"Pingliang Road Lane 2767" is a humanistic archeology, Xiong Yuezhi: showing the life of ordinary people in Shanghai's "Xiajiao"

[Editor's Note] This year, "Pingliang Road Lane 2767" edited by Professor Li Fen from the School of Journalism, Fudan University, was officially published by Xuelin Publishing House. Xiong Yuezhi, an expert on Shanghai history and dean of Shanghai Jiangnan Academy, wrote the preface for this book, giving a detailed introduction and analysis of the historical changes and social significance of "Slum Street". With authorization, the "Thought Collection" column of Shangguan News publishes this preface for the benefit of readers.

"Lane 2767, Pingliang Road" is an in-depth exploration of the humanistic history of a century-old community that is a self-contained unit. It is a "Along the River During the Qingming Festival"-style panoramic sketch of the daily life of ordinary people in the city. It is also a portrait of a community that is about to disappear. Humanistic archeology with a salvage nature is a model work of urban oral history produced by a group of scholars with sociological awareness, historical literacy, and journalism majors.

Lane 2767, Pingliang Road, is a real name, not a pseudonym commonly used by sociologists when conducting social surveys. This lane is located in the northeast corner of downtown Shanghai, at the end of Pingliang Road and at the intersection with Junggong Road. It now belongs to Dinghai Road Subdistrict, Yangpu District. This place was originally a rural area near the river. It was classified as a British and American public concession during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty. At the eastern end of the concession, in 1919, a Japanese businessman established the Public University Cotton Factory here and built dormitories for the factory workers to live. It was completed and opened in 1922 and closed for demolition in 2021. It has survived for exactly one hundred years. During this period, the factory's affiliation and functions changed frequently, but textiles have always been its specialty. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, it was taken over by the Nanjing National Government and changed to Shanghai No. 19 Textile Factory of China Textile Construction Company. After Shanghai was liberated in 1949, it was renamed Shanghai No. 19 Textile Factory.

This community, with its factories and buildings integrated into one, is a typical example of a company-run society. Since its construction, it has become an independent community of its own. By 1946, it covered an area of ​​more than 600 acres. In addition to factory buildings, there were also workers' canteens, staff dormitories, workers' dormitories, staff bathrooms, workers' bathrooms, children's elementary schools, hospitals and pharmacies, nurseries, lactation rooms, gardens, swimming pools, basketball courts, Tennis courts, football fields, consumer cooperatives, recreation rooms, trade union offices, fire brigade, employee football teams, barber shops, newspaper reading rooms, etc. Among the many textile factories in Yangshupu, the factory is not the only one that is integrated into one building. The Yufeng Cotton Mill has a similar structure. However, the Open University Cotton Mill’s “perfect equipment and beautiful environment are unparalleled.” The source of employees is mostly from northern Jiangsu. According to statistics in 1946, more than 41% were from northern Jiangsu, followed by Shanghai, with nearly 33%; and then were from southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

The Dinghai Road area where this community is located is a famous industrial zone in Shanghai. Since the 1920s, Japanese and British businessmen have built many textile factories in this area. Twelve Cotton, Seventeen Cotton, Seventeen Wool, Nineteen Cotton, etc. are all large factories with thousands of people. Some of them later developed A big factory for tens of thousands of people. Many textile factories, in order to facilitate business management and enhance employees' sense of identification with the factory, have adopted a similar path to the OUHK Cotton Mill, integrating the factory buildings into one and building batches of dormitories for employees to live in. These factory-built residences are well planned and of good quality. The textile factory operates day and night in three shifts, requiring a large number of female workers, and the career threshold is very low. Northern Jiangsu is relatively poor and suffers from frequent floods, and a large number of refugees flock to Shanghai. At that time, factories mostly used the foreman system to recruit workers, relying on introductions from acquaintances. Zhang San introduced Li Si, and Li Si introduced Wang Er. As a result, a large number of girls from northern Jiangsu went to work in textile factories. There is a lot of unowned wasteland next to the factory area, where some refugees built simple shacks and settled down. As a result, the problems of concentrated private houses, low-quality housing, and dirty environments have become increasingly prominent. In the 1950s, childbirth was encouraged, the population increased sharply, and the housing problem became more serious. Many residential areas with good conditions were also built haphazardly. Since 2008, the government has begun to gradually transform this area. The renovation of Lane 2767, Pingliang Road, was officially launched in March 2021. On December 3 of the same year, the community was closed and residents moved out one after another, bringing the history of the community to an end.

After learning that this community was about to be renovated, Professor Zhang Lifen, out of his high professional sensitivity, believed that a community like Lane 2767, as a so-called "lower estate", was different from the former residences of political and business celebrities in the French Concession. "Corner", as an important location associated with Shanghai Industrial Zone, it is extremely meaningful and necessary to record its human history, especially the daily life history of ordinary people. Thus, this fieldwork project was launched and this oral history was created.

There were 15 interview subjects involved in this project, with Professor Li Fen as the project host and instructor, 12 of them were undergraduate students from the School of Journalism at Fudan University who took this course, and the other two were student teaching assistants. There were 16 interviewees, 15 of whom were residents who had lived in Lane 2767, Pingliang Road for a long time, and the other was the office director who had been responsible for the renovation of the old area of ​​Dinghai Road Street for a long time. The oldest of them is 90 years old and the youngest is 54 years old. They all know the history of the community in different periods and aspects. They have a clear understanding of the initiation of relocation projects, the formulation of relocation policies, and the implementation of relocation projects. The interviews lasted for one semester. The oral history comprehensively, systematically and exhaustively combs and records the history of this community, including the impact of several important historical events on the factory, the origin of the community's residents, social structure, community management, and especially the daily life of ordinary residents.

Provided by the publisher of "Alley 2767, Pingliang Road"

The Centennial Lane has witnessed many major historical events in Shanghai

As a century-old lane, many major historical events have occurred in Shanghai over the past century, and they have been reflected and influenced here. This is clearly described in the book, which can be found in the memorabilia attached to this book. The more important ones are:

In 1932, the January 28th Incident broke out and the Japanese army invaded Shanghai. On February 9, a Japanese military plane circled at ultra-low altitude over the Gongda Cotton Mill and accidentally hit the roof of a factory. The military plane crashed and the bomb exploded. The two pilots were killed instantly and two Chinese workers were injured.

In 1937, the Japanese army launched the August 13th Incident. The Japanese army occupied the Huajie area of ​​Shanghai and imposed military control on the Open University Cotton Mill. It was renamed the Open University Factory of Jongyuan Industrial Co., Ltd. and produced military uniform fabrics and military blankets for the Japanese Navy Ministry. The original golf course between the Gongda Cotton Factory and Jungong Road was converted into a temporary airport, which became the base of the Third Aviation Regiment. In 1939, the OUHK Cotton Mill was converted into a hospital for Japanese military injuries and illnesses. In 1940, the underground party of the Communist Party of China established a theater group in the factory to perform progressive dramas such as "Mulan Joins the Army". In 1942, the OUHK Cotton Mill was bombed by Allied aircraft and was severely damaged. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Kuomintang government took over the Gongda Cotton Mill.

On the eve of the liberation of Shanghai in 1949, more than 300 people from a certain battalion of the Kuomintang army settled in the factory on May 26. Thanks to the efforts of underground members of the Communist Party of China, the factory director Wu Bao actually came out to attack the Kuomintang troops. The troops did not enter the residential area, but rested in the primary school for the children of workers. On the 27th, the People's Liberation Army came in and an armed conflict almost broke out between the two sides. After being fought over by the underground party of the Communist Party of China, factory director Wu Baozhen came forward to persuade the Kuomintang troops to surrender and won the victory in the struggle to protect the factory. The history of the factory records that not a single shot was fired or a drop of blood was shed in the struggle to protect the factory, and the 19th Factory returned to the hands of the people intact. This is a chapter worth writing in the history of the Shanghai working class's efforts to protect factories and welcome liberation.

On February 6, 1950, the Kuomintang Air Force, which had retreated to Taiwan, bombed Shanghai's important infrastructure such as electricity, water supply, and electromechanical facilities. The Yangpu Power Plant was bombed, and almost all Shanghai factories ceased production. Nineteen cotton workers are facing the dilemma of salary suspension, and the daily life of workers’ housing residents has deteriorated. "During the bombing, Jiu Mian didn't hear any vibration, but we ran desperately to see it. The People's Liberation Army maintained law and order along the entire road, with one post every three steps and one post every five steps. Sometimes the Kuomintang planes would come to harass them. At that time, the People's Liberation Army used machine guns to fire in the woods in Jiu Mian Garden to prevent enemy planes from diving." This detail is also of certain value in understanding the impact of the "26th Bombing" incident.

These vivid and detailed historical materials related to the history and major events of the country and the era are of great value for people to reconstruct historical memories and explain the significance of historical events.

What is more valuable about this oral history is its description of the daily life of ordinary residents, covering aspects such as the origin of workers, environmental changes, housing crowding, neighborhood relations, festival customs, children's lives, and the work of the neighborhood committee director.

The book contains many descriptions of the origins of the workers in the Nineteenth Cotton Factory.

Most of the workers in the Nineteenth Cotton Factory are from northern Jiangsu. Their experience of coming to Shanghai and living in Shanghai is very valuable for understanding the characteristics of Shanghai workers. Ying Changsheng recalled that in 1946, he came to Shanghai from Yancheng, and the journey alone "took two weeks. Because he took a wooden sailing boat, sailing with the wind, and relying on trackers to pull the boat against the wind, the speed was slow. Finally, he arrived in Wuxi Transfer to the train and arrive in Shanghai. The train from Wuxi to Shanghai is relatively fast. It leaves before dawn and arrives in Shanghai in the afternoon." Such a difficult and long journey is difficult for people today to imagine. With help, his sister came to Nineteen Cotton Factory and became a female textile worker. In the eyes of country people, that was a great thing. "My sister was born in 1926 and was just 20 years old when she entered the factory. She also knew that it was not easy to find this job, so she cherished it very much and performed very well. Although the work was hard, she persevered to the end and worked in the factory until her retirement in 1976, a full 30 years." This experience and feeling is of great value for fully understanding the significance of farmers, especially women, from northern Jiangsu entering Shanghai factories. In modern Shanghai, whether in the concession or the Chinese community, the proportion of poor people exceeded 80%. But why are there still so many farmers trying every possible means to enter Shanghai and find ways to enter factories? This is because Shanghai can provide more employment opportunities for the poor. Although it is hard work in the Shanghai factory, it is still much better than in the countryside, where people are generally bankrupt.

More than one narrator mentioned that at that time, workers in the factory were mostly introduced by fellow villagers, relatives, and friends.

There are many textile factories in Shanghai, and there is a special need for young female workers. In the countryside of northern Jiangsu, as long as someone works in a Shanghai textile factory, they will continuously bring relatives, friends, fellow villagers, and distant neighbors, especially little girls, to work as child labor in Shanghai textile factories. Most of them find jobs and stay in Shanghai. There are also a few who can't bear the hardship and return to northern Jiangsu.

The residences in Shijiumian were originally built very carefully, including two single-family three-story garden villas, 10 fake three-story conjoined townhouses, and 30 rows of Japanese-style two-story houses. These houses are classified according to job title and position, and are for factory leaders or general managers and their families, managers at all levels and their families, and blue-collar workers in the factory. No matter who lives there, the design is exquisite, the materials used are exquisite, and the environment is beautiful. However, later, no matter what type of housing, they became crowded, dilapidated, and dirty. By the 1980s, this place had become a well-known "Slum Street." How did this change happen? This is discussed in detail in the book.

First, with the political turmoil, property rights have changed and housing management has become disorderly.

Some of the oral narrators' descriptions of the details of obtaining housing are of particular value in understanding this issue:

The Kuomintang officers retreated, leaving the houses empty. For those of us who were relatively short on housing, we moved in quietly. Whoever moves in will own the house. This is basically the case. Some people are afraid after moving in. What if the Kuomintang comes again? Later I thought, it was not our family who moved in anyway. The more people moved in, the more courageous they became. It is said that on the eve of liberation, there was a Kuomintang officer who moved away and then came back. He told the new residents that we would come back. The resident replied: I will give it to you when you come back.

The residents described the changes in the structure of the house in great detail:

The navy dormitories are spacious with front and rear balconies and spacious alleys. There is a restroom inside, and every house has a flush toilet. This flush toilet is not a sitting type, but a squatting type. It took up space and we were not used to using this thing, so we knocked them all off. After knocking it off, the space freed up is large enough to put a bed. The houses in Alley No. 4 are all Japanese-style brick and wood structures. When we first entered, there was a small room in the front building with tatami mats on the bed, but we were not used to it, so they were all renovated.

Secondly, as more and more people move in, the housing is extremely crowded, leading to haphazard construction.

Extreme overcrowding in housing is a common topic among the oralists. The degree of crowding is beyond people's imagination today. There are 4 people living in 10 square meters, 10 people living in 22.9 square meters, and 6 people living in less than 9 square meters. As for those with less than 4 square meters per capita, they can be found everywhere.

The space shared by multiple residents is even more crowded. There are two kitchen rooms and two bathrooms on the first floor. The kitchen room is about 8 square meters and the bathroom is only 2 square meters. "Our family shares the bathroom and stove room on the east side with three other families. At most, there are more than 20 people using it together."

Closely linked to the extreme overcrowding of housing is the construction of attics indoors, the destruction of public green spaces and gardens outdoors, and the construction of temporary housing, which is also illegal construction. What's more, someone secretly poured highly corrosive nitrate water onto the trees in the garden, letting them die, then chopped them down and built houses. By the 1980s, self-built temporary housing in communities had become a common phenomenon. In his memories, Zhou Shishao described the loft design and material sources in detail.

In the future, when the government renovated old neighborhoods, it classified and graded various old lanes. This neighborhood was classified as a "second-grade old lane", which was characterized by houses in disrepair, small areas, crowded living spaces, and widespread cracks in the walls. , there are many illegal structures, lack of sanitary facilities, small public areas, it is quite inconvenient for residents to travel, and the overall living environment is worrying. This kind of lane is worse than the new lanes built later, with better structure and more complete facilities, but it is better than the shanty towns with worse quality and worse environment.

Of course, there are also many happy, warm and memorable places in the crowded community life.

It is normal for neighbors who live on the same floor and share balconies, kitchens and bathrooms to be humble, caring and helpful to each other.

Everyone buys and picks up vegetables together. "How much does that vegetable cost per pound? Where did I buy it?" and chat about home affairs. In the stove room, there is one gas stove for each family...the stoves are next to each other. We wash vegetables and cook together, giving him a bowl of the good things I cook, and giving us a bowl of the good things he cooks. But there was no dinner party, and there was no talk of each family cooking a few dishes to eat together. Everyone was doing their own thing. I didn't understand the AA system before. Except for the birthday of an elderly person, we ate noodles and gave bowls of noodles to our neighbors. Everyone else went their own way. However, children sometimes go to Dongjiaxijia for dinner. When the weather is hot, the doors of every family’s house are open when sleeping, allowing the north and south to be connected.

New Year's Eve folk customs are an important part of community culture, and are also a topic that many interviewees talk about a lot. These include wearing new clothes during the New Year, slaughtering ducks and geese, setting off firecrackers, giving out new year's money, visiting each other on New Year's Day and wishing you good fortune, decorating with lanterns and making rabbit lanterns during the Lantern Festival, eating rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival, eating eggs at the beginning of summer, etc. There is a high proportion of people from Northern Jiangsu among the residents in the community, so the folk customs during these festivals are mostly similar to those in Northern Jiangsu.

This demographic characteristic affects the language and cultural life of the residents in the community. “The dialect used in the alleys is Northern Jiangsu... There are many people in Northern Jiangsu, so there are many people in the alleys who can sing Jianghuai opera. Sometimes, people in the alleys would invite monks to do their monastery, build a big tent, chant sutras, and knock wooden fish.”

These cultural characteristics also have a subtle influence on the investment philosophy of community residents. Liu Bifang's father is the most representative of this. He came to Shanghai from Funing to make a living very early. When he entered the cotton yarn factory, the factory was still in the hands of the Japanese and was called Gongda Cotton Factory. "He has strong hands-on ability, is introverted, and talks very little, but he is willing to use his brain and learns quickly. After working for a few years, he had some savings, so he returned to the countryside in northern Jiangsu and bought some land. After liberation, he started to work in the countryside. Land reform would label his family as a landlord, and he asked for the land reform to be classified as a rich peasant. "There is a lot of room for interpretation in this story. First, Liu's father came to Shanghai from the countryside, entered a factory, and turned from a farmer into a worker. His income was much higher than farming, which was of great significance in increasing the total wealth of the family. Second, after Liu's father accumulated some money, he did not invest it in industry or other industries in the city, but returned to his hometown to buy land. This shows that although he lives in the city, his financial management philosophy still remains in the farming era. Third, because he bought land, even though he still works in a factory in Shanghai and belongs to the working class, his family status will be classified as a landlord after the rural land reform. This case may be extremely isolated, but it is still a special case worthy of attention in interpreting the urban-rural differences and compositional divisions of that era.

Many interviewees talked about the happy life of playing together with their friends as children: playing football, basketball, swimming, wrestling, cockfighting, vaulting, dragon fighting, rubber band jumping, marbles, military chess, catching cicadas, catching cicadas, etc. Crickets, raising chickens, ducks and rabbits, fishing in the water, and watching outdoor movies. In summer, they would enjoy the cool breeze together in the alley, chatting, and even sleeping outside.

The childhoods of people in different eras will be very different, and the childhoods of people in different areas of the same era may also be very different. Compared with children in Huangpu, Jing'an, Luwan and other places that were also part of Shanghai at the same time, the childhood lives of the people in the 19th Cotton Factory, far away from the city center, rarely heard the sounds of violins and pianos, and rarely had the shadow of Da Guangming and Nanjing Road. , there are few works by Balzac and Tolstoy, but they have two football fields, a Baiyangdian, and open-air movies.

This oral history is also valuable for describing some special personnel in the community, including the treatment of senior technicians, the organization and training of militia, the duties of firefighters, the organization and propaganda of the Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team, and the rehearsal and training of the literary and art squad. The performance, especially the duties of the neighborhood committee director, is described in quite detail and vividly. The director of the neighborhood committee is known as the "prime minister" of the community and does nothing, ranging from the management of social security and environmental sanitation in the community, the resolution of disputes within residents' families or between residents, the mobilization of people to go to the mountains and countryside, the placement of young people who have returned to the city, the assistance of people living on minimum living allowances, Care for mentally ill patients, management of workers and laborers, services for support staff, as well as handling emergencies such as fire alarms, removal of accumulated water on rainy days, and assisting relevant departments in handling demolition matters when the entire community is about to be relocated. Neighborhood committees are the most grassroots organization in urban management in China, rich in the spirit of Chinese culture, and Shanghai Neighborhood Committee organizations are at the forefront of the country. The oral accounts of two neighborhood committee directors, Song Shifeng and Zhu Xiaoqin, contained in this book, provide an important basis for understanding the functions and functions of Shanghai urban neighborhood committees. Features, adding quite rich and extremely vivid material.

Oral history mostly shows the daily life of ordinary people

This oral history is the result of careful work led by Professor Li Fen and a group of classmates.

Oral history is a method of historical data collection and historical research that has received much attention from academic circles in recent years. Before the emergence of language, humankind's understanding of history could only be based on physical transmission, and history could be understood from relics. After the invention of language, oral transmission was added, and historical knowledge was obtained from oral transmission. After the invention of writing, literary biography was added to record history in writing. After the invention of audio and video equipment, audio and video transmission materials were added. From physical transmission to verbal transmission to literary transmission to audio transmission to image transmission, human beings’ methods of recording history continue to evolve. Oral history in the modern sense is a method of comprehensively recording history using verbal transmission, written transmission, audio transmission, and image transmission. From the perspective of tool use, the emergence of oral history is a major leap forward in the field of history.

Oral history provides an incredibly broad space in terms of the richness of historical records. Human activities are extremely rich, and even the most detailed documents and archives can only record a very small part of them, the tip of the iceberg. In the past, archives and documents were more focused on recording the activities of the ruling class, the activities of social elites, and political activities. There were fewer records of the lives of ordinary people, and those that were there were mostly boring statistical data. , lack of flesh-and-blood case records. Oral history can make up for the shortcomings of traditional archives and documents in this regard. From the perspective of the people's nature presented by historical information, oral history can open up a lower-level, democratic starry sky for all living beings who cannot see their faces or hear their voices in the grand narrative of historical records.

Oral history is the result of the mutual cooperation and joint work between the interview subject and the interviewee. Professor Zhang Lifen is a well-respected person in the international journalism community. He has served as the deputy editor-in-chief of the Financial Times, the founding editor-in-chief of FT Chinese website, the founding editor-in-chief of FT Rui magazine, and a senior reporter of the British Broadcasting Corporation. He has profound experience. Academic literacy and rich fieldwork experience. While still studying at Fudan University, he co-edited "An Oral History of Hundreds of Chinese College Students" with his classmates, which was later compiled and published as "Wandering at the End of the Century". A few years ago, he published another book, "Light Chaser: Jin Guofan's Autobiography of the Nineties," in which he conducted an in-depth interview with Jin Guofan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and an outstanding optician, and it will be published in 2021. At the beginning of this project, he formulated careful interview planning and implementation requirements, including the selection of interview subjects, requirements for interview elements and narrative quality, emphasizing the importance of the "5Ws" and focusing on the relationship between people and living space, especially the relationship between family and Neighborhoods, architecture and class, space and residence, emphasizing attention to historical details, retaining the language characteristics of the interviewees, and paying attention to on-site photography and videography. During the project implementation process, he not only conducted several interviews in person, but also provided guidance to the project team members from time to time based on the progress of the project to ensure that the project quality was always running at a high level. Looking at the whole book, it can be said that the members of the project team have effectively implemented the editor's intention, the interviewees have been properly selected, the purpose of the interviews is clear, the historical materials have been excavated in depth, and the details are vividly presented. The information mentioned by the interviewees is all personal experience, sight and hearing. The interview transcript is presented in the first person and maintains the language style of the interview subjects. In line with this, the project team attaches great importance to the excavation of past historical data, including archival data, local chronicles, and picture data, and compares and studies interview data with historical documents. The book is accompanied by building distribution maps, population structure maps, factory workshop maps, product trademarks, and at the end it is appended with memorabilia of the neighborhood, a list of neighborhood committee members, etc., which are indispensable materials for readers to fully understand the history of this community. Each interviewer wrote "Field Notes" to introduce the interview process and experiences, highlighting the professionalism of this oral history.

Another thing worthy of praise is that members of the project team investigated, photographed, and recorded various plants in the community, prepared leaf specimens, and compiled a "Nineteen Cotton Flora". As the interviewer Ou Kenan said, for Jiu Mian, the rich historical memory brings not only humanistic review, but also natural growth, “Whether it is onions, garlic, leeks, pomegranates, grapefruits, or ginkgos Camphor trees are spread freely in this small world. Drink, peck, and enjoy. These plants accompany people and meet their daily needs. It may be a big tree for children to climb playfully. Maybe it’s the little flowers reflected in the moonlit night on the balcony, or maybe it’s the condiments cooking by the pot in the evening.” Many large trees were ruthlessly destroyed due to construction of houses or other needs, but some still survived tenaciously. An ancient ginkgo tree next to a nursing home for the elderly "has experienced 80 years of ups and downs and witnessed the ups and downs of Shanghai's modern history. From a weak sapling to a towering tree, the people around it have changed, and I have watched over it." Regardless of whether it is destroyed or survives, recording the relevant information is of irreplaceable value in preserving the historical memory of the 19th Cotton Factory.

"Flora" by Ou Ke Nan, photographed by Shi Chenlu

The "Cultural Relics Protection Law of the People's Republic of China" stipulates that when a construction unit carries out a capital construction project, it must first undergo archaeological exploration by the relevant unit, otherwise no construction will be allowed, which is referred to as "archaeological preparatory work". Unfortunately, this archaeological prerequisite does not include the excavation and sorting out of human history on the ground. In fact, the cultural heritage of a city lies in its human history. This kind of humanistic history is not only reflected in the long historical accumulation, unparalleled political talents, and outstanding cultural elites, but also in the thousands of ordinary residents today. Their joys, sorrows, sorrows, upbringings, cultural literacy, and feelings about home and country form the turbulent waves of the city's cultural context. In the history of Shanghai urban area, Lane 2767, Pingliang Road, was an independent unit. At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were more than 9,400 such alleys in Shanghai. After the reform and opening up, as the pace of urban reconstruction accelerated, a large number of alleys fell to the bulldozers. By 1997, more than half of Shanghai's lanes had disappeared, with only 4,000 remaining. If you want to understand the history of the more than 5,000 alleys that have turned into dust, especially the history of ordinary people's daily lives, you can only find the cold numbers recorded in relevant local chronicles. It is difficult to find relatively concentrated and professionally processed records. , credible and usable fresh information. It is in this sense that "Lane 2767, Pingliang Road" edited by Professor Zhang Lifen has made valuable explorations in discovering and preserving the urban context and presenting the history of ordinary people's daily lives. It can be called urban transformation. The humanistic archeology of the past has pioneering significance with distinctive characteristics of the times.

In the future, if all our lanes that are about to be demolished, renovated, or disappeared, we must first conduct humanistic archeology like the one Li Fen’s team has conducted in Lane 2767, Pingliang Road, and implement “humanistic archeology” as stipulated in the National Cultural Relics Protection Law. Prepositioned". Then, our urban cultural heritage must be richer, more warm, and more livable, suitable for business, and suitable for travel. If so, the significance of this oral history goes far beyond the scope of Lane 2767, Pingliang Road, beyond the scope of Shanghai, and even beyond the scope of journalism, sociology and history.

Professor Zhang Lifen is a scholar whom I admire very much. I have gained a lot of emotion and benefited from reading his "Oxford Notes", his interviews with academician Jin Guofan, and many of his famous articles. After the oral history was completed, he asked me to write the preface. I read it carefully and thought about it carefully, and I truly believed that this book and its actions were of great significance and worthy of promotion, so I wrote such a lengthy experience to promote it without any hesitation.