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Between the Tracks; Ancient Pukou

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6am:a corner of Pukou, chickens scratch the ground between the railway tracks; sunrise.

A prevalence of old faces, those who have risen with the dawn. Some exercise with slow movements by the side of the road, others still decked out in quilted jackets stop for a chat. Steam rises from the roadside cafes.

This is a place seemingly at odds with the surrounding frenzied development of the Jiangbei New Area. There are no shining new apartment blocks here. Instead, small alleyways run off each other, tight clusters of old brick buildings, doorways open leading onto the street. Typically, they have few windows and at a glance the interiors look impossibly dark.

Nearby a corner of the park, a quiet noodle shop with a few old residents occupying stools. Bowls of fragrant spiced chicken broth. 2 pm, the boss catches a break at the rear of his shop, sitting down with a bottle of beer.

It would not take much of a stretch of the imagination to suggest that this area and its residents have been forgotten by the rest of the city. However, this was once the hub not only of Pukou, but of the whole city of Nanjing; the old Nanjing North Station which lies in the centre of the area formed the main arterial link to northern China.

At a small shop that backed onto the station, I paused a moment. Being early afternoon, the “laoban” (boss) reclined in a chair, a dog curled on the seat beside her. Stating the obvious, I remarked that the area seemed to have a lot of history. “Of course it does,” she quipped back quickly, “but the houses here are just old and badly built.” She had lived in this corner of Pukou all her life, “The train used to go from the North Station here to Beijing, Lanzhou, into Sichuan; 40 years ago this was a lively place”.

Before the opening of China’s first train ferry service in 1933, all arriving passengers from the north and west had to disembark in Pukou, from here ferrying across the Yangtze from the Pukou Ferry (still in operation today) to continue their journey. Famously, Sun Yat Sen’s remains arrived here from Beijing, crossed the Yangtze from the ferry, were carried up the specially constructed Zhongshan Lu and finally interred in his mausoleum at Zhongshan Ling.

Built around 1912 just after Sun Yat Sen’s presidential inauguration, now the station lies largely disused other than the occasional freight train. Its faded façade shows signs of age, but the European style design typical of Republican-era China still draws those eager for a picture.

A popular place for wedding shoots, there have even been Republican-era dramas shot here. Stopping in front of the old station entrance to take a picture, a woman driving a small red panelled tricycle drew up in front of me. She gesticulated to a small photo album, displaying pictures of foreign visitors she had taken “behind the scenes” onto the tracks and the old railway bridge of the station. “This bridge was built by the British”, she said, also thrusting a crumpled sheet of paper before me. On it was the short essay, “My Father’s Back” written in 1925 by renown poet, Zhu Ziqing, which describes a moment of parting from his father at the station, a view of his father’s back as he struggles to climb up from the tracks on the other side of the station brings tears to the young narrator’s eyes.

I could relate to the author’s choice of setting. The area surrounding the station conjures a feeling of forlorn endurance, now imbued with a hint of romantic nostalgia for a time gone by. That afternoon as I sat on a nearby wall, a car pulled up, a family getting out with photographer in tow. Quickly arranging their equipment under the station arches, they clustered together, their child wrapped around and clinging to, one of the uprights. A few quick shots, 5 minutes and they were gone.

Whether those living here desire to follow them is difficult to know. From the way the woman at the shop talked, she clearly had a connection to the area. I wondered whether she wanted to remain here; “I’m not young, there’s no chance for me to move”. I left it at that.

Leaving the station behind, further up the road, a railway crossing. Houses, well shaken by years of passing carriages, clustered either side of the tracks. The space between the tracks had been cultivated, with narrow lines of vegetables growing. Walking down the tracks I passed a woman bent low on a stool cleaning some roots. “Is this in use?”, I asked. “Trains have just stopped coming, you can walk here,” she replied.

Farther along, a lake borders the track, with on its far side, a mass of houses all but slithering down the muddy bank to the waters’ edge. “Hello,” a call came from the tall grass nearby; a young man sprang up, beckoning me over. We chatted for a while as large fish leapt, splashing occasionally in the lake. He had lived near these tracks his whole life.

A quiet lane ran parallel to the tracks, lined sporadically by low dwellings. Outside one, a table, objects arranged carelessly. “Will you have a drink?”, an old man in cammo jacket, poking his head out of the gloom pointed towards a hand painted sign advertising free, boiled water. “No matter, there are plenty of them”, he gestured to an array of rusting metal flasks stacked by the wall. The afternoon was hot, I drank from the flask, while he chattered, and we looked out over the railway. “When I was young, we used to jump onto the slow-moving trains here. We could hitch a ride down the tracks.” That was some 60 years ago, other than a near toothless grin he belied his age, eyes twinkling with good humour. Behind the house, diggers worked biting large chunks out of the ground, crawling mechanically over a dusty wasteland. “They’re building a subway through here”, he said.

More houses, down tight twisting alleys, tucked in the corner of an old courtyard a stone fist thrust upwards, a memorial to the soldiers of resistance to the Japanese. 5,000 Chinese troops had been captured here by the invaders, with only 800 surviving.

Again, the road narrowed, two men loitered outside an open doorway, they seemed keen for a chat. They had both come from Anhui to work here in the Nanjing No.3 port company, which I had passed on my way. Living here together, saving money, one man told me he had just bought a flat for his daughter in Nanjing city. “There aren’t any young people around here”, he told me as his friend tended a makeshift stove. Today happened to be their last; with their company struggling financially, a small protest had taken place just up the road; two of the protesters had been taken off by the police. Now, they had chosen to look for other work elsewhere.

Back near the park, a street with students being collected from school. As I passed, the marble name plague on the school gate gleamed, Nanjing Jiang Bei New Area Primary School, it had been Pukou Railway Primary only a week before. Half in, half out of a shuttered building, a husband and wife worked busily, her rolling dough, him sticking flat, oval rounds to the inside of a metal drum. A young couple stood with me waiting for the “Shaobing” to cook. From the Pukou campus of Nanjing University some 10 km away, they had come to look around and take some pictures, before taking the ferry across the river. Despite living so close by, they deemed this an area to visit.

With now the light fading and the road growing noisy with bikes disembarked from the matou, I turned for home. Just ten minutes ride away, but seemingly worlds apart.

One would think that the government approved creation of the Jiangbei New Area in 2015 sounded the death knell for an area such as this. Posters advertising new housing developments cling firmly to lamp posts. Many buildings lie derelict, seemingly awaiting their fate. Yet a community remains, caught between the railway tracks. The old station was added to the key cultural relics’ protection roster in 2013, securing its legacy. Indeed, the immediate station area looks to have been marked out for development, most of the buildings beside it unoccupied. Five minutes down the road and signs of construction/restoration fade. Still, the future for those living in the area would appear uncertain. With the ever-encroaching march of progression, new apartments rise up in the distance farther down the tracks. For many this seems an irresistible lure, a new modern life, while others, typically from the older generation, feel bound to a community that once in the not too distant past was a thriving centre.

As little more than a passer by, it is difficult not to view this unique and ancient corner of Nanjing through a nostalgic lens. There still appears to be a strong sense of community, but ultimately many people yearn for a different life. Who knows how long they shall have to wait?

For the visitor the area around Pukou park and the old North Station provides a fascinating insight into a now seldom seen way of Nanjing life. Here the bright lights of Xinjiekou could not feel farther away. Those wanting to visit should do so sooner rather than later.

Take the ferry from the end of Zhongshan Bei Lu (¥1, but better to double the fare and take a bike with you), retrace the route of so many past Nanjing travellers and in 15 minutes, find yourself in a different world, one between the railway tracks.


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