Chapter 11 The Father of Enterprise History Figures

On June 2, 1949, China's first original chlorine-based photo paper was successfully developed in a simple chemical laboratory at No. 86 Dexing Road, Shantou City, Guangdong Province. The developer was Lin Xizhi (1921), who was 28 years old at the time. -1969). Lin Xizhi's original name was Lin Yingxi, also known as Lin Chi, and he was born into a rich merchant family. His grandfather once represented the shipping business of the British Swire Company and established "Swire South Recording Line" in Shantou City. In 1946, Lin Xizhi studied in the Chemistry Department of St. John's University in Shanghai. When he was studying, a foreign teacher once ridiculed the backwardness of China's industry in front of him. This incident has always hurt his heart.He said: "Can't the Chinese do what foreigners can do? I must fight for the Chinese people in terms of photosensitive materials." In 1948, Lin Xizhi returned to his hometown of Shantou and devoted himself to photosensitive Working in chemical experiments, his idol is the great American entrepreneur George Eastman, who invented the roll-type photosensitive film in 1886, which completely changed the history of human photography.Lin Xizhi and several industry enthusiasts started the "AD Lab" in a crude way. The name "AD" has an air of Genesis.The laboratory has no funds, so Lin Xizhi makes some western medicines and sells them to pharmacies to supplement the needs.

After the liberation of Shanghai, many of Lin Xizhi's relatives fled abroad, but he decided to stay and serve the new China. In October 1952, AD Lab produced China's first photosensitive printing paper with performance close to that of imported photo paper. Half a year later, on April 1, my country's first photosensitive enterprise, Shantou AD Photochemical Factory, was established. Lin Xi He served as the deputy factory director and chief engineer.Initially, the factory had only 15 people.Later, they bought all 53 private houses in a section of Yong'an Street, Shantou City, and installed a 1.1-meter-wide photo paper coating machine, a 60-meter-long hanging pole drying road, and installed barium paper inside. Coating machines, super calenders, embossing machines and other equipment, with an annual output of 350,000 boxes of photographic paper.

In July 1954, the private Yuanyuan factory was the first to participate in public-private joint ventures. Lin Xizhi successfully designed and developed the "air conditioning drying method" production process, which replaced the simple "lime moisture absorption drying method". In April 1955, the first portrait film in China was successfully trial-produced. In 1956, the organization successfully developed black-and-white film, black-and-white film positive (negative) film, black-and-white high-speed photographic film, X-ray film, printing plate series film and water-soluble positive color film positive film.Thanks to the efforts of Lin Xizhi and Yuanyuan Factory, the situation of my country relying on imported photographic photosensitive materials was gradually reversed, and soon there were photographic papers and films exported to foreign countries.Lin Xizhi also successively initiated the Spare-time School for Staff and the Shantou Photosensitive Chemical College. In 1959, the Ministry of Industry hosted the first national photosensitive material professional conference, announcing the formation of my country's photographic photosensitive material industry, and its production was included in the national plan.

Lin Xizhi was physically weak and suffered from tuberculosis in his early years. The heavy scientific research and business work made his health very poor, almost disabled.His wife recalled that Lin Xizhi rode a bicycle to and from get off work every day. Due to the weakness of his right arm, he often fell off the bike. He got up from the ground and continued on his way.This is a scene in Shantou.Due to long-term excessive use of the brain, he often suffers from insomnia. For a while, he often stayed up all night. Especially when he was working on a scientific research project, he could not sleep at all. He had to rely on sleeping pills to rest every day. I had no choice but to import an electronic hypnosis machine from abroad.By mechanical means, help him to get a short sleep.

When the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966, Lin Xizhi, who had foreign relations and was a "reactionary authority", was brutally persecuted from the very beginning. was smashed.At that time, a malignant tumor in his throat grew larger day by day, until it was as big as an egg, which made it difficult for him to eat. He often vomited blood, night sweats, convulsions, and coma. In June 1969, the guards released him for fear that he would die in the "cowpen".When Lin Xizhi returned home, he endured the severe pain and buried himself in work.He disassembled several radios at home into parts and reassembled them, disassembled and reassembled, reassembled and disassembled, and began to study a new technology to improve the sensitivity of film.His wife couldn't bear it. Lin Xizhi said, "I have to work to live. Let me do it. I don't have much time to work."

In October, 48-year-old Lin Xizhi passed away in a small dark room under the stairs of his old house without sunlight. His life and career have come to the darkest end. The last words he left were, "I Didn't get the job done." By the 1980s, the main products of Shantou Gongyuan had developed into 42 varieties in five categories, including black and white photo paper, portrait film, film roll, X-ray film and printing plate film, and the output of photo paper ranked first in the country. In 1986, the state invested more than 900 million yuan to introduce the production line of color photosensitive materials from Fujifilm Corporation of Japan. Due to various factors, the production of the color line fell into the predicament of stopping or semi-stopping less than a year after it was put into production.By the early 1990s, AD's debt was as high as 4.8 billion yuan. In 1994, the State Council made a decision to transfer the color production line to Kodak of the United States at a price of US$180 million.The founder of Kodak was Lin Xizhi's idol, George Eastman. In August 2005, due to successive years of losses, Kodak announced the permanent closure of the AD factory.

In 2003, financial writer Yuan Weidong was invited by Kodak to write a book about Kodak in China.He went to Shantou for an interview and accidentally "discovered" Lin Xizhi, who had been forgotten for a long time.In his book "Leap Over" he wrote— In the early spring when kapoks are in full bloom, walk through the dirty open-air market to No. 24 Minsheng Road, which is the former residence of the founder of AD, Lin Xizhi.We are almost unrecognizable, because there are almost ruins, a dilapidated building of the Republic of China... Lin Xizhi's widow Gao Wanqing and his descendants received us. After more than 30 years, Lin Xizhi's breath is still there.On the wall on the second floor, there is a framed photo of his remains: Lin was in his prime, wearing a white shirt, with a pair of delicate glasses on his straight nose, and he was concentrating on taking notes.This can be regarded as the most realistic sketch of the characters who are hidden in the depths of history and pursue the "Chinese Dream".During the dark and turbulent years, Lin was denounced as a "reactionary figure" and his house was occupied by the revolutionary masses. In the end, he died of depression and illness in a small dark room under the stairs without sunlight.Mrs. Gao, who is in her 80s, recalled that when criticizing him, she stabbed him with a bamboo pole, and Lin coughed up blood.I witnessed that little dark room, and the last of Lin's relics, dusty electronic components housed in some battered soapboxes.This is what Lin hid in the small black room and pondered over the photosensitive materials for aerial photography.

Yuan Weidong continued to write: I recall a month ago, on a snowy morning in Rochester, a group of Chinese journalists visited the former residence of George Eastman.The descriptions of Eastman's former residence in the biography are all lying there quietly, as if the time is still stuck a century ago, full of organ sounds.And the white carnations and daisies blooming quietly in the room moved me inexplicably.There, I feel gratitude and respect for the creators.But here, it is bitterness, the astonishing oblivion and indifference to history, even trampling... I am deeply saddened by the bitterness of this dream. It does not come from almost 30 years later, when AD was acquired by Kodak, but from what Lin suffered. harm.This is the tragedy of a generation of Chinese people.

Later Chinese people should not forget Lin Xizhi.Despite success or failure, nothing was left of this mild-mannered and tragically ill-fated Hakka.