An elderly man stands at the window of his home in a low rise building as new residential apartments rise up in the background in Shanghai. Philippe Lopez / AFP

Sitting back in an old cane chair dotted with patches, and sipping a cup of strong tea, Zhao Pu nodded and waved to people passing by the Longtang (alleyway) of Tongfuli as he waited for his eldest daughter to take him to the nearby public baths where he has gone every summer's evening for the past two decades.

This 87-year-old retired worker from Shanghai Chemical Plant is not as old as Tongfuli, where he has lived for more than 30 years since 1978. This stone-frame-door residence, Shikumen, located in Lane 459, West Beijing Road (Avenue Road), was built at the turn of the 20th century. The two-story-houses there, with black door plank, copper knocker and typical stone arc lintel, are notable as they stand surrounded by buildings over 10 stories high. "No, we are not in an isolated island, we are actually in a basin," said Zhao.

Those narrow Longtangs, where people believe the "real Shanghai" exists, at one time reached to every corner of the city, and among them, millions of people had laughed, gossiped and quarreled. The mass dismantlement of Shikumen began before 2010, in preparation for the Shanghai World Expo, Now the life and legacy of the Longtangs can be seen only among the few remaining structures such as Tongfuli.

"We live like in old times," said Lao Zhao. With his wife and eldest daughter, he lives in a cramped room on the second floor, with separate bathroom or kitchen. The everyday chores include emptying the night-stool at a nearby public convenience before breakfast, competing for kitchen space with the other six families at meal time and washing with a towel saturated with hot water before going to sleep, according to Zhao.

Most residents in Tongfuli and other Longtangs, are getting on in years. Most also seem to have grown weary of the way of life here and eager to move on as soon as possible.

"I think the house is too old and not safe for my parents stepping up and down the cracking wood stairs," said Zhao Meifang, the eldest daughter of Lao Zhao. Meifang is still unmarried and thus still lives with her parents.

Meifang among many from the neighborhood have written letters of complaint about the living conditions to the local government. But nothing has changed. The place gets repainted every three or four years. "They are two different worlds when viewed from outside and inside," she said. "In is 'old society' style and out is modern Shanghai."

But Lao Zhao worries about the inevitable departure from his old neighbors if he moves. He feels like his day is complete when the man next door says to him, "Oh, you've come off work" when he returns home in the late afternoon. He reads the papers and discusses national issues with a man of about the same age living upstairs and he send candies to the kids living in the Longtang.

The strong human relationships mentioned by Lao Zhao are the similar reasons that Le Jiancheng stays at Tianzifang, where the old Longtang and Shikumen residences have been renovated to become an arts and crafts enclave.

Operating a workshop named Jing Chan Zhai (literally 'frog in a well') displaying and selling his paintings and photos of the Shikumen architecture right in the room where his family sleeps, Le, the 58-year-old arts teacher of South West Weiyu Middle School was born and never left Lane 274, Taikang Road.

"We moved to this place in 1955 with my parents and nearly 20 people from six families were living in this three-story house at the time," Le said. "Tianzifang is quite common, without luxurious decoration or special design."

Le remembered in the past, people actually did a lot of things in Longtongs and didn't know what privacy meant and also didn't find it important.

But the closed neighborhood is hard to be found even in remaining Longtang like Tianzifang.

"Now people don't even Cheng Fengliang after the dinner, which was an activity in which people got together and enjoyed the coolness of the night wind passing through the Longtong during summer," Le said. "Now the external units of air conditioners fill in the Longtang and give out extremely hot air as well as noise, so people just shut their doors and stay inside." Another example of the disappearance of Longtang culture is the children playing games in the Longtang are not local kids anymore. Le said he once tried to take photos of the present day Longtang games but found only the kids of immigrant workers playing there.

Only one-fifth of the original residents still live in Tianzifang now while others chose to move out and let out their houses, according to Le. "A 40 square meters shop now can fetch rent of 40,000 yuan a month," he said. "My gain from the photo sales is far less." Nevertheless, Le felt life in Shikumen remained vibrant. "I think the Longtang and Shikumen are the cradle of Shanghai culture, I hope young people never forget them," he said.

Fortunately, those who are among the last generations to be born in Longtang, remember their childhood. The kind granny living next door, the friends with whom they climbed the tree and played and the gossip among their mothers about the newcomers to the longtang. Today this generation now in their 20s retell their stories in over a million sina microblogs.

"The deepest impression of the summer in Longtang is that people would bury watermelons in the well water and share them when we cheng fengliang," said Ma Yu, a 23-year-old girl who was born in the just-removed Shenyuli, Zhaibei District. "Watermelons would be cooled by the well water; they are still sweet today, just like in the old time."

Zhou Qinnan contributed to the story.

shangbian@chinadaily.com.cn

(HK Edition 08/14/2012 page4)