Aunt Ma's life ushered in a new inflection point, and after following Old Man Zhang in the square until she retired, she finally took the ticket to the dance hall.
There was no doubt that she was not the youngest of the old-fashioned cabarets.
The dance hall is divided into three performances: morning, middle and evening, even if there is no explicit provision,
But fifty years old is almost the threshold of the dance hall, and people in their thirties and forties are extremely rare here
At the south end of the railway station overpass, the colorful dance hall is unremarkable, and the once neon recruitment has been replaced by a simple spray paint, sitting on the side of the road giving a mysterious and old atmosphere. And the exaggerated "dance" font implies that this is a place that is not willing to be lonely.
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Compared with young people who are reluctant to go to work when they are woken up by an alarm clock, waking up at dawn is the greatest blasphemy of life, which is the unwavering belief of the dancers who rush to the early stage.
Not long after 8 o'clock, the dance hall ushered in the first wave of passenger flow of the day. Guests who arrived early after buying vegetables sat under the disco ball and ate breakfast, and the thermos cup was invariably soaked with chrysanthemums or goji berries.
The fast-paced dance music vibrated out of the stereo (with the experience of going to the dance hall in the nineties, you can tell that it is a fast three dance song), and the fifty-five-year-old Liu likes this time the most. Shaking hands with the female dance partner, one in and one retreat, can make him temporarily forget the loneliness of celibacy and the unfinished beer in the refrigerator.
The dim tone obscured the fact that the muscles on the face were sagging and wrinkled, and the two dance partners, who had more than a hundred years of age, looked younger than usual.
There is a small practice room outside the dance floor, the door suddenly lit up a few red cigarette butts, Uncle Zou rushed to the dance hall after sending his grandson, will use a cigarette time to contact everyone, by the way, waiting for the dance partner who is still in Mingcui Xindu.
In the dance hall, whether it is people or objects, everything stays in the old era familiar to the post-50s and post-60s. It's just that the ticket office at the door has changed from a cash-only ledger to a WeChat pay QR code. The ticket price is 3 yuan per person, the most expensive will not exceed 10 yuan, and there is a free supply of tea.
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Except during the epidemic control period, the dance hall is almost all hot, whether it is morning, middle or evening, the dance floor is crowded. When you are unlucky, there is no place to stay, and one hundred and eighty middle-aged men and women wander, gossip, and dance here. Most people do not have a fixed dance partner, this one is fast three, the next slow four change a partner. After a few songs, everyone in the audience can mix a familiar face, everyone can chat a few words, and call a "neighborhood". No matter whether it is windy or rainy, it has been "Pengcha" for more than ten years.
In fact, the Colorful Dance Hall was only opened after the millennium, and earlier, it was the Nanxi Mountain Cinema, one of the three major films in Guilin in the 90s. At that time, there were three main cinemas in Guilin: Guilin Cinema, Heart to Heart Cinema, and Nanxishan Cinema.
Now except for the Guilin Cinema, which is still showing films, the other two no longer exist.
(Source Network)
This is probably the most common old photo of the Guilin cinema
Those years of Nanxi Cinema for the 80s, 90s after the Guilin people, should be more familiar. At that time, the movie posters were all hand-drawn, and the theme of the movie was also the theme of patriotic anti-Japanese resistance and social life that followed the main theme. When I was a child, when I was a child, the school often organized to watch movies here (most units and schools in the south of the city will watch movies here). The former "Lion King" and "Pauline Lamp" were all watched here, and of course, there was "Homework" that needed to be written after reading "Mother Loves Me Again".
The most surprising thing about the school organization to watch the movie is an anti-Japanese god film "Ingenious Escape", saying that the name of the film may not be impressive, but when you say the lyrics: "Play cotton yo play cotton, half a pound of cotton pops up eight two eight" You can definitely pick up the next sentence.
"Smart Escape" is a patriotic film that praises the anti-Japanese resistance of the military and the people, telling the story of "Erzhu" helping the wounded traffic officers of the Eighth Route Army to transport the tarpaulin bag containing the strategic offensive map of the Japanese army, which at that time could be called the Chinese version of "Tiger's Mouth Escape".
Nanxishan Cinema belongs to Guilin Film Company, as a large theater in the southern district of Guilin, once provided many rich and excellent spiritual food for the citizens, and those days are still enjoyed by many citizens. It is reported that the Nanxi Cinema was completed in 1983 and expanded in 1984, with a cinema area of 1300 square meters and 967 seats, which was greatly renovated in 1988, and was rated as a Grade A cinema by the Cultural Department of the Autonomous Region in the same year, and was remodeled again in 1991. In addition to the school organization of the movie, I still remember the first time I went to the NanxiShan Cinema was brought by my parents, that translated film called "Outlaw World", which is also the first Hollywood blockbuster introduced by the mainland, with a ticket price of 10 yuan. In a small city like Guilin at that time, it was possible to schedule the film for the first time, and you can imagine the strength of the Guilin Film Company at that time.
Lead actor Tommy Lee Jones had not yet become the strange old man in Men in Black
It is a pity that when "Titanic" was released, it was a grand scene, many neighbor adults settled their children, went out in groups with tickets, I was clamoring to go, and my parents scolded "how can children read, write homework well" and so on, and then closed the door to join the crowd. Then the song "My heart will go on" spread through the streets. Although it was difficult to see it intermittently several times, I never felt the magnificence that I imagined in the theater, the wonderful feeling of imagining my parents and the adults in the neighborhood watching together, and the strong impact of this movie on the people of the small town in that era.
Later, when it was supposed to be 2012, "Titanic" did not hesitate to go when it was re-screened, the eyes hidden behind the 3D glasses touched the cold sea, feeling the violinists playing calmly to the last moment, the elderly couple clasping their hands and living and dying, and the solemn order of women and children leaving first when fleeing, men waiting for death... Suddenly, I was back in the old cinema.
In the new century, the reform of many cinema systems in Guilin has broken the prosperity of the Guilin film market. Under the impact of the film market, because of the embarrassment of funds and some factors, the Nanxishan Cinema did not escape this disaster after all, and one day after the millennium it collapsed. Later, the venue was also contracted out and became today's colorful dance hall.
Guilin Film Company, which was once in the limelight
Nowadays, only a small courtyard like the back alley of the cinema remains to maintain its face
Time has passed, and the glory of the Nanxi Cinema has long since returned. The seats in those theaters have all been dismantled, and the huge dance hall echoes with the song in the lively dance, and when the prosperity ends, only the big screen still stands silently in place, showing its old charm...
"Vigorously once fell in love, Qingqing I became a legend..."
Compared with the younger generation who are keen on the ghost crying wolf howl, the absurd solo dance, uncles and aunts prefer to interact, like the round dance music that rotates all over the place. Most of the people who come here play alone. The lady did not worry about finding a dance partner, but waited for the man to extend his hand to show the invitation, "Go, dance a jiǒg!" The romance and loneliness of middle-aged and elderly people are intertwined.
Extremely exquisite will also wear a tie, practice kung fu tied with a silk scarf, personable "jumping and rubbing". Aunt Yang, who likes to rush to the afternoon show, told me that she changed her cheongsam at home before coming to the dance hall. No wonder, it was beautifully dressed today.
At nearly four or five o'clock, the dance floor that had been flowing with lights suddenly became bright and relaxed. There is no square dance of the waves and the heart-rending lungs of Hi Bar, just like a literary and art film in Jia Zhangke's lens.
Tired of jumping, there is a ride between the booths, from hot weather, to children who are addicted to mobile phones and do not go on blind dates, to stocks and funds that are trapped, all kinds of details of life are released in the break.
"Boy, are you married?" Since I was holding the camera, I was "focused" and reprimanded by the hostess all afternoon, which successfully attracted the attention of the old man.
"We old people, only this little bit of time is happy." Old Zhang Tou sat in the corner, listening to the song "Flowing Golden Years", and the green light shadow fell on his shoulder.
Finally, she was sent out by the boss lady with "portrait rights", so she had to follow the crowd to the door, and only one-fifth of the people in the dance hall remained at this time. Everyone said goodbye to the dance hall owner and said "see you next time" to each other, but tacitly did not agree on the date of the next meeting.
Next to the dance hall is the South Station Vegetable Market, "I want to buy vegetables to cook." "The truth of life is that in the face of family chores that cannot be escaped, they have to take off their crystal shoes, and in the face of unshirkable cooking tasks, no one can avoid pinching for fresh vegetables.
The Nanxi Commercial Building, which once had the same scenery across the road, has long been transformed into a Vienna Hotel. At this time, the traffic jam on the viaduct of the railway station began, the white-collar workers in the office building were still worried about the endless plan, and six o'clock for the day of the urban people never meant the end, but also for the colorful dance hall.
There is a Lanji in the lobby of the Vienna Hotel, which is just a day to buy a cup of milk tea to relieve the heat. When I came out again, I found that there were already uncles and aunts who had come early at the door of the dance hall waiting at the door for the night show to start at 8 o'clock.
I often think that after the 90s, we can still go to the roller skating rink in the park to remember our childhood, so where will we remember our youth when we are old?
And here, at a time when movies are often billions at the box office, the movies of the 90s have become dance halls that are even older than it is. Here in the Colorful Dance Hall, time seems to be going in the opposite direction, with the pengcha dance steps towards the gilded past.
Today's interactive topic
"Tell me about your memories with the old cinema in Guilin"
Edited / Zhi Kun
Photography / Zhi Kun
Typography / AA
The picture part comes from the network