It took six hours to drive more than 4 kilometers from Shenzhen to the ancient town of Songkou in Meizhou. I was a little tired, but I satisfied my thoughts for a long time. After passing the Meidong Bridge, you entered the ancient town of Songkou. The old house with an old smell, the streets with few tourists, the boss dozing in the shop and the street dog strolling lazily, time seems to have solidified in the 197 s and 198 s.
before I go, I have planned to shoot Shidetang, Chongqingdi, Chengde Building and Qinzhi Village. When I arrived at the ancient town of Songkou, I walked along the street with my camera and gradually lost my established direction. It was only when it was dark that I realized that the ancient town of Songkou, which had been visited for a day, was actually just one of the scenic spots. Songkou Town includes three towns: Songkou Town, Songdong Town and Songnan Town. There are several scenic spots such as Songkou Town Scenic Area, Xianxi Scenic Area, Yunmei Scenic Area, Songnan Scenic Area and Songdong Scenic Area.
The best arcades and shops in Songkou Ancient Town are all built along the Meijiang River, concentrated on the old street from the Immigrants Memorial Square to Meidong Bridge, but the legendary main attractions are scattered and not here. For example, Yuankui Tower is five kilometers away from the town, and it takes at least two hours to walk back and forth, which shows how big the ancient town of Songkou was.
In the "Fireboat Wharf" in Songkou ancient town, advertisements for cigarettes and soap from the Republic of China period have been restored on the wall, and there are many sculptures on the steps, including dockers carrying goods, wanderers carrying boxes away from home, and wives who bring children to bid farewell. People from Jiaoling and Pingyuan, and even people from Jiangxi and Fujian, all sailed to Chaozhou and Shantou from the Fireboat Wharf. Lee Kuan Yew's great-grandfather Li Muwen and Thaksin and Yingla's great-grandfather Qiu Shunsheng all set out from here and crossed the ocean to Singapore and Thailand.
There is a five-story Chinese and Western building above the pier. Songjiang Hotel, built in the Republic of China, still looks modern today. It was the best hotel in Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi, and people who left home and returned home liked to stay here. In 1924, Chiang Kai-shek came to live here. Later renamed Songjiang Hotel, it is now the Songkou Overseas Chinese Literature and History Museum. There is a ruler on the wall of the building on the left side of the wharf, which records the highest water level of 6 meters in the history of Songkou ancient town, which is about three stories high. Songkou ancient town has suffered more than 4 floods.
"Xiao He was successful, but Xiao He was defeated". The decline of Songkou ancient town was related to water, but the prosperity of that year was also due to water. At that time, there was no land transportation, and the waterway in Song Yuan was an important transportation channel. Songkou Town became an important commercial center in Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces, and was known as the four ancient towns in Lingnan with Chenghai in Shantou, Xingtan in Shunde and Zhuji in Nanxiong. However, only Songkou Town still retains its past appearance.
At the end of Shide New Street in the ancient town is China (Meizhou) Immigrants Memorial Square, which was established by UNESCO. There are arrows in four directions on the road sign in the square, which indicate the distance between Songkou and the rest of the world. Lima is 18,91 kilometers, Toronto is 12,39 kilometers, San Francisco is 1,811 kilometers, Amsterdam is 9,224 kilometers, London is 9,565 kilometers, Sydney is 7,463 kilometers, Kuala Lumpur is 2,818 kilometers, etc. Perhaps it is to remind wanderers who leave home not to forget the way home.
from the 17th century to the 2th century, there were more than 7 million immigrants who left their homes in Songkou and drifted to more than 8 countries and regions. Up to now, more than 18, people have lived abroad, but there are more than 8, overseas Chinese living in Songkou Town with 7, people. When overseas Chinese return home dressed in fine clothes, they bring back a lot of money, or send back their hard work income to their hometown, and build houses and shops that combine Chinese and western styles. Renovated his home.
Hundreds of meters long and only 3 or 4 meters wide, Shide New Street once had hundreds of shops, including department stores, restaurants, hotels, tobacco and candy grocery stores, restaurants, rice shops, cloth shops, gold shops and money shops. Below the arcade are shops, homes upstairs and even balconies. What a magnificent look it was in those days. The arcades are all connected, so even if it rains, you won't get wet when you visit the shops on the whole street.
On the road of prosperity, there are two or three storeys of small foreign buildings, balconies and fences, and the street that only allows a carriage to pass through has gothic doorposts. There are many diaojiao buildings in the houses near Meijiang River. There are steps leading to the river and many small docks where you can dock. At the peak of Songkou Town, there were 29 large and small docks along the river.
different from arcades, there are many purely Chinese buildings in Songkou town and nearby villages-Hakka enclosed houses, for example, Shidetang enclosed dragon house, with more than 2 rooms. Driving to Nanxia Village to shoot Yuankui Tower, I passed by an enclosed house in Dexinju, an old enclosed house where 12 families lived. Now it looks quite large. Walking carefully on the second floor of the dragon enclosure, the worn floor is dusty and seems to awaken old memories.
It is said that you can enjoy the panoramic view of Dexinju's enclosed house when you climb the 4-year-old Yuankui Tower in Ming Dynasty. On the way by car, there are countless complete enclosed houses. At first I saw an enclosed house and got off to shoot it. Later, I found that there were too many, so I just enjoyed it in the car.
Fang Yumao Wharf is another wharf in the ancient town, which is much smaller than Fireboat Wharf, but there is a Little Square beside it, and the residential buildings near the river have the best scenery. Western wall lamps, windows and gates, yellow-brown walls, if not a local fishing by the river, would really think it was an ancient castle by the sea in a foreign country.
Walking along the prosperous road to Meidong Bridge, there is a house that is obviously different from other houses, and the door reads "Taishidi". Taishi is an official of the imperial court, belonging to the Hanlin Academy, the house of the academician of the Qing Dynasty, which can also be called "Taishidi". Taishidi was once regarded as Songjiang Academy, and now it has become a home. Go in from the alley on the right of Taishi, turn right at the end, and there is another academy not far away, which is called Academy Street.
The ancient town of Songkou is a place with the fragrance of books. It has always admired and valued education. There have been dozens of Hanlin, Jinshi and Juren in the ancient town of Songkou. In May 1918, Dr. Sun Yat-sen visited Songkou, lived in Aichun Building and gave a speech at Songkou Public School (now Songjiang Middle School). The famous Yuankui Tower was built by Li Shichun, a bachelor of Hanlin in Ming Dynasty. He was the 18th Huikui, so it was called Yuankui Tower.
Chongwen places great emphasis on education, with honest folk customs. In a small restaurant in front of Zhongshan Park, we looked for the local food "bamboo shoots", and the restaurant owner gave detailed instructions to buy it in another restaurant, which is impossible in the city. In an alley, I saw an old man with an old ring and an old watch. He used tobacco cigarettes on the steps and asked me to photograph him. When I left, he also handed me tobacco to smoke. It's a pity that I quit smoking, otherwise I really want to smoke with him and feel the leisurely time in the ancient town.
You can't visit the ancient town of Songkou without going to Meidong Bridge. At sunset, it is a great enjoyment to watch the twilight on the bridge. Walking from Meidong Bridge to the ancient town, there are old western-style foreign buildings on both sides, most of which have been abandoned or idle, but it is a good place to take pictures.
Two streets behind the old street, with newer houses, are the vegetable markets in Songkou ancient town, where tourists rarely visit. This is the world of local people. In a stall selling stuffed tofu, I saw the stall owner making stuffed tofu, which contained a lot of meat. It was really sincere. At another street corner, I saw a shop that said mallet meatballs. A master was chopping meat, watching me take pictures, and told me that he was making mallet meatballs.
The vegetable market sells all kinds of vegetables and fruits, as well as many dried vegetables, wild vegetables and Chinese herbal medicines. If you like to make soup, there are various medicinal and dietary materials such as Ficus hirta, Paederia, Myrtle, Patrinia, Gynostemma pentaphyllum and so on, which all smell delicious. However, there is one of the most famous fruits in the vegetable market that has not been listed, that is, Songkou Jinyou, and then traveling is to eat enough seasons.
Speaking of eating in the ancient town of Songkou, it is still memorable. In Yiji Hotel, they ate eight-treasure glutinous rice, purslane and meatball soup, and they only spent 7 yuan. Matsuguchi's hammer pill is very famous. It is delicious to beat pork or beef into paste, add mushrooms, eggs, tofu and onion ginger, and be sure to add cassava powder, or fry or cook soup. In addition, don't miss the salted chicken, tea, sweet sheep and sheep vinegar soup in Songkou.
I had lunch at Jubinyuan Restaurant, where I spent 85 yuan on fried beef with pickles and tomatoes, bitter wheat and fish head tofu soup. The boss uses distiller's grains to stir-fry bitter barley vegetables, which can remove bitterness. I bought bamboo sticks in another small restaurant near the park lake, one in 1.5 yuan. The skin of bamboo shoots is made of potato powder, which is crystal clear and bright, and tastes super strong. It is wrapped with bamboo shoots and a little meat, shrimp, mushrooms and other ingredients. If you eat one, you must eat the second. Go back to the shop asking for directions and have breakfast. A bowl of Hakka pickled noodles, a bowl of Sanji soup or pork liver medlar soup, and a perfect breakfast is only ten yuan.
The pine-mouth fairy hairpin, which must be eaten to relieve summer heat, is a paste made of fairy grass. With honey and banana dew, the black one looks like turtle ling paste, which is sweet and delicious. With a piece of luobing, the yin and yang of the food are balanced. Fried rice noodles with fish, ginger and distiller's grains are the famous fish powder; Many people have eaten Mitai (Moss) in Taiwan Province and Malaysia, which is actually a mouse hairpin in Meizhou. Rice flour balls are rubbed into white vermicelli with a sieve, and both ends are pointed and shaped like mouse excrement, so it is called "mouse excrement hairpin", and it is called mouse hairpin for listening.
At present, it is convenient to travel to Songkou Ancient Town by car. If it is public transportation, you can take a bus and train to Meizhou, and take a bus to Songkou Town at Yuemei Bus Terminal. There are not many hotels and inns in the ancient town of Songkou, but the hotels in the town can certainly accommodate people. Many old houses suitable for hotels need to be activated.
The ancient town of Songkou is most famous for Hakka folk songs. Unfortunately, not many people can sing them. After the roads extended in all directions, Songkou lost its waterway advantage and its former prosperity. Young people left the ancient town and old houses were gradually abandoned. However, the high-speed railway in Meizhou will be opened soon at the end of the year, and it takes only one or two hours for Shenzhen and Guangzhou to go to Meizhou West Station. Songkou is likely to become a popular tourist town and regain its glory.
Walking in the devastated western small building, the alleys carved in a thousand years are like wonderful sketches in front of us, which makes people feel sad. I can't help but think of the sentence "She is dying before she is old". Traveling to the ancient town of Songkou, if it is said that it is to find a dormant small town, it is better to find a quiet place far away from the city and put an increasingly impetuous mood.