Tofu pond Hutong

Tofu pond Hutong

Doufuchi hutong is located in the northwest of Dongcheng District, with Baochao Hutong in the East and old Gulou Street in the West. In the Ming Dynasty, it was called tofu Chen Hutong. It is suspected that the surname Chen lived here as a tofu maker. According to the complete picture of the capital in 1750, it is said by Chen that it is a pool. In 1965, the place names were reorganized and the niangniangmiao Hutong in the West was merged into the city. During the cultural revolution, it was changed into Chaohong Hutong. It was later withdrawn. In the west of the Hutong, there is Hongen temple, which was rebuilt during the Ming Dynasty and the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty.

Historical evolution

Tofu pond Hutong starts from old Gulou Street in the West and ends at Baochao Hutong in the East. It takes about 5 minutes to walk. There are 512 households. In the Ming Dynasty, it was called "tofu Chen Hutong". It is suspected that the surname Chen was the one who made tofu. In the Qing Dynasty, the word "Chen" was wrongly said to be "Chi", so it was called "tofu Chi Hutong". In 1965, the place names were reorganized and the niangniangmiao Hutong in the western section was incorporated into the city. During the cultural revolution, it was renamed "Chaohong Hutong".

In the Hutong, there is an ancient temple called "Qingxiu Hongen Temple". The mountain gate and the emperor's hall still exist. There is only one stone tablet in it. The inscription on the front of the tablet is "eternal green" and the inscription on the back of the tablet is "cause and effect is not obscure". Now it is the workshop of No.2 standard parts factory, which has been sublet for civilian use.

No. 15 hutong is Yang Changji's former residence, which Mao Zedong borrowed in his early years. It is a mistake to pass it as the former residence of Mao Zedong.

Characteristics of Hutong

Yang Changji and Hutong

There are one or two small residential buildings entering the courtyard at No. 15, doufuchi Hutong, behind the drum tower in Dongcheng District of Beijing. The courtyard is less than 30 meters long from north to South and only 12 meters wide from east to west. The courtyard faces south and the gate is in the southeast corner. There are three North and three South rooms in the front yard, and a jujube tree on the east wall. There are four North rooms in the back yard, all of which are the most common small houses in Beijing.

In June 1918, Mr. Yang Changji (Huaizhong) was employed as a professor of Peking University. His family moved to Beijing from Hunan and lived here. At that time, the bronze door plate of "Bancang Yangyu" was hung on the door of the courtyard, which showed that the owner of the house was a scholarly family in the upper class. The north room of the inner courtyard is for family members, while the north room of the outer courtyard is for Mr. Yang and his daughter Kaihui. The south room is for two bright rooms and one dark room. The two bright rooms are for reception rooms, and the one near the gate is for temporary accommodation.

Yang Changji and Mao Zedong

Mr. Yang Changji was Mao Zedong's ethics teacher when he was studying in Hunan First Normal School (1913-1918). He was a progressive scholar and the most admired teacher in Mao Zedong's youth. He also had the greatest influence on Mao Zedong's ideological growth. At that time, he attached great importance to the young Mao Zedong and Cai Hesen. He often told people that "Mao and Cai will be the pillars of China in the future.".

After Mr. Yang Changji came to Beijing, he wrote to Mao Zedong, asking him to come to Beijing for further study. On the afternoon of August 19, 1918, Mao Zedong came to Beijing to lead the work study movement in France. He and Cai Hesen temporarily lived in a single room near the gate of the south house. Soon after, because the members of the Xinmin society who came to Beijing were scattered and inconvenient to carry out activities, they rented three rooms at No. 7, Ji'an Dongjia Road, Sanyanjing East Street, near Peking University at that time (now changed to No. 8, Ji'an left lane), so that the members had to live together.

Later, when Mao Zedong was a library assistant at Peking University, he often visited and consulted Mr. Yang Changji. He and Deng Zhongxia and other progressive classmates would go to tofu pond every Sunday to talk about new ideas and international and domestic events. Comrade Li Dazhao sometimes attended their weekly seminars, and Yang Kaihui often attended them. From then on, she and Mao Zedong established sincere feelings and embarked on the road of revolution.

Yang Changji died on January 17, 1920 at the age of 49. On his deathbed, he wrote to his friend Zhang Shizhao, praising Mao and CAI for their learning. The letter reads: "I solemnly declare that Yujun, the second son, is a talented person with a bright future. If you don't speak of saving the country, you have to save the country. Saving the country will focus on the second son. " This shows Mr. Yang's vision of talents.

Hawking in Hutong

The Hawking voice in the hutong is vague, long and roundabout, like singing. It is a kind of pastoral Lyric voice with strong agricultural civilization color. It seems that the peddler is not engaged in commercial activities, but singing folk songs. They don't seem to care whether people come to buy or sell, they just like to roam the streets. From that seemingly scattered and poetic tone, it reveals the concealment and shy attitude of Chinese traditional agricultural civilization towards commercial civilization.

The singing cry is getting weaker and weaker. Under the impact of commercial civilization, there is another extreme cry. They stood on both sides of the free market, raised their voices, yelled at the ears of the pedestrians, with a posture of not buying, not sparing you. There is a kind of anxiety of being poor and anxious to get rich hidden in this kind of peddling voice, a kind of "anxious hue" of eager to take out your pocket. Once you do not buy, they will despair, anxiety, anxiety, resentment, anger, and then speak ill of each other. We can feel a tendency of language violence from these "voices", just like people shouting slogans in the street during the "Cultural Revolution". In this regard, the environmental protection department has not formulated corresponding management measures. This kind of peddling is more concentrated in the new town.

The cry of a mature commodity society should be accurate, direct and calm. Some stores on the street (such as "treasure lion", "Giordano", "Benny road" and so on) also have the voice of peddling. The young boys and girls, in a narrative tone, tell you the benefits of goods, and try to persuade people to buy their goods. But it doesn't matter if you don't buy it. It doesn't affect their determination to continue Hawking. Although their narrative tone is inevitably exaggerated, it is more objective compared with the above two. More importantly, they neither impose on others, nor avoid anything, so they appear more real.

Sometimes, they yell, especially before they get off work after a hard day. But it's not at the customers, it's at them, it's about morale. For example, the loudspeaker will be broadcast miss's cry "Hello everyone!" The salesmen answered in unison: "little sister, good --" everyone worked hard! " "Xiao, Jie, Xin, Ku --" we've sold 398 pieces, and we're going to sell 400 pieces before leaving work. Do you have any confidence? " All the people answered in unison: "yes --"

In their not impatient, not despicable, not overbearing selling voice, revealed a pragmatic, professional spirit, of course, you can also say that this is a kind of "commodity fetishism" spirit. According to the traditional concept, the worship of goods is the smell of copper, is vulgar, despised by the "gentleman". But what does it matter to be vulgar? In the hope of generations, we find that the sacred things are so far away from us that they have nothing to do with people's lives. The problem is that there's no danger in worshiping goods, compared to worshiping a seemingly sacred villain. On the premise of being faithful to the law of market exchange, let the sound of commodity Hawking ring everywhere, let the kind of false, shy lyrical Hawking, and the kind of voice Hawking with violence disappear.

Hutong signs

In the latest edition of the map of Beijing, it is clearly indicated that the East and West cities are divided into left and right areas bounded by the old Gulou Street. Now the reconstruction project of the old Gulou Street has been basically completed, and the broad road is lined with brand-new gray antique buildings. These small bungalows with glazed tile brims are full of Beijing flavor. Slightly different is that in the West there are several five or six storey residential buildings or hotels standing tall, while in the east there is no more than two storey building except the bell and Drum Tower.

From the second ring road down the Old Drum Tower Street southbound about five minutes, then walk to the west of the bean curd pool Hutong, from the Hutong mouth, it seems that one can see through. When you walk in, you know that "the end" is only half of the wall of a vegetable market. To the south of the vegetable market is the back of the bell tower, and there is only a small square in the middle. In other words, the vegetable market is on the heel of the bell tower, so it is not far fetched to call it "the bell tower vegetable market".

In terms of quality and quality, the bell tower food market can't be ranked in Beijing, which is full of shops. But the treatment here is different. Many old residents nearby are used to regard it as the West starting point of Douchi Hutong, and even the old people regard the food market as the boundary between the East and the West.

The reason why we attach so much importance to it is because of the need of life. There is such a vegetable market within a few miles. I casually chatted up with several food buyers at the gate of the market, and found that there were people from Huangsi at the farthest. Take a look at the foreigners who travel with Hutong. When they come to the bell tower, they are all interested in the bell tower food market. The reserved ones click a few photos at the door, and the enthusiastic ones go in specially to buy a piece of tofu as a souvenir.

The bell tower vegetable market is undoubtedly the most bustling area in the northern part of Gulou, and naturally it is also the most prosperous place of doufuchi Hutong. In the early morning, people from nearby hutongs come to the vegetable market one after another with cloth bags and vegetable baskets. Some old people buy enough to eat that day and then go back for a stroll. Some old people buy a lot of vegetables. Big bags and small bags need to be put in the sidecar of tricycle to pedal home slowly.

At noon, some migrant workers came by bike in twos and threes, and soon the door of the vegetable market was full of old bicycles. It's lunch time for migrant workers, but they don't want to eat in a small restaurant with a good reputation

Chinese PinYin : Dou Fu Chi Hu Tong