My ancestral home is Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County, Liaoning Province. My ancestors were Manchu people with white flags. After Huang taiji arrived in Beijing, he became an official in the imperial court. I once heard my grandfather Liu say that they used to live in woolen hutong. 1958, when the country built the Great Hall of the People, my grandparents and my grandfather moved to Yongwaili Village. When my grandpa four was alive, he often took my cousin and me to Tianqiao, Dashilan, zhushikou and Tiananmen Square, and also went to zhushikou to drink bean juice. The old man also told us many interesting stories about old Beijing. I like old Beijing, old Beijingers and old Beijing culture since I was a child. Radio stations, TV stations, newspapers and books all have introductions of old Beijing, which I like to listen to and read. I remember that in the 1990s, I saw the novella Jade Bowl serialized by Liu Yida, a Beijing-style writer, in girlfriends magazine, and later I saw his Laogen Family and other works with Beijing flavor.

In 2008, I started a blog on Sina, and got to know many disseminators of old Beijing culture and writers of Beijing flavor. Mr Liu Hui is one of them. His pen name is Wen Jun, and I used to call him Brother Wen Jun .. He once wrote poems for my uncle Tan Shiying, Tan Shiying and Tan Men's descendant Tan. After reading his poems, it is not difficult to see that he likes Beijing opera and has a lot of research. Most of his blog posts introduced old Beijing culture and told old Beijing stories, which left a deep impression on me.

Yesterday, Brother Wen Jun called to say that he would come to my house and asked my specific address, which made me ecstatic. This morning, brother Wen Jun and his wife came to my house and brought me his book "Those Things in Old Beijing". This children's book consists of five parts, namely childhood fun and eating. The customs at that time, the business and hutong life in old Beijing, and the titles of 42 articles are also four words. Whether it is playthings, food, customs, business or hutongs, they are all equipped with colorful pictures and poems, which reflect each other and form a series of ink paintings in old Beijing. This kind of creation is refreshing, and it is the first time I have seen it. Brother Wen Jun told me that all the illustrations in the book were drawn by Wang Yongchao, a famous new pen-and-ink painter, according to his own memory and dictation, and each painting had to be revised repeatedly until it was satisfactory.

Wen Jun's brother doesn't have the aura of "home" and "home" on his head, but he tried his best to search for the memories of old Beijing, recorded them with a pen full of true feelings and sincerity, and published two books "Those Things in Old Beijing" one after another. In Selected Works, brother Wen Jun used the humorous language of Beijing rhyme and Beijing flavor to tell the unique interesting stories of old Beijing, local customs, food, clothing, housing, entertainment, joys and sorrows, ups and downs, and the old people in old Beijing. Each story is short, pithy and detailed, and skillfully matched with articles, pictures and poems, giving people a real and illustrated feeling, just like replaying one precious historical scene after another, bringing people into just visiting.

Looking at the story of old Beijing, I feel so kind, familiar and unforgettable. What is described in the book is what I experienced and saw personally, but more is what my grandfather and his brothers once told me. Gently open this book, as if reading a picture full of old Beijing culture.

This made me clearly see his sincere heart, the passion that gushed from the deep heart to eulogize the old Beijing culture. What he described seems insignificant, but it is these insignificant things that have cast the old Beijing culture and propped up a heavy historical city. I sincerely admire people like Wen Jun who created and continued the old Beijing culture in different historical periods. It is they who tell the story of old Beijing with pen and ink, inherit the culture of old Beijing and become the cornerstone of the cultural palace of old Beijing.

At noon, I went to the Eight Banners Jingwei Building opened by Manchu people, and ordered the bean juice, sesame bean curd and fried enema that old Beijingers like. During the dinner, we never left the topic of old Beijing culture. Brother Wen Jun told me that he would produce sequels of those things in old Beijing one after another.

In the historical evolution, many folk customs in old Beijing have disappeared with the changes and progress of the times. The past has become ancient, and today it will drift away and become a new ancient. This requires more people to constantly record and inherit the old Beijing culture. As brother Wen Jun wrote in the book he gave me, "* * * writes old Beijing and records new Beijing."