Beijing Longfu Temple
Longfu Temple is situated in the west of Dongsi North Street, which was first built in Jingtai three years (1425) of the Ming Dynasty, and then rebuilt in the ninth year of the Yongzheng reign of the Qing Dynasty. Longfu Temple in the Ming Dynasty is the capital's only Fan (lamas), Zen (monks) reside in the same temple, the Qing Dynasty became a complete Lama Temple.
The Longfu Temple in Beijing was once one of the incense houses of the imperial court and became a famous grand temple in the capital. Because it is located in the East City, and the Guoguo Temple opposite, commonly known as "East Temple". During the Qing Dynasty, the old calendar every month on the first, second, ninth, tenth temple, in 1930 to use the solar calendar on the first, second, ninth, tenth temple. Whenever a temple fair is held, there are crowds of people, including aristocrats living in the nearby royal residences, foreigners living in the embassy area of Dongjiaominxiang Alley, poor citizens and peasants living in the suburbs, all of whom come to the temple fair. Here you can buy all kinds of local products, eat many kinds of Beijing local flavor snacks and see Beijing folk opera. In the Beijing Bamboo Tree Lyrics, it is said that during the heyday of the temple fair, "one day can spend millions of dollars".
Longfusi Street, the west entrance, there is a private barber store, the owner is a one meter seven eight middle-aged man, he cut the hair of the craft is not outstanding, that is, the speed is very fast, of course, after the absolute hand, and children and students, all 15 cents, adults 25 cents, the price is low. He opened the door to the evening, a person shaving hundred and ten are not resting, I saw with my own eyes at noon by his wife to a sea bowl of noodles, almost two minutes was swallowed by him, and then picked up the pusher and greeted, patiently waiting for people can not help but applauded, in the applause, he shaved more vigorously. I went to him every time I shaved my head, mainly to appreciate his fast shaving body, and watch the Peking Opera martial arts performances about the same.
When the Longfusi Street, if you go in from the west exit, the eye is planted on the roadside of the tall acacia, acacia blossoms, the fragrance of the face. Our ancestors planted this variety of acacia on both sides of the road. In the summer, if you have the old-fashioned feelings, you can go to the Drum Tower East Street to walk, where it still maintains the appearance of the year: acacia unique shape of the tree as a large umbrella, thick shade to the street to cover up a tightly, both sun and rain and wind. Back then, the sedan chair went out, not only the owner is comfortable, the bearer is also pleased. Our ancestors in order to optimize the living environment, is the hard work. From the west entrance into the Longfusi Street, into the eyes of the face of a room, or live or do small business with the west side of Longfusi Street accounted for one-third of the zone, although also downtown, can be surprisingly quiet. When you walk through a window decorated with portraits of the face of the child, the real downtown only appeared, in front of the floor stalls vendors shouting to sell things, and the air began to waft through a variety of food smells.
I wandered, the historical splendor of the Longfor Temple has been the scenery is no longer, the temple's front wall open mouth, when the appearance has been very difficult to see out. The back of the hall is also open, installed glass windows, opened for the department store, which installed electric lights, full of counters: the first into the temple to sell daily necessities, the second into the temple to sell food. Just in the temple east and west room corridor there are sporadic stalls to do small business. For example, with half a person high dragon head large copper kettle for you to make tea, a bowl of dry tea soup at the bottom of the noodle so that the boiling water a stimulus, almost instantly turned into a steaming paste of deep yellow tea soup, coupled with the green wire red silk, in the middle of the put a red cherry preserved. I don't need to eat, but it's a sight for sore eyes. At that time, to buy a bottle warmer, buy a sock and hat, in addition to Wangfujing is here. So the shopping mall in Longfuji Temple was particularly prosperous, and this prosperity continued until the early 1980s. As for food, that time many people with low incomes, always go to buy Longfuji Temple two into the temple food cupboards to deal with pastry crumbs, one or two cents to buy half a catty, oily can be relieved. Today's youth has been difficult to figure out the psychology of eating pastry crumbs.
In the market, there are still people from abroad, take a baggage skin to the ground a stall, set up from where I do not know where to drum up jade, porcelain, wood carvings, half closed eyes and other people to bargain; there are also letting thread-bound books; sell their own shoes and insoles of cloth; and there is a person specializing in the sale of their own needle threading device, the old man is holding a line held up the needle threading device to compare the old lady buyers quite a lot. However, the number of such small traders is getting smaller and smaller. In addition, there are also pulling the film, I paid in that small shot a few times, and did not see good. After a few more years, the east-west promenade was demolished, and a three-story mall office was built against the temple's east wall, and they disappeared completely.
Longfor temple this street, only three or four hundred meters long, the western third of the store is very little, the real lively place is Longfor temple gate east of the part. Now Longfusi Street in addition to the road south of the enema store and the road north of the photo studio is decades old, there is really nothing left. The old Bai Kui number has also been renovated and does not look the same as it did back then. When I was a child, I always go to the Toad Palace Cinema diagonally across the villain bookstore, villain bookstore from the beach to Longfuji on the road there are two, one in the southwest corner of the intersection of the pig market street corner of the corner of the face is not big, but the villain inside the book, east and west of the three south walls from the ground to the roof are, the owner of the heart of a fine, so much villainous books all wrapped in kraft paper cover. Sit inside to see, a penny a book, take home to see, two cents a book, but must be returned the next day. If you want to buy them, you have to go to this one in Longfor Temple. This is because of its attractive feature: it often sells new books with wrong bindings. Once, spent three cents to buy a brand-new book of small people, "one of the fire of the King Kong: Shi Renewal a bomb breakout", the reason why the cheap, because the cover is mounted on the reverse, does not affect the see.
Adjacent to the little man bookstore is selling a variety of loaded caddisflies, crickets cans and all kinds of caddisflies, crickets, and goldfish birds and fish food bird food store, from the end of summer, there are always a few benches in front of the door of the morning and evening children of varying lengths, are full of people, the sound of the human voice, caddisflies chirping, crickets chirping intertwine together. In winter, people crowded into the small store, there is a big stove, the fire shoots up a foot high, warm as spring. Whenever I pushed the door, the old people would scold me, "Get out!" But I was in this moment, more than once heard the winter grasshoppers and crickets chirping, but also saw an old man in a cotton robe carefully removed from the arms of the shiny caddisfly gourd, carved with Liu Hai play golden toad, good-looking. These old men who keep winter bugs have bulges on their chests, which are actually their precious gourds. I bought a goldfish here, the red body is very beautiful, it has a habit of playing floats: often jump up from the water, do carp jump Dragon Gate action, very beautiful, but for it is very dangerous. Once, I went to Longfusi Street to buy fish food for it, go in a hurry, forgot to cover the fish tank on the grates, and came home to find that it has been dry dead on the table, I was so sad to hold the red goldfish bawling. After crying, I put it and just bought fish food in a small porcelain bowl, buried at the foot of the mountain, counting it to find a good home.
This store to the east, there is a buckle mold seller. It is made of red clay mold and then burned toys, the Monkey King, Piggy, Monk Sha, Duo Erdun, Huang Tianba, Lu Zhishen, there are tigers, lions, elephants. They are half the size of an apple, inside the empty, but there are a variety of lines, children to buy back, loaded with wet soil, pressure porcelain, and then to the desktop a buckle, get! Living Monkey King or something out. I bought how many buckle mold, even their own can not remember.
On the opposite side of the Longfusi Street Toad Palace movie theater is the old Baikui, when I was young, I only bought sheep's head meat. The boiled sheep's head was piled on top of a three-foot diameter bubbling pot, technically on a grate above the pot. Whoever bought it, the old man selling the sheep's head would neatly hook one from the top with a small iron hook and put it on a scale, weigh it, and ask, "Do you want to pick it?" If you say "pick", just a blink of an eye, the whole sheep's face will become a sheet of paper-like spread on the big case. More than once I kept my eyes on the old man's hands, but in the end I couldn't see how he managed to get all the meat off the sheep's head. Customers want to cut into thin slices, the old man also managed to cut, and finally sprinkled with pepper, put a small cilantro, wrapped in yellow straw paper. The unique aroma of Baikui lamb's head meat is still unforgettable. Store fried cat ears are also delicious, Zhang Zhongxing old Mr. said Baikui old number of rotten meat noodles I did not have the blessing of the mouth, just read in the book.
Adjacent to the deepest part of the hutongs east of Longfusi Temple, there is a movie theater, said it is a movie theater and not quite right, it is called Dongsi Theater, basically a daytime movie, the evening performance of the Beijing opera and other reviews. Our school organized a puppet show called Pinocchio. It gave me a deep impression is often playing the old movie, usually from morning to night to play seven or eight are a film, the ticket price is children and students five cents, adults 10 cents, I often go there to see the movie, not only cheap and fewer people, the air is good and less noise.
Longfusi Street is not long, but there are four movie theaters, starting from the East: Star, Workers' Club, Toad Palace, East Fourth Theater, a collection of movie theaters, which was fashionable with the film industry. Whenever a new movie is staged, buy tickets in a long line of people, staged "Meng Longsha", I actually got out of school and lined up for three hours to buy a ticket, in the thick of the night walked back to Xinkai Road Hutong with glee. Now that I think about it, it's unbelievable.
The photo studio west of the Workers' Club is also a very lively place. But I went to the west of the current Toad Palace, there is a small two-story photo studio, to join the Children's League, the Young Pioneers are here to take a picture, 60 cents a. In those days, there was a queue for the photo, and when the next number was coming up, the attendant would tell you to lift the curtain and go to the inner room to comb your hair. There were mirrors and small combs in the room. When I saw the adults treating me like an "adult", I was always happy to look in the mirror and get the little comb to comb my hair.
By Longfusi Street east of the enema store seems to be open from morning to night, the sign is across the doorway of the high steps of the three-foot diameter of the big cake pan is always fried full of thin slices of sausage, with gasoline barrels converted to the stove leaping fire, frying sausage white smoke, squeaking and squeaking sound. At that time people's standard of living is low, can eat less meat, fried after the crunchy vegetarian sausage with minced garlic, both gluttony and hunger. So there is always a queue in front of the enema store, there are customers carrying a small bottle of Erguotou wine, ready to eat while drinking a few mouthfuls, the sale of extraordinarily prosperous. Out of curiosity, I also lined up to eat a time, the experience is: the enema fried flavor is really good, but requires people to eat the stomach must be strong, because it is not good digestion.
The Chinese bookstore next to the enema store I do not go much, because the content of the books inside the esoteric, far from my hair child can drum up understanding. The east exit is often a roadside selling children's Monkey King masks and thin wooden sticks made of red tasseled spears, long knives, plain swords, golden rods and so on, and he poked the spears and knives into the shape of a mountain with the tip upwards, and the masks were hung on the wall of the hutong. Here is my paradise, because of the old, sell fun all know me, he called me this hairy child for "old customers", see me in his eyes "face familiar" degree. The reason for this familiarity is that his sword and spear are "pewter spearheads, not useful. We boys are concerned about the knife and gun fight, just a fight, only to hear "ah ah" sound, either the knife is broken or gun broken, in order to continue the game had to go back to buy a new one. Usually buy a mask after I will be on the face, buy a knife on the slanting back, like a chivalrous hand dancing in the red tasseled spear, and the air to embark on the way back.
Dongkou, slightly north of the corner, there is a chemical store, I often go in the summer to buy citric acid and saccharin, go home and drink their own cool water to soda, but its location has been out of the range of Longfusi Street. Strolling on Longfusi Street is to feel its ubiquitous atmosphere of old Beijing culture. People and the environment are connected by the realm, and can enjoy the happiness brought by this atmosphere. Once this atmosphere disappears, the "popularity" will be gone