Like many reckless young people who “do not know where to come”, it was not until 10 years after moving away from home that I suddenly realized that it was rooted in memory The old city in the depths is no longer the same.
Since last year, I have been returning to the old town of Zhenhai where I lived in my childhood. As early as 2006, I moved from there with my parents to downtown Ningbo. After more than ten years, he never went back. In the 1970s, Zhenhai New Port District was established. At that time, it became a typical industrial district with a large influx of population and continuous expansion of the urban area. Nowadays, due to economic transformation, environmental pollution and other factors, the problem of urban population loss is increasing year by year, and the old city of the past is beginning to decline and shrink. In today’s China, it is like a microcosm, representing the “hometown that will never go back” to countless young people.
While trying to regain the memory fragments, I am also constantly tracing the past historical stories of this city. Perhaps, a person can truly understand his hometown only after he leaves his hometown.
This article is from WeChat official account:Guyu Image-Tencent News (ID: ihuozhe), author: Ren Yuan-Ze, head Figure from: Guyu video – Tencent News
Back to December 15, 1997, I was born in Zhenhai. At that time, the house was a welfare house for employees that my dad’s unit allocated as a whole. It was built around the end of the 1970s. It is a community closest to Zhenhai Port. The coal and chemical operations in the port area greatly affect our lives, especially in winter and summer.
In winter, the doors and windows must be closed tightly, otherwise the northeast wind will bring coal dust in the work area into the house. If you forget to close the window before going to bed at night, you will see a layer of gray particles falling on the dining table in the morning.
2019, Gangwu New Village Hometown
In the winter of 1998, my mother hugged me when I was one year old
Summer is more difficult, because my family lives on the top floor, so it is more stuffy than other floors. Frequent ventilation is necessary, but you can smell rotten eggs from the chemical operation area by opening the window. My pharyngitis should have fallen back then, and it still hasn’t improved.
In 2019, overlooking the old town of Zhenhai from a height
Because of environmental problems and for me to receive a better education, when I was in the second grade of elementary school, my parents helped me transfer schools and decided to move my family to Ningbo. I was young and didn’t know my hometownNostalgia or sad emotions, but because I can live in a bigger and better house, I feel happy.
On June 30, 2006, we prepared to move the furniture from our old home in Zhenhai for the last time and officially moved into our new home. I only have vague memories. It seemed that it was raining that day. My dad put all the remaining pots and pans in the back seat of the car, and I was squeezed among these daily necessities. Driving along the Ningzhen Highway to Ningbo, the sky became clear.
Children are very adaptable. In the new environment, I quickly made new friends and gradually lost contact with former friends. In this way, I finished elementary, middle and high school in Ningbo, and never returned to the old town.
Until the summer of 2018, I returned to Zhenhai along Yanjiang Road because of a documentary coursework. After learning that Zhenhaidu has suffered a serious loss and is about to withdraw from the stage of history, I suddenly realized at that moment that this old city had undergone such drastic changes in the many years I moved away, and I was so. slow.
2019, Zhenhai Port District
In May 2019, I officially returned to the city and started looking for my own memory fragments. I called the entire photography project “Zhenhai Project”.
I have been conceiving a photo that will open up the entire narrative. This photo must resemble the preface of a book in my mind. I ran a lot of places, and finally chose to mount the camera on the side of the city wall of Houhaitang, near the city wall of the coastal defense ruins, the old city in the middle, and the tall buildings under construction in the distance — 3 times gathered in this place Still photos. I remember this photo should be the first of my first film.
In 2019, the old town of Zhenhai under the city wall of Houhaitang
Under the coastal defense wall, we arrived at Zhaobaoshan Park. But it is no longer the park I remember. Before I came, the park had been renovated. I often meet adults taking their children to the fort ruins next to the park at dusk, and bold children will ride on them to take pictures. Unfortunately, when I was young, I didn’t seem to have a photo with the fort.
In 2002, I was in Zhaobaoshan Park
Across from Zhaobaoshan Park is the Harbor Seamen’s Cultural Center. This was the largest theater in Zhenhai City, but now due to the population loss of the old city, it is no longer open for operation and almost abandoned.
2019, the theater on the first floor of the Port Seamen’s Cultural Center
In the conference room on the first floor of the Cultural Center, there is also an unplugged refrigerator, which is filled with sloppy tea cups. The aunt in the duty room works the next day, so it is difficult for us to meet. We talked for a long time at that time, I said I was still here when I was youngShe has performed on the show, and she said that her daughter did too. It seems that all the children in Zhenhai have come here to perform on Children’s Day. This is a portrait of her standing in front of a mirror in the dressing room behind the stage.
In 2019, the aunt on duty at the Port Seamen’s Cultural Center
In the meeting room of the Port Seamen’s Cultural Center, refrigerators and tea cups
I have always been curious about what the home that has carried my entire childhood is now. I remember going there once in August last year, but after knocking on the door to explain my intention, I was rejected by the tenant at the time. Three months later, I knocked on the door again, and the door was opened by a new foreign couple tenant, and the man holding the child reluctantly agreed to let me in. A family of three had just finished lunch, and occasionally looked back at the camera I and I were carrying. I seem to think that nothing has changed here, at least the smell of damp on the wooden frame in the house, instantly dragged me back to my childhood. If the smell can be identified, everything will be fine. I wandered around this 50-square-meter room for about 20 minutes, not knowing how to ask the couple to agree to my shooting request. The picture I envisioned was a portrait of them sitting beside the bed, but unfortunately the couple said it was inconvenient, so I secretly pressed the empty scene at the end.