Place Names and Memories: Writing about Yuexiu South

Original text written in Chinese, see here: 地名与记忆：写写越秀南

1924 Guangzhou city road map¹, partial, around Yuexiu South Area

Knowing a place starts with its name. A name is the premise and carrier of memory and experience. In the case of place names, usually people consider a place name to remain unchanged for a long time, and if it changes, people usually feel confused and even angry. Place names are "not only a source of linguistic knowledge, but also of geographical, historical, anthropological, ethnographic, social, psychological, and other knowledge and may be of interest to these respective sciences"². Place name builds the history of a place and carry the memories of its inhabitants, and the fact that people use the same name for a place forges their identity. Just like the word identity, which comes from the French identité and, further on, the Latin identidem, which means same and same³. Repeatedly, the same: constantly reciting the name of a place, gives you an identity.

23°07'20.2"N 113°16'22.4"E

*The coordinates were obtained from Open Street Map, and a separate article will be written about why the latitude and longitude coordinates were obtained from an open source foreign (non Chinese) source.

How do people refer to the area south of the Zhongshan Library (中山图书馆), which is roughly 200 meters in circumference? In the early years, it was "Yuexiu South (越秀南)" as a matter of course. It comes from Yuexiu South Road (越秀南路), from the landmark here - Yuexiu South Coach Terminal (越秀南客运站). Eleven years ago, the naming of the metro station here, or should be call the changing of, was controversary. And the public was astonished by the arbitrary mayor Wan Qingliang (万庆良). This metro station, was finally named after a landmark that did not exist at the time. This non-existent landmark, the so-called old site, was not anything like a specific building, but only refers to the nearby "Dongyuan (东园)" area.

I am not a stubborn fundamentalist, and I am actually open to changes in place names or connotations of place names. For example, Zhongshan Four Road to Zhongshan Six Road (中山四路至中山六路), originally called Hui Ai Road (惠爱路, and the name is still found in some stores and restaurants nearby), was changed to its current name in the 1940s⁴; Another example is Beijing Road (北京路), which had names such as Yong Qing (永清), Yong Han (永汉, referring to the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty), Han Min (汉民, in memory of a governor of the Republic China), and reverted to "Yong Han" for a period of time after the founding of the Communist China, and eventually changed to its current name during the Cultural Revolution⁵; And Yuexiu South, which was renamed due to political considerations, is actually no different from the above examples.

1924 Guangzhou city road map¹, partial, "Hui Ai Lu Mid. (惠爱中路)" and "Yong Han Lu N. (永汉北路)" can be seen

As for the change of connotations of the place name, especially a spontaneous one, it is more logical. An example is Dongshankou (东山口). The name originally referred only to the junction of Shuqian Road (署前路) and Zhongshan Road (中山路), the former Canton-Kowloon Railway crossing area, but now it has been used to refer to the entire Dongshan (东山) area. Over the years, hipster cafes, galleries, bars, and trendy stores have been stationed in stylish mansions, residential buildings, and venues along the streets. When young people take the metro on weekends or after work, they know to get off at the "Dongshankou (东山口)" station and this area would be only a few steps away. Therefore, it is common and reasonable for them to use the name of the meteo station to refer to the surrounding area.

1924 Guangzhou city road map¹, partial, the "road crossing" at the junction of the old Canton-Kowloon Railway and the Shuqian Road, which refered as "Dongshankou"

The names of Zhongshan Road (中山路) and Beijing Road (北京路) to me, are authentic and local, and their old names are just terms from archives; for the area around Dongshankou, although ten years ago I would have called it as "around Dongbai (东百周边)", and the area a little bit further away near the creek as "Xinhepu (新河浦)", the public prefer the name Dongshankou and hence I gradually adapt to it; as for Yuexiu South however, I was at this historical presence when the name was changed: I spoke out on social media platforms, followed media polls, however witnessed the regime went its own way, and eventually saw the old name fall.

So what on earth did the name "Yuexiu South" has changed to? I have not mentioned in this article so far. Many people may not know what place I am talking about. Not to mention what exactly this place has, and may not even have an idea of its rough location. This is also the case in my real life, when trying to mention this place to others: after saying "Yuexiu South", seeing that they did not respond, and then adding a sentence clarifying that is "Tuanyida Square (团一大广场, The Square of the First Congress of the Communist Youth League)" metro station.

Taking the metro lines and network as the skeleton, to construct and perceive the mind map of the city; referring to a piece of land by the name of the nearest metro station, and taking the station as the beginning of the narrative of the surrounding. Will you do the same? But even so, I am still willing to be an "oldie", just like the people who still use "Hui Ai (惠爱)" as the name of a store, and stubbornly call this place "Yuexiu South". Just let the public perception of the washout change, so that I will carrying on fulfilling my historical mission.

Reference

1. 書籍行遠安堂 Shu ji hang yuan an tang. ‘最新廣州市馬路全圖 Zui xin Guangzhou shi ma lu quan tu’. 廣州 Guangzhou: 書籍行遠安堂 Shu ji hang yuan an tang, 1924. Harvard-Yenching Library Digital Maps. http://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990092684440203941/catalog.
2. Helleland, Botolv. ‘Place Names and Identities’. Oslo Studies in Language 4, no. 2 (2012).

3. ‘Identity | Etymology, Origin and Meaning of Identity by Etymonline’. Accessed 9 May 2022. https://www.etymonline.com/word/identity.

4. ‘中山路 (广州)’. In 维基百科, 4 November 2021. https://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E4%B8%AD%E5%B1%B1%E8%B7%AF_(%E5%B9%BF%E5%B7%9E)&oldid=68520465.

5. ‘北京路 (越秀区)’. In 维基百科, 4 November 2021. https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8C%97%E4%BA%AC%E8%B7%AF_(%E8%B6%8A%E7%A7%80%E5%8C%BA)

Appendix