Amateur photographer Xu Xixian's efforts to chronicle the city before it changed beyond recognition has been a lifelong passion.
It's 2:30 in the morning. Xu Xixian has just finished glazing the last photo of the day -- 64 in total. He extends his arms and rubs the sleep from his eyes. Xu relaxes and feels proud after developing and enlarging pictures for more than seven hours, a daily task for the past 34 years.
The darkroom, a converted attic, is probably the crudest a photographer could imagine. Xu has used this space to develop more than 5,000 rolls of film which represents a mere 25 percent of the pictures he has taken -- all black-and-white.
"I really enjoy the moment when the first sunlight fills the room," says the 61-year-old, his back and shoulders hunched since the darkroom stands no more than 1.2 meters. "This is where I seized every minute to note with my camera the astounding changes of the city." Xu's special interest in shooting Shanghai differs from his peers. Nowadays, most photographers, amateur or professional, prefer landscapes or models. Not Xu however.
"To me, photography is a way to record rather than to make a living," he says. "What I am most concerned about is how my lens could keep pace with the development of the city." It was in 1954 that the idea of tracing the changes of the city first occurred to Xu, just 12-years-old at the time. He ventured beyond the normal places of his small world when his parents asked him to buy medicine for his younger brother.
"The drugstore was located in the Jiangwan Town and that's the very first time I had the opportunity to get away from all the downtown hustle and bustle," the amateur photographer recalls. "The wind caressed my face and I never imagined before that there was such a wonderland in the city."
Photography wasn't Xu's first thought though. Inspired by the scenery, he attempted to recreate what he saw by drawing and painting. Despite his failure as an artist, Xu didn't give up on the idea of documenting the city's beauty.
For the next 10 years, he made an unremitting effort to verify the historic and scenic spots in Shanghai's surrounding rural areas. As his weekly excursions accumulated, Xu became discontent with the simple walk-and-look practice, especially after witnessing a large number of historical remains being hastily destroyed.
"You can hardly blame those who ruin the relics," Xu says with regret. "Nobody noticed the real value behind those bricks and debris. I once tried to contact local administrations, but they seemed to be too occupied with other affairs to lend a hand. That's why in 1968 I spent all my savings to get my first camera. At least our offspring can see from my pictures what Shanghai was once like."
By the end of 2002, Xu figures he's covered more than 30,000 kilometers throughout Shanghai -- approximately double the distance between New York and Kuala Lumpur -- including about 500 towns all the way to Donghai County on the border of Shanghai and Zhejiang Province. Considering Xu has taken more than 20,000 photos and has jotted down roughly 500,000 words in travel notes, it's hard to believe that lack of time used to be the biggest obstacle Xu encountered.
As a shop assistant at the Shanghai No 9 Grain Shop in Hongkou District, Xu had a stable position in a state-owned enterprise -- a position regarded as a "golden bowl" in the old days. But Xu decisively resigned to become a mechanic at the shop's warehouse. "From the late 1970s, especially after the reform and opening-up, Shanghai grew amazingly rapidly and as the mechanical work required less time, I had more freedom to make my shots," Xu says, without any hint of regret.
After more than 34 years of painstakingly detailed documentation of the changing urban landscape, Xu is finally receiving recognition for his efforts. Contacted by Xu's son, an officer with the Shanghai Urban Construction Archives, who refused to identify himself, admitted that he and his colleagues were more shocked than touched when first saw Xu's collection. "He has never had any formal training," says the officer. "The style of his work is simple, even clumsy with the focus sometimes not adequately fixed. But the essence of his pictures lies in its unique visual angle of the common people as a beholder of the city's most significant period."
The archives is now negotiating with the retired mechanic on organizing a long-running exhibition to showcase how Shanghai has developed into a modern metropolis.
Though the archives bureau is home to a collection of more than 200,000 files and documents dating back to 1885, the officer believes Xu's "photo album" helps the government understand the city better. "We sometimes lay more emphasis on the speed and scale of the reconstruction of the city," says the officer. "But more or less ignore the humanistic value." With the exhibition coming around, Xu Jianrong, Xu's son and assistant, is busy preparing. "It's really painstaking and tedious work," complains the 34-year-old.
"But since my father's eyesight and health have begun to deteriorate, I think it is my obligation to take over the task." Xu junior has just quit his job at the Shanghai Shipyard to fully devote himself to the publication of his father's travel notes. "That won't be easy as up to now we haven't found any ideal sponsorship," he says. Even the most generous publisher -- unsure of the book's commercial value -- is asking for 50,000 yuan (US$6,024) to help cover publishing costs.
But Xu Jianrong still believes the financial problem can be resolved. With the determination his father has shown during the past three decades, he now goes out with the camera to record changes in the ongoing history of this evolving metropolis. As for Xu, well, he's still likely to be working in the darkroom late into the night.
(Eastday.com July 9, 2003)
