Yuyuan Road

Yuyuan Road lies between Zhongshan Park and Jing'an Temple. Old style houses and new style lanes are the main buildings on this road. The road is not wide, but it is not short, with a total length of 2.7 km. Yuyuan Road is an extraordinary road. There are many famous people living here, including high-level traitors such as Wang Jingwei and Zhou Fuhai, top leaders of the Communist Party underground such as Liu Xiao, well-known boss such as Yan Qingxiang, as well as many Democratic figures, scientists, educators, steel musicians, writers, musicians, calligraphers and painters, film actors such as Qian Xuesen, Gu Shengying, Ru Zhijuan Zhu Xijuan and others have left their footprints here. Fu Lei and Zhang Ailing have lived here for 30 years. There are precious marks left by history everywhere on Yuyuan Road. Wang mansion, yongquanfang, Lane 794, Yuyuan Road, Shixi middle school, No. 404, and so on are all great buildings.

Yuyuan Road

Yuyuan Road, a road in the west of Shanghai. The road is not wide, but it is not short. It extends from Jing'an Temple in the east to Zhongshan Park in the West. Yuyuan Lu is located in the west of the city, crossing Jing'an and Changning districts. Changde Road in the East and Changning Road in the West. It is 2775 meters long, 15.0-18.1 meters wide and 9.9-11.0 meters wide. In 1911, the Ministry of industry crossed the border to build a road, named after the famous garden "Yuyuan". Along the road, there are many apartments, new buildings and shops in Lilong, including global world building and Baile gate movie theater. No. 34, Lane 1376 (xiangchangli) is the former site of the Bolshevik department.

Historical evolution

History is so easy to hide. Walking along the riverside, an old street of private houses in Shanghai in the 1920s, I can only feel like playing hide and seek with time, and the people and things behind that time.

When did the river bank come into being? There is a saying that, as can be seen literally, the predecessor of this road must be a very large private garden. Riverside, as the name suggests, has riverside first, only then has the road. On the old map of Shanghai in 1918, there was an obvious mark near Jing'an Temple, which said "Xiaohe River". Its scale includes today's Xiaohe River, Changde Road and Nanjing West Road. As for why the garden disappeared later, there is no record in history. It's not so far away. Why not?

French concession of that year

Since the disappearance of this mysterious private garden, the predecessor of Xiaohebian, it seems that Xiaohebian has been destined to be a hermit in the bustle of modern Shanghai. This is the French concession at that time (in the succeeding years, there were some local changes in its division), just like what happened in other concessions at that time, it seems that in the blink of an eye, the wind and water rose. Since Shanghai lacks a heavy history of thousands of years and is close to the sea, it has caught up with a century of the sea. Regardless of the complexity and diversity of the cultural character formed by the colonization, it may not be a good thing for Shanghai.

Spreading out the planning drawings of the Ministry of industry in the early years, the riverside has been built as a high-end residential area. Conceptually, it is similar to the high-end villas pursued by real estate developers today.

However, the latter can not be compared. Most of the houses along the river are designed and built by each family after the land is demarcated. Apart from some regulations on the height and public facilities, they do not interfere much. This also created the last glory of Chinese private house architecture in the folk so far.

Deep alley

Architecture is not only the precipitation of culture, but also the most intuitive historical birthmark that time can give to mankind.

From east to west, in the deep alleys on both sides of the river, amazing buildings may jump into view at any time. Shanghainese like to call the door-to-door signs of a road "how many lanes", especially those long roads, which can be lined up to thousands of lanes. In the lane, there are several numbers to be divided. At this time, how many numbers represent a specific building. Indeed, in Shanghai, which is less rugged in the north and more orderly than in the south, it is a more appropriate way to use "Nong" to describe the twists and turns of a street. The same is true of the riverside. The westernmost end of the riverside is lined up to more than 1600 lanes, which is not the longest road in Shanghai. However, on a road with concentrated gardens and Western style houses, it may mean thousands of private buildings, which are different and spectacular. Also, Wutong trees on the edge of the river have been preserved. The Wutong, which has lived for more than half a century, has wrapped the whole road under their own bodies. Their age is not long in the tree family, but they may have seen a very difficult history of reproduction. Experience, and continue to experience. The hidden historical building heard the wind and rain all night. If you want to know how history often ends in a hurry, the riverside is a good place to go now. One interesting feature of the houses on this road is that even the people who live in them and protect them can't tell their origins.

Lane 395 by the river is the most magnificent new lane in Shanghai in the 1930s. I asked the old lady at the door that she was ignorant of the house she was looking after. I knew that she could not be blamed for this. How many people and things had fallen like leaves in an autumn rain.

At first, it was purposeful. Wang's residence in lane 1136 of Xitou is probably the most famous building on this road. It was once Wang Jingwei's residence, and it was also famous for the story of Wang Boqun, Minister of communications of the Kuomintang government, who lived in a golden house (the specific structure and allusions of the building will be described later).

Today's Wang mansion is still the same building, but the sign of children's palace in Changning District is hung at the door. When I went, it was Sunday, and the children had already arrived in the classroom, all kinds of instrumental music came out of the window, either melodious or hasty. With the sound of the music, when you walk into the hall, you feel more strange out of thin air. Old houses, especially those with stories, always give rise to many inexplicable associations. Every object with heavy traces of time, the marble steps polished by the soles of shoes, and the handle repeatedly opened by the master's hands on the door, all of them have more gloomy aura because of too many stories.

It's like the almost deserted back garden. After all, there is still some popularity in the main building of Wang mansion. Walking to the corner not far away, I found a small garden hidden under the shade. Farewell to the small bridge of flowing water and the rockery full of moss, in this prosperous Western District of Shanghai, a half acre garden can be preserved, which is really its creation. Just because it's too quiet, the atmosphere here is a bit wet and depressing. There is only one wall between the noisy market and the only small door has been sealed. I don't know how many days there has been no one walking around. The arrival of people makes every leaf and every step seem to move happily. In such a garden, it's hard for people to tell whether they should continue to walk or walk away quickly.

Let's go. History can't stand the fine rolling. Those hard buildings are like monsters trapped in mud and algae. They struggle to get rid of themselves and talk to others, but they sink deeper and deeper, and finally they can't extricate themselves. Further down, the history of the street, every house is clearly a book, recording the joys and sorrows; behind every claustrophobic glass, there seems to be a pair of looking eyes, with unfinished stories However, if you go to inquire, all this disappears from your eyes in the twinkling of an eye, countless "don't know", countless doors open a gap, and then slam closed in front of your eyes.

My wife, who accompanied me to explore, said, "these houses really should have a bronze medal in front of their door to record their past." I asked her, "do you know why people don't do that?"

She was speechless. To be honest, after asking this question, I was entangled myself.

Chinese people are especially good at hiding memory. Show the good ones to others, hide and tuck in the ones you don't like or like, hoping that they will rot early. Think about it. These houses are just unconscious life made of wood and stone. What can they hide? “

"The original sin" is that they have gone through too much turmoil and looting, and it's lucky that they changed their name in the war and turmoil. "During the cultural revolution, it's often heard that capitalists with poor composition committed suicide in these houses. Come too fast, become too tight, disappear naturally in a hurry.

Some people say that time can prove everything, others say that the truth will come out in the end.

I don't doubt these words, but they should be official history. A lot of details and flesh and blood that are really hidden among the people can be forgotten. Some of them are natural weathering inadvertently, while others are washing with ulterior motives. There are countless houses hidden by the river. I don't know which kind they belong to.

Current situation

If you are just a passer-by in a hurry, you will never see the special features of Yuyuan Road. The one mentioned above is hidden

Chinese PinYin : Yu Yuan Lu