Rongcheng Road, Lin Yin

A road without roadside trees is like a woman without a necklace around her neck, which does not affect her function, but affects her appearance. Except for more than 300 old buildings with different styles and charming, no one can deny the boulevard and the flowery green space, especially in this spring and summer season. The name of Rongcheng Road is not borrowed from those passes and money gates in the north, but also belongs to the Badaguan Historical Protection Area. The paulownia trees on both sides of the road are nearly a hundred years old, tall and lush, covering the sky, and the houses are single-family gardens. It can be seen that the strength and taste of Qingdao bureaucratic capitalists during the Republic of China are not inferior to those "successful people" living in the eastern new city today. At that time, the urban planning and design level of architects and municipal authorities was significantly higher than that of today's arrogant expert officials.

From the 20th year of the Republic of China (193 1) to the 26th year of the Republic of China (1937), during Shen Honglie's tenure as the mayor of Qingdao, nearly 1,000 mu of areas east of Rongcheng Road, north of Zhanshan Road and south of Taiping Bay were planned as "special construction sites east of Rongcheng Road". It is required that the building density must be below 50%, the green space must be protected, and the permeable wall must be adopted. Take off your political glasses. If you choose two mayors who are particularly memorable to the citizens of this city, the first vote is, and the second vote is. There is a high probability that you will not be scolded.

I have a soft spot for Rongcheng Road, which started in the 1990s when the banking industry began to operate in mixed operations. The bank where I work opened a trust and investment company, rented a big villa at No.7 Rongcheng Road, and operated new businesses other than traditional bank deposits and loans, such as bond stocks, trust funds, financial leasing, etc. During lunch break, I like to wander around or take a walk by bike. Peach trees in Shaoguan Road in spring, begonia and cherry blossoms in Ning Wuguan Road, Lagerstroemia indica in Zhengyangguan Road in summer (later replaced by Magnolia grandiflora), Ginkgo biloba in Juyongguan Road in autumn, five-pointed maple in Jiayuguan Road, French phoenix trees in Wushengguan Road and Rongcheng Road in Shanhaiguan Road, Cedar in Zijingguan Road and Longbai in Linhaiguan Road in winter are all related to these.

While working in Beijing, I met a Qingdao beauty Mei in the construction project of a client company. She is beautiful, plays the piano well, has a life style, is like-minded, and can talk. She later went to Los Angeles with love, and we were close friends of WeChat. I once talked about Qingdao and Rongcheng Road. At the same time, she actually works in Rongcheng Road 1 Villa. She also remembered the old lady who set up a stall at the intersection of Wushengguan Road, and often bought her ice cream baked sweet potatoes. Today, I stopped in front of the pale yellow courtyard wall at the intersection and asked the old lady wearing baked sweet potatoes. She was short, red-faced and wore a white apron, and sold sorbets in summer and winter. The old neighbor in the yard said that the poor lonely old man died more than ten years ago.

There is also a beautiful woman named Hong, who works in the Blue House Office Affairs Bureau at No.2 Rongcheng Road opposite. She is in her twenties, a typical Qingdao native, smart and beautiful, with a sweet voice and talking eyes. She once participated in the first beauty pageant in Qingdao and entered the top few. Her employer is our landlord, and she looks familiar. When there is power failure or machine failure, I go to her to help me type and copy some documents. Young, purposeful and diligent, she always insisted on learning English in her spare time, and then went to the United States to study. After graduation, she married a Greek colleague. She works as a department manager in a famous big bank on Wall Street. She told me that she was living on Manhattan Island. She went to work very late that morning. 9 1 1 stood at her window and witnessed the collapse of the World Trade Center. A few years ago, she went back to Qingdao to visit relatives and saw that she was several sizes older than that. Maybe it's the westernized diet with high fat and high fever that makes me a little sad.

The small courtyard of Building 3 on Rongcheng Road is a few steps lower than Malu Road. A young couple rented and operated a private restaurant called "Good Times". Men cook delicious food, and women keep the yard delicate and clean. At one time, I often invited my friends to drop in. There is a tall cedar in the yard, and a bodhi which is not common in Qingdao, with a full crown. I like the small table under the bodhi tree. Every time I eat there, I will leave many memories of good times. Later, I read the essay "Drinking under the Tree" by A Zhan, a talented woman in Qingdao. She wrote down the delicious food and taste under this tree in this small yard, which made me deeply miss Rongcheng Road. It's a pity that the courtyard we saw today is locked with iron gates and overgrown with weeds, and the bodhi tree is gone, leaving only the lonely cedar.

People are separated, and I am old. Rongcheng Road is still there, still quiet and beautiful. In this season, it is still full of green, cool and pleasant, which makes people reluctant to go. Half of my attachment and concern for this city comes from my relatives who have lived here so far, and the other half comes from these warm homesickness that the old city has given me.