CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- In Lao She’s writing, the teahouses with people coming and going gather together carries happiness, anger, sadness and happiness; Jiaotong Teahouse in Huangjueping, Chongqing, has gone through decades of hardships. Recently, it went viral on Weibo for a photo. It’s a group of long scroll photos called Time, which shows a panoramic view of all the people in the teahouse under the camera of Xiong Liangyan, a photographer from Chongqing. Xiong Liangyan said: “a teahouse is a Jianghu (all corners of the country) or even a world.”

With gray hair and stubble, Xiong Liangyan, 64 years old, is a retired sports worker. In the circle of photography, people prefer to call him “Laomeng”. Some people say that Laomeng is the most obsessed photographer of teahouses in Chongqing. It took him more than three years to take this group of long scroll photos Time which he selected from tens of thousands of photos.

It was in 2017 that Laomeng formed ties with Jiaotong Teahouse. Once upon a time, he saw a picture of Jiaotong Teahouse on the Internet and felt that it was quite artistic, so he went to “find it out” and was conquered as soon as he arrived. “I just like getting into the cracks of time,” Laomeng said.

Since then, Laomeng had become a frequent visitor to the Teahouse, and would spend 3 to 5 days a week staying here. In addition to taking photos, he also drank tea and chatted with everyone, and made many friends over time.

Gradually, Laomeng has taken more and more photos of the Teahouse, and also participated in Pingyao International Photography Exhibition. But the more photos he took, the more he felt that a single photo was always one-sided and fragmented, unable to fully present the style of Jiaotong Teahouse. In 2019, inspired by Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, Laomeng felt that he could make a group of similar long scroll photos.

Starting from the earliest shot in 2017, Laomeng has selected 90 photos from the tens of thousands of photos taken in three years and processed them into this group of long scroll photos. There are a total of 90 characters in these photos; although all of them are in the Teahouse, they were “staggered”. In this way, by the end of 2020, Time was born! And Laomeng named the scroll “Time”.

After the scroll was finished, Laomeng wrote a sentence that “a teahouse is a Jianghu (all corners of the country) or even a world”. The scroll was specially selected to be displayed at the gate of Jiaotong Teahouse, and it was praised by the passers-by and tourists: it seems like Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival very much, and even every detail has a story.

Each character in the scroll photo has a story. The 67-year-old porter Laoxie is a character under Laomeng’s camera. Laoxie has been a porter in Huangjueping for more than 20 years. Whenever he is free, he comes to Jiaotong Teahouse to drink tea and chat with others. However, Laoxie is most proud of being a “model” which is known as “artistic porter”. He not only worked as an oil painting model for painter Chen Anjian, but also appeared in Laomeng’s work Time. Whenever someone asks, he stands in front of a photo and says with a smile that “This is me! Do you think it looks like me?”

Many of the regular visitors of the Teahouse are retired old people nearby. They have been drinking tea in the Teahouse with a table, a chair and a bowl and have never changed for decades. “These three are old acquaintances.” Laomeng said, pointing to the three persons in the photo. These three old persons are all train drivers. They have driven steam locomotives, diesel locomotives and trams, and after retirement, they have been drinking tea here for a long time.

“They have been married for 50 years.” Laomeng said, pointing to a gray-haired old couple in the photo. For more than 20 years, every morning, they have gone out together; Ms. Chen took Mr. Jiang to the Teahouse to drink tea; and she went to buy vegetables and then went back to the Teahouse to pick up Mr. Jiang and went home to cook the meal together.

Nowadays, not only the regular tea guests but also many young person come to the Teahouse. Their clothes are bright and fashionable, which adds vitality to the Teahouse. In the photo, there is a young couple standing opposite each other; and the boy is a soldier who once served as a platoon leader at the military parade of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In order to participate in the military parade training, he postponed their wedding. After successfully completing the task, he took his fiancée to Chongqing for a visit and made a special trip to the Teahouse to experience the cultural atmosphere.

In Laomeng’s words, the story of the Teahouse is endless; and in the future, he will continue staying in the Teahouse and recording more stories with camera. Maybe a few years later, Jiaotong Teahouse will not be the same as it is now; but as long as you look back at Time, you will not forget the old teahouses in Chongqing. (Translated by Zhang Ying, Fathom Language Limited)