Zhengyi Old Street is located in Kunshan

Just over ten kilometers northwest of the Kunshan city center lies Zhengyi Old Street, which is less than a kilometer long. In recent years, the government has invested a significant amount of money in its renovation and restoration, and it seems to be taking shape. The houses on the riverside of the old street's Tang Street have been mostly refurbished, restored to their original appearance, while the other side is still undergoing continuous transformation. The Wu and Yue regions are rich in water and wetlands, making the area south of the Yangtze River a land of fish and rice, and these fertile water towns have given birth to many ancient towns and old streets. These are the homelands where the local villagers have lived and settled for thousands of years, unchanged. However, with the development of the times and the advancement of urban modernization, these ancient towns and old streets, full of ancient charm, are gradually disappearing, which is a matter of great regret and an inevitable 'helpless as flowers fall'. Fortunately, in recent years, the local government has paid attention to the protection of these ancestral heritages and has invested manpower, material resources, and financial resources to increase the intensity of protection. It is reported that Zhengyi Old Street has a long history, dating back to the sixth year of the Tianjian era of the Liang Dynasty (507 AD), but there are few surviving cultural and historical relics. In addition to a few ancient bridges, at the very north end of the old street, there is also a Zhengyi railway station that has been abandoned since the 1970s, despite being over a hundred years old. Historical records show that Zhengyi railway station was built in 1906 and completed in 1908. After nearly seventy years of operation, this fourth-class station on the Shanghai-Nanjing line was abandoned in 1907 due to the construction of a new station nearby, marking its end. In the past, Zhengyi Village was proud of being the hometown of the lotus fairy and the twin lotus. One of Kunshan's three treasures (Kun stone, twin lotus, and qiong flower), the twin lotus, originated here. Every year in July and August, the enchanting twin lotus blooms in all its glory, attracting many visitors to bend over in admiration. It is worth mentioning that on Zhengyi Old Street, there is a local specialty known as 'bubble wontons', which are quite famous in Kunshan. There are no fewer than twenty shops selling bubble wontons in the entire Zhengyi Old Street area. The author visited a shop out of curiosity and found that the taste was not much different from regular wontons. The only difference is that the skin of the bubble wontons is twice as large as that of regular wontons, but the filling is about the same. Once boiled, the filling shrinks, and the skin puffs up, resembling bubbles, hence the name 'bubble wontons'.