Past life of Spring Festival market

A few years ago, when I went to Changzhou Library, I always took a bus to Yingchun Pedestrian Street and then strolled all the way from the pedestrian street.

At a certain stage, there was a flea market with many stalls. Some Tibetans sell Tibetan ornaments and dzi beads, some sell rabbits and hamsters, some sell headdresses and hairpins, some sell fake antiques, and more are all kinds of snacks ... I will stop to buy a string of fried rice cakes or bananas and go shopping while eating.

Further on is an old house surrounded by a bamboo fence. The white wall has turned gray and covered with moss. A circle of tall Chinese rose flowers was planted around the wall, and red, pink and yellow flowers went straight outside the wall. There is a sign at the door that says "Changzhou Rose Research Institute". Every time I pass by, I stand on tiptoe and look in, but I can't see anything. Rose is the city flower of Changzhou. I never imagined that there was a special research institute hidden in such a bustling city center.

Go further and cross an alley, which is the Catholic Church. It stood solemnly in this place for many years, with two black doors closed.

I graduated in the year of Hong Kong's return 1997. At that time, Wujin was not a district of Changzhou, but an independent county, occupying a place among the top 100 counties in China. Yingchun market is not a pedestrian street, but a free market full of stalls.

Go shopping with classmates on weekends and squeeze through the bustling crowd. We bought something to eat at the roadside stall as we walked. There are small snowflakes in winter, and we stand by and sell the baked sweet potatoes and share the steaming baked sweet potatoes; In summer, we eat and talk with ice cream in our hands. When I was hungry at noon, I ate beef fried dumpling and Changzhou tofu soup at the food stall in the center of the market. ...

At that time, the Spring Festival market was still a shed built by high-arch colored steel tiles, and the stalls inside were crowded and covered with clothes and bags. The stall owner is fierce, so the counter-offer is even more. They call names directly, which is rude and barbaric. We overcame our fears and made a difficult counter-offer.

Not long after, Changzhou began to vigorously develop its economy and demolished and rebuilt everywhere. The semi-open free market bears the brunt of the Spring Festival market. During the reconstruction, all of them moved into the newly-built construction road and bridge market next to them. At that time, it was popular to build a pedestrian street, and the original Yingchun market was transformed into a pedestrian street.

However, in a few years, the pedestrian street has become increasingly depressed and deserted, and the inexplicable and unpopular streets have rapidly declined.

Time is the best witness to the rise and fall of a market.