Gao's father opened a watch shop in Jingmei Street. After his father died, he took over the watch shop for a hundred years. This shop has no name or signboard, only a work desk as wide as a primary school desk and a wooden stool for guests to rest and chat. There are several antique clocks hanging on the wall.
"The boat is full of wood, gravel and bricks, and rich people will buy them (to build houses)," Gao Shuzhen said, looking up. The master holds a watch in his hand and a small magnifying glass in his right eye nest.
At that time, Chinese mainland's Fuzhou fir and Tangshan brick all entered Taiwan from Danshui Estuary and were transported to Wenshan via Jingmeixi. Xu Zhehao, who spent a lot of time studying Wenshan literature and history in his spare time, said that temples are usually built with high-grade building materials such as Chinese fir; Bricks are sold to richer families to build houses. Jingmei has been commercialized for a long time, and the demand for building materials is large; And the fence is not.
At the end of Jingmei Street, you can still find the "Deming Business Firm" made of bricks. "This house is at least a hundred years old!" Gao Rongzhen, the fourth generation boss, looked up at the ceiling of the painting and said.
Gao is not sure whether the bricks used to build Deming Commercial Bank came from, but he said that those who could build brick houses in the past represented wealthy families. In the first decade of the Republic of China, Deming Trading Company was a grocery distributor, buying daily necessities from Daocheng and selling them to local people. At the same time, it also bought sugarcane, rice, tea and other agricultural products from farmers in Muka and Jingmei, and sold them to Daocheng, and some even shipped them to Hualien.
"There used to be a long table here, and all the money was stuffed in it, and it was too late to collect it." Gao pointed to the counter and drew a long straight line, indicating that business was booming at that time. He believes that if there is no Jingmei River, the development of Jingmei and Muka will be ten years later.
With the road and railway gradually replacing the transportation function of Jingmei West, Deming Commercial Bank has been transformed into a small grocery store, and its customers are limited to its old neighbors in Jingmei Street.
Merchant ships are busy going in and out of Jingmei. The gathering of Qian Fan makes there a commercial village near Jingmei Street, and the output of coal mines in Mu Cha and Shenkeng also allows ships from Jingmeixi to sail upstream.
During the Japanese occupation, Wanxin Railway was opened to traffic in 14 years of the Republic of China, which shortened the distance from Jingmei to Mengga (Wanhua). Therefore, the trade ships entering Jingmei from Avenue City gradually changed to railway transportation, but the coal ships from Kengkou to Jingmei Railway Station remained unchanged. At that time, the coal mines were all transported by Jingmei West Waterway, from the mine pit to Jingmei Railway Station (now the bottom of the sixth section of Roosevelt Road), and then sent to Mongga by railway. At the same time, the Japanese also laid a ten-mile-long light rail from Jingmei to Shiqiao and transported the coal mine to the railway station. "Get off without pomp (people)!" Zhang Chuansheng, who was born in Muka in five years of the Republic of China, said.
When Zhang Chuansheng was a child, he lived next to Ying Ji Temple on Muka Baoyi Road. He graduated from Imperial University of Taiwan Province at the age of 29, and opened Wenshan Clinic in Wen Jing Street near Jingmei at the age of 32.
At the age of eighty, Zhang Chuansheng bought a box of crayons on a whim and used his spare time in the evening to draw a wooden fence in his memory. It took him two or three months to complete the old picture of Mucha in the 14th year of the Republic of China. Three years later, when Zhang Chuansheng first opened a clinic in Wen Jing Street, he drew a beautiful map. Two maps, one stroke and one painting, which are different from general mechanical neatness, are fragments in Dr. Zhang Chuansheng's memory. The ancient place names and old houses in the picture tell the historical story and beautiful scenery of the wooden fence.
Zhang Chuansheng pointed to his painting Autumn in Muka in 1925 and said happily that he walked to school on the light rail every day. At that time, light lanes were built along Muka Road. As long as Zhang Chuansheng turns from Baoyi Road to Muka Road, he can walk to the "Muka Public Primary School" where he was studying (now Muka Primary School opposite Wenshan District Office).
"There are two kinds of light cars, one is to transport charcoal, and the other is to transport people," the old doctor said with his fingers. Four sticks at the four corners of the light truck are used to transport coal; There is a square wooden box in the center of the car, with one person sitting on each side and limited to four people.
"It is very unstable to sit up," Zhang Chuansheng described. Light vehicles are pushed by human power, and there are gaps between tracks, so passengers will bump with the ups and downs of the road surface.
Ancestors came to Wenshan District along Jingmeixi with its traffic function. For farmers, finding irrigation water sources is the primary task and the only condition for settling down here; As a result, the ancestors dug water holes, diverted water for irrigation, and safely developed one golden rice field after another; What about Xue Zhen in the Fog? Gong Zhen is the most famous Shenzhen Road in Wenshan District.
Zhan Wei, a professor of history at Southeast Institute of Technology, said that Wulixue Town was the earliest ditch opened in Wenshan, and its water source was directly taken from Wulixue Creek on Carp Mountain in Mucha (behind the National Examination Institute on Mucha Road), which was one of the tributaries of Jingmeixi.
Xue Zhen in the fog and Gong Zhen in the dead.
Wuli Xue Zhen was built during the reign of Emperor Qianlong of Qing Dynasty, and the irrigation area around the junction of Mu Cha and Jingmei (around the National Academy of Sciences) is the most dependent ditch for Wenshan agriculture. However, the Japanese occupation was not used in the early days and gradually abandoned. Instead, Gong Zhen was used for irrigation water in Beishi.
Although Gong Zhen was the main irrigation water source in Jingmei area during the Japanese occupation, the water source came from the upper reaches of Xindianxi. Although Jingmeixi is rich in water, its narrow channel and slow flow rate make it impossible to supply a large amount of water. Therefore, the ancestors turned to the upper reaches of Xindianxi to divert water.
The most difficult project to build a Gong town from Xindian Creek is to cross Jingmei Creek, so our ancestors set up a "wooden pier" above the creek to let the water cross Jingmei Creek (located in Jingmei Street, next to the new university).
The end of the new store is called "Jiantou" and the end of Jingmei is called "Jianwei", which is the origin of the place name "Jingmei". To this day, even though no one uses irrigation in Gong Zhen and the canal is not buried, it still flows slowly under Wen Jing Street in front of Jingmei.
However, in Muka area, there are many hills, most of which are irrigated by natural ponds or artificial excavation. However, there are also tunnels that dig ditches to draw streams, such as Nanqiaotou today and Yong 'an Street next to Tugong Temple, which used to be an "irrigation tunnel" to irrigate nearby farmland.
Guigong Town leads Jingmei River near Wanshou Bridge at the intersection of Guangxin Road and Wan Fang Road, and goes around the back of Tugong Temple at the southern end of Daonan Bridge, reaching the bottom of Yong 'an Street. Gong Yu Tunnel is a small tunnel excavated by Muka's ancestors, and its width is only wider than that of the present Jiangjungou.
Zheng, who was born in the Republic of China 18, said with emotion that Gougong Town has been occupied now, and there are many apartments on both sides of Yong 'an Street. The narrow streets can't see the water town that once relied heavily on nearby rice fields.
For residents, Jingmeixi not only has economic benefits such as transportation and irrigation, but also can not be separated from Jingmeixi in daily life. In the morning, someone went to the stream to fetch water for the whole family. In the afternoon, children and young people go to the stream to pick up coal, catch fish, touch clams and take a bath. In the evening, women go to the stream to wash clothes and gossip. Xu Zhehao of the Literature and History Studio said that in several coal pits next to Jingmeixi (the other side of Muka Zoo), miners often piled coal beside the stream, so that it could be transported to Avenue City by water, and a large amount of coal rolled into the stream. As the river rushes downstream, residents often assign their children to collect coal in the river and take it home as firewood.
Chen Bojun, 7 1 year-old, lives near the Zhongshun Temple in Muka. He said, "I used to walk to the bottom of the river with a big basket." . The grid of the basket is slightly thicker than that of the sieve. After shaking from side to side at the bottom of the stream, fine sand and smaller stones will be separated from the coal and big stones, and then the coal will be picked to the shore to dry and carried home with a pole.
Chen Jiannan, 68, went on to say that before the 1970s, every household still used traditional stoves to make fires. Compared with firewood, coal is more stable and smaller, so many people go to the stream to pick up coal every day.
"Well, there are girls who collect coal for sale, but they can only get a penny for a load," said Gao of the watch shop. At that time, only five or six sweets could be exchanged for a penny. In addition, before the 1960s, water pipes were not popular, and women had to go to Jingmei River to wash clothes. At that time, there were a group of women in Muka area, commonly known as "laundry classes". They not only washed their own clothes, but also helped others to earn money by washing clothes.
Women in the laundry class have to farm in the fields or pick tea in the mountains during the day, so they often go to the stream to wash clothes with kerosene lamps at five o'clock in the evening to avoid going home when the sun goes down. Zhou Qinghua, who lives near Hengguang Bridge in the back hill of Chengchi University, said that she can't remember how much it costs to wash clothes for others once, but these "extra money" are usually saved as private money.
Wenshan's domestic water usually comes from well water, but in winter, well water is often insufficient, so the adjacent and abundant Jingmei River has become the source of water supply.
"I will wash my body when I go to fetch water." Chen Jiannan, who lived next to Zhongshun Temple in Xinglong Road since childhood, said with a smile that boys used to take a bath in Jingmeixi and catch fish and touch clams in the stream. At that time, there were many kinds of fish, and he liked to catch native fish crucian carp and go home to add vegetables. Now, I see foreign Wu Guoyu swimming in Jingmeixi. With the passage of time, dams to prevent floods from attacking homes stand tall, and there is an obvious barrier between residential areas and rivers; The water pollution in the upstream makes the fish in Jingmei River toxic and inedible. The relationship between Jingmeixi and its residents is no longer as close and inseparable as it used to be.
Although Jingmeixi is no longer the traffic artery and irrigation water source of Wenshan residents, the bicycle lanes along the river, riverside parks and Jingmeixi activities organized by Wenshan Community College all allow residents to walk to the river again in various ways, feel the vitality of the stream and enjoy the leisure away from the hubbub.