Well-known store Liufang Bainian catering old shop Lumingchun

Lumingchun is a restaurant, located in Guangda Street, ziliujing district. The name of the restaurant and the door couplet are written by Mr. Hu Lin, an armless calligrapher in our city. The door couplet says, "Make thousands of meals skillfully; Warm and welcoming. " Chen Yuquan is the general manager of this hotel.

There is also a restaurant in Liaoning called Lumingchun, which was founded in 1929. One of its founders is Wang Futing. Chen Yuquan said that their Chen family Lu Mingchun is of the same ancestry as Liaoning Lu Mingchun. This Lumingchun in Liaoning was founded in 1929. This time was only the registration time, but it was actually much earlier. Their ancestor was Chen Ruzhou, a native of Shenyang, Liaoning Province. He was a salt merchant. He heard that the salt industry in artesian well was developed. In 1922, he brought Lumingchun from Liaoning to artesian well, opened a shop in Taiping Street of artesian well at the earliest, and later he was able to do Lumingchun in the location of Zigong Hotel in Qiaojing.

In 2021, Zigong Lantern Festival designed and produced a light group called "Zigong Memory", and the only restaurant appeared in the light group, namely Lu Mingchun. This reveals a mysterious cultural signal. In the memory of Zigong people, Lumingchun is not only a restaurant, but more importantly, it has become the common memory of Zigong people, bearing a heavy history and culture. According to Mr. Xu Yingcheng’s memory, the famous restaurant in Ziliujing during the Republic of China had "Lumingchun", which was located in the main street of Ziliujing. According to Mr. Huang Zongrang, an octogenarian from Ziliujing, when he was very young, he saw famous restaurants in Ziliujing Street, such as Jinguyuan, Jinguchun and, of course, Lu Mingchun.

2021 Zigong Lantern Festival "Zigong Memory" Light Group (Source: Happy Travel)

Chen Yuquan said that his shop, Lu Mingchun, opened on November 1, 2001, which is in the same strain as Lu Mingchun in history. After the founding of People’s Republic of China (PRC), some famous restaurants in Ziliujing have undergone socialist transformation, and most of them have changed their names. For example, Jinguchun, who is also in the main street, changed its name to Zigong Hotel, while Lumingchun’s name has never been changed and is still in use today.

The name of the store is "Lumingchun", which is the first Luming Literature in The Book of Songs Xiaoya. There is a deer singing spring today and a deer singing banquet in ancient times. The Luming Banquet, also known as Luming Literature Banquet, is recorded in "The Book of the New Tang Dynasty Election Records": "Every year in the middle of winter … I have tried, and the long officials will drink wine in the countryside, and they will be the attendants, set up the guest and the host, prepare the orchestral, and use less prison for the sacrifice. Because of the long talk with Yi Ai." The Luming Banquet is related to the imperial examination system. And "spring" was related to wine in ancient times, and it was linked with wine to form "spring wine". The Book of Songs said: "In July, the sunflower and the glutinous rice were peeled, and in October, the rice was harvested. For this reason, spring wine is used to celebrate the longevity of eyebrows. " "Spring" means the meaning of wine, starting from the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty. Now the original meaning of "Jiannanchun", "Wuliangchun" and even "Rongchun" in Zigong Fushun is derived from this.

Luming banquet

Moreover, this restaurant in Ziliujing took Lumingchun as its name, which was not arbitrary. At that time, there were "Four Da Chun" in the famous hotels in Ziliujing, besides Lumingchun, there were Jinguchun, Manyuanchun and Yiyuanchun. Now, there are Jiang Chun in Ziliujing, so naming it after "Chun" should be the fashion of the hotel. As far as the Luming Banquet is concerned, it is related to the Chinese imperial examination system. China’s imperial examination system began in the Tang Dynasty and ended in 1905, the thirty-first year of Guangxu reign in the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, the real Luming Banquet has ceased to exist in this year, and Luming Spring was born nearly twenty years later, not to mention the Qing Dynasty had already died. Named Luming Spring can expand its popularity with the help of the social influence of the once Luming Banquet, which is similar to today’s advertising or backdoor listing, and it will not be taboo.

As far as I can remember, there was once a restaurant in Miaogoujing, Ziliujing, which was named "New Lumingchun" and was open to the public. The 50th birthday banquet of the famous calligrapher Mr. Huang Zongrang and the 35th anniversary celebration of his career were held here. The name of the store and the door couplet were all written by Mr. Huang Zongrang. The door couplet said, "Hold up the nectar of the flying spring; Welcome guests, the rising sun rises. " It was made at the invitation of Mr. Qiu Zhirong, the owner of the store, and the couplet was included in Selected Poems of Huang Zongrang’s Self-Written Poems (Inscription of Paintings and Ode to Things) edited by Zigong Poetry Society and Huang Zongrang’s Collection of Arts and Poetry Volume published by Popular Literature and Art Publishing House. Lu Mingchun’s door-to-door system in Miaogoujing was established in 1986, which was the time for the store to open to the outside world (previously it was the first catering group of the city), and it was 15 years away from the founding time of Lu Mingchun, which was established in Everbright Street in 2001. Lu Mingchun of Miaogoujing is named "New Lu Mingchun", which is different from the old Lu Mingchun.

Chen Yuquan said that the new Lu Mingchun in Miaogoujing has nothing to do with their Chen family’s Lu Mingchun. Before the new Lumingchun opened for business, a distant uncle of Chen Yuquan opened a real Chen family Lumingchun. Later, due to his distant uncle’s advanced age and physical reasons, he had to shut it down. The new Lumingchun in Miaogou well undoubtedly made Lumingchun a signboard of artesian well restaurants and would not disappear in people’s sight.

As for Chen Yuquan’s operation of this Lumingchun in Everbright Street, he has done something to make Lumingchun, an old gold-lettered signboard, continue to this day, and his merits can be described as boundless. Chen Yuquan’s grandfather, Chen Zhaoxiu, had no experience in operating Lumingchun Hotel. He once worked in Ziliujing Salt Factory. After the establishment of People’s Republic of China (PRC), he took the initiative to return to Weiyuan rural areas to divide the land for farming. Chen Yuquan’s father stated that he had no experience in operating Lumingchun Hotel and was a worker of Weiyuan Gaoshi Supply and Marketing Cooperative. However, when Chen Yuquan’s grandfather was in his teens, he often told them the wonderful story of their Chen family entering Sichuan from Shenyang, Liaoning Province to run Lumingchun in a artesian well, which made Chen Yuquan listen with relish at an early age and let Chen Yuquan plant a seed of Lumingchun in his heart at an early age.

Chen Yuquan went out to work when he was less than twenty years old. In his early twenties, he wanted to turn Lu Mingchun’s childhood dream into reality, so he took a sum of money saved while working as the capital and chose Everbright Street in Ziliujing to open this Lu Mingchun. This year was 2001. At that time, Lu Mingchun, which he ran, was not in the place where the District Federation of Trade Unions is now located. On the second floor of Zigong No.6 Middle School, Chen Yuquan started Lu Mingchun, which caused quite a stir in their Chen family. His distant uncle, who once made Lu Mingchun popular, made a special trip to visit the store regardless of his age, and placed high hopes on him, which encouraged Chen Yuquan.

Today, Chen Yuquan has reached middle age and is in his forties. Since he opened his shop in his early twenties, he has continued the brand of Lumingchun for twenty years, and it will continue. Although Chen Yuquan is a disabled person with a third-grade vision disability, he never bows to his fate. He always cooks in person, inherits the food culture of Lu Mingchun, and makes "home cooking" into "thousands of meals" and "warm hearts", just like Linglu chirps when it finds good grass and shares it with all the deer.

From Lu Mingchun to Ziliujing in 1922, by 2022, the hotel has been named as "Zigong Disabled Persons’ Employment and Entrepreneurship Demonstration Base" by Zigong Disabled Persons’ Federation, which is a veritable century-old restaurant.

Source: "The Taste of a Centennial Ziliujing"

Editor in Charge: Fang Zhilei

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Original title: Lu Mingchun, a century-old restaurant with a famous name Liufang.

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