying colors and the Nationalists retreating helter-skelter. But the one thing under the sun that will never change, I assure you: this is a most marvelous lane.
Think about the location -- at the very center of Shanghai. To the south, the City God Temple Market, no more than fifteen minutes' walk, where you can enjoy an amazing variety of Shanghai snacks. To the north, you can stroll along to Nanjing Road, the street-long shopping center of Shanghai. If you prefer the fancier stores on Huaihai Road, it takes no more than fifteen minutes to get there. On a summer night, you may occasionally smell the characteristic twang from the Huangpu River. Strolling around those foreign buildings lined up along the Bund, like the Hong Kong Bank or the Cathay Hotel, you may feel as if the river were flowing through you, and the heart of the city beating along with you.
Our lane is medium-sized with several sublanes. Another plus, I will say. The front entrance opens onto Jinling Road. There, just a block ahead, you can see the Zhonghui Mansion-- the high-rise owned by Big Brother Shen of the notorious Blue Triad, now down and out in Hong Kong. Karma. As for the back entrance of the lane, it leads into the Ninghai Food Market. In case of an unexpected visitor, you can run out in your slippers and come back with a live carp still gasping for air. In addition, there are two side entrances on Fujian Road, with a cluster of small shops and stalls. And peddlers too. Nothing can beat the location here.
This lane, or longtang, of Red Dust, may in itself tell you something of Shanghai history. After the Opium War,
the city was forced open to the Western powers as a treaty port with areas selected as foreign concessions. The expatriates were then unable to tap the immense potential of the city, so some Chinese were allowed to move in. Soon the concession authorities had collective dwellings built for them in the designated lots. To make them convenient to manage, the houses were designed in the same architectural style, then arranged in lines like barracks, row after row, accessible to the main lane from sublanes. As in other lanes, most of the buildings in Red Dust belong to the shikumen style, the typical Shanghai two-storied house with a stone doorframe and a small courtyard. In the early concession days, a shikumen house was designed for one family, with rooms for different purposes -- wings, hall, front room, dining room, corner room, back room, attic, dark room, and tingzijian, a cubicle above the kitchen. As a result of the city housing shortage, some of the rooms were leased. Then individually subleased, with the rooms further partitioned or subdivided, so now a "room" is practically the space for a family. You may have heard of a comedy called 72 Families in a House, which is about such an overcrowded housing situation. Red Dust is not like that. There are no more than fifteen families in our shikumen, you have my word on it.
(To be continued next week)
Red Dust Lane -- what a fantastic name! According to a feng shui master, there is a lot of profound learning in the choice of a name. No point in selecting insignificant words, but none in pompous words, either. The evil spirit might get envious of something too grand or good. We're all made of dust, which is common yet essential, and the epithet red lends a world of difference to it. All of the connotations of the color: human passion, revolution, sacrifice, vanity ...
You are an honest, hardworking young man, I know, so I hope you will become one of my subtenants here. Let's take a walk along the lane, so you can really see for yourself.
The first record of the lane is from the late Qing dynasty. Look at this impressive street sign written in the magnificent calligraphy of a Qing dynasty Juren-- a successful civil service examination candidate at the provincial level. After that, it was developed as part of the French concession, though not as a central part of it. Indeed, so many changes, like the white clouds in the sky -- one moment, a gray dog; the next moment, a black weasel ... Of course, now things are changing again. The Communists are advancing with flying colors and the Nationalists retreating helter-skelter. But the one thing under the sun that will never change, I assure you: this is a most marvelous lane.
Think about the location -- at the very center of Shanghai. To the south, the City God Temple Market, no more than fifteen minutes' walk, where you can enjoy an amazing variety of Shanghai snacks. To the north, you can stroll along to Nanjing Road, the street-long shopping center of Shanghai. If you prefer the fancier stores on Huaihai Road, it takes no more than fifteen minutes to get there. On a summer night, you may occasionally smell the characteristic twang from the Huangpu River. Strolling around those foreign buildings lined up along the Bund, like the Hong Kong Bank or the Cathay Hotel, you may feel as if the river were flowing through you, and the heart of the city beating along with you.
Our lane is medium-sized with several sublanes. Another plus, I will say. The front entrance opens onto Jinling Road. There, just a block ahead, you can see the Zhonghui Mansion-- the high-rise owned by Big Brother Shen of the notorious Blue Triad, now down and out in Hong Kong. Karma. As for the back entrance of the lane, it leads into the Ninghai Food Market. In case of an unexpected visitor, you can run out in your slippers and come back with a live carp still gasping for air. In addition, there are two side entrances on Fujian Road, with a cluster of small shops and stalls. And peddlers too. Nothing can beat the location here.
This lane, or longtang, of Red Dust, may in itself tell you something of Shanghai history. After the Opium War,
the city was forced open to the Western powers as a treaty port with areas selected as foreign concessions. The expatriates were then unable to tap the immense potential of the city, so some Chinese were allowed to move in. Soon the concession authorities had collective dwellings built for them in the designated lots. To make them convenient to manage, the houses were designed in the same architectural style, then arranged in lines like barracks, row after row, accessible to the main lane from sublanes. As in other lanes, most of the buildings in Red Dust belong to the shikumen style, the typical Shanghai two-storied house with a stone doorframe and a small courtyard. In the early concession days, a shikumen house was designed for one family, with rooms for different purposes -- wings, hall, front room, dining room, corner room, back room, attic, dark room, and tingzijian, a cubicle above the kitchen. As a result of the city housing shortage, some of the rooms were leased. Then individually subleased, with the rooms further partitioned or subdivided, so now a "room" is practically the space for a family. You may have heard of a comedy called 72 Families in a House, which is about such an overcrowded housing situation. Red Dust is not like that. There are no more than fifteen families in our shikumen, you have my word on it.
(To be continued next week)
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