Family Members

The first two groups of visitors to the exhibition were family members of two participants in our event. They were the earliest "tourists"—one uncle proudly pointed to a girl in a photo and said, "This is my daughter." Another family was even livelier: father, mother, grandmother... all gathered around the message wall to write notes for their child.

Elderly Residents

Local elderly people were the main audience of the exhibition. The "exhibition halls"—Chenghuang Temple and the old stage—are their daily haunts.

They were also the most discerning. Some pointed to the displayed old objects and said, "I have one of these at home," while others commented that the old rattan fans we exhibited weren’t old enough. "The real fans from back then had flowers embroidered with cotton thread, and the edges were a circle wider than this one. These fans with glued-on flowers are from much later."

Yet the elderly were also the kindest. On the second day of the exhibition, several local grandmothers coldly declined my explanation and wandered around on their own. Later, they gathered on the stage, discussing the banner printed with group photos of the oral history project participants, and asked if I was a local. When I said no, and that most of our team members who came for interviews and filming weren’t locals either, their attitudes did a complete 180-degree turn.

"You’re not from here?!"

"Oh wow, you’re truly amazing! You worked so hard to set this up, and the things you collected and organized are so comprehensive—impressive!"

Interviewees Coming to "Inspect"

The people interviewed by the five groups were either shop owners, craftsmen, businesspeople, or elderly residents. We basically sent messages to all the interviewees, telling them about the exhibition at Chenghuang Temple and inviting them to come see it if they had time. As a result, many former interviewees showed up.

Li Zhaodi, the owner of the Ten-Yuan Barbershop, had her photo displayed as the first one in the bottom left corner of the banner area. She posed exactly like she did in the photo, taking a picture with her three-month-older self. Passing by the old objects exhibition area, she pointed excitedly (or proudly) to a worker’s helmet and said, "This is mine."

(Note: Due to health issues in her early years, doctors advised her to stop coming into contact with chemical products like hair dye. So she obtained a tower crane operator’s license and became Songyang’s first female tower crane operator.)

We expressed our admiration—after all, female tower crane operators are truly rare. She waved her hands repeatedly, saying she had no choice but to take the job because she couldn’t find other work. She didn’t think she was the first female tower crane operator in Songyang; it was just a natural thing to do.

Perhaps it was modesty developed over the years, or maybe after being interviewed, she had carefully reflected on and reinterpreted her past. Standing in the exhibition hall, unlike our initial amazement when we first heard her story, she responded calmly.

Maybe, as she said, she wasn’t strictly the first female tower crane operator in Songyang chronologically—after all, confirming that "first" is really difficult; she was just one of the earliest. Regardless, this cross-industry story from more than a decade ago deeply touched us.

There’s a follow-up to this tower crane construction helmet. On the second day, a visitor saw the logo "XX Building Materials" on the helmet and exclaimed: "Huh?! Isn’t this my uncle’s shop?"

We then told her the story behind the helmet and pointed out that the sister’s photo was printed on the banner. When she saw the sister’s name, she said: "Oh my goodness, this name... this name plus this safety helmet, it’s so sad."

She was the only visitor during the entire exhibition who reacted to the sister’s name.  One cannot fully see their own fate, but the fates of previous generations are like the fibers in a palm-woven bed or the jagged cracks when silk is torn. Observe closely, and every detail holds meaning.

At the end of the exhibition, Sister Li Zhaodi carefully took photos of the old objects she had lent and the parts of the manuscripts that mentioned her, then left a note on a sticky note.

Her name did not limit her life; she still possessed the ability to take control of her own life.

Homesick Returnees Who Stayed Briefly

Another visitor was a local. I wanted to be polite and said, "You should know Songyang better than I do, so I won’t say too much." But she replied that she didn’t know much about it now either. She hadn’t been back for a long time, and each time she returned, she only stayed for a few hours. She actually heard about Songyang’s recent developments and new events from friends outside.

She looked at everything carefully, especially the plaques in the middle of the front hall. She flipped through each photo one by one, pausing occasionally to tell me: "This is XX Street. Back then, we used to..."

Walking into the back hall, I told her she could pick any postcard she liked to take with her. The first one she chose was a card printed with a corner of the old street, saying the scene was her neighbor’s house—it was such a coincidence.

On the other wall hung our interview manuscripts. She read the covers carefully for a long time, then turned to me and said that after it rained when she was a child, many earthworms would come out on the old street, which was particularly fun.

I was curious what she would write on the message wall. After she stuck the sticky note up, I saw it: "A foreign land in tourists’ eyes, my hometown!"

She said that many people online complain that Songyang’s old street is too commercialized, but they don’t know that the old street has always been like this. It was even more commercialized when she was a child. Indeed, during our preliminary interviews, we learned that the old street has a history of more than 1,200 years. It initially formed as a commercial center where people from surrounding villages gathered to sell their homemade goods.

On the interactive board at the exhibition entrance, she stuck a "+1" next to Dushan Mountain. She told me that there was an old saying: if you can’t see Dushan Mountain, you’ll cry, meaning you’ve left Songyang’s borders. But when you return and see Dushan Mountain, it means you’re home.

Talking about her feelings upon returning to her hometown, she said that walking on the old street now feels both familiar and unfamiliar. It seems like she’s seen all the people, but they don’t recognize her anymore. The places and objects in the exhibition photos were very familiar to her as a child, but now she has to rely on these photos and introductions to remember them.

Passersby

Several tourists came specifically for Chenghuang Temple. While browsing the exhibition area, they sighed and said that local elderly people and outsiders seem to be more familiar with these local things. When asking local young people for directions to Chenghuang Temple, "they all say they don’t know where it is." They then asked me, "Is this Chenghuang Temple still enshrining deities?"

It seems not. They expressed their regret repeatedly.

Other passersby first praised the sentence printed on the message wall: "In Songyang, we still believe in poetry," then slowly walked to the front hall. Standing under the banner, they said to me: "This is wonderful. Doing things like this when you’re young is valuable. When you get old and look back, you’ll think it was very meaningful."

This was another in-depth observation and exploration of a place after the oral history project, and another time I met so many different people in such a short period. Some were visiting for the first time, some were there for their daily activities, and others came to see "themselves." It feels like this oral history project is not over yet—just like in games, after players clear a level, there is often a special episode to supplement the endings of certain characters or unfold future directions—known as a "postlude."

It gives a sense of time travel—more than a thousand years ago, Chenghuang Temple and the stage were built; decades ago, the elder generations of Songyang lived their lives while honing their crafts; a few months ago, we outsiders came here to interview and record; today, I’m back here as an interpreter; in the future, this photo will repeatedly remind me of the experience of being an interpreter in this nearly 100-square-meter Chenghuang Temple. People cannot escape time, but photos record the light and shadow of this moment—just as we have recorded a part of Songyang in August, and now in autumn, we come to listen to the echoes of midsummer.

Author: Yushan Guo

Team leader of the "Scale New Heights" team for the "Beautiful Conversations" Oral History Project in Songyang. The team’s interview theme was the lives of Songyang’s inheritors of traditional crafts. She was mainly responsible for writing interview manuscripts during the event. Currently resides in Hangzhou and works as a freelance writer.