China News Service, Beijing, September 24th, title: Li Jingze: Let the Grand Canal become a river carrying national cultural creativity
Author Ran Wenjuan Wang Yifei
"The Grand Canal is not only a river, it is like our blood, flowing in our body and in our spirit."
On September 23, the 2020 China Grand Canal Cultural Belt Beijing-Hangzhou Dialogue with the theme of "Beijing-Hangzhou Dialogue on the Canal, Building and Sharing a New Future" was held in Beijing.
At the opening ceremony, Li Jingze, the vice chairman of the Chinese Writers Association and a well-known literary critic, and Shan Wei, Secretary of the Party Committee and Deputy Director of the National Museum of China, and Mai Jia, the former chairman of the Zhejiang Writers Association and the famous writer, focused on "How to tell the world about China "The Canal Story", a wonderful dialogue spanning north and south.
China's Grand Canal is currently the longest and largest canal in the world.
It was built in the late Spring and Autumn Period, with a total length of more than 3,200 kilometers, running through 8 provinces and cities, connecting the five major river systems of the Haihe River, the Yellow River, the Huai River, the Yangtze River and the Qiantang River.
For more than 2500 years, the Grand Canal has vividly recorded the continuation of the national heritage and inherited the brilliant civilization of the nation.
"The Grand Canal is a flowing culture, which comes from tradition and goes toward the future." In Li Jingze's view, the Grand Canal is not only material, but a long river of Chinese culture and spirit.
The coast of the canal has become the center of Chinese civilization. For thousands of years, the canal civilization has also nurtured countless great writers and poets, and has had a profound impact on Chinese literary creation and artistic development.
Many great literary works are related to the canal.
Li Jingze cited "Lin Daiyu throwing her father into Kyoto" in "A Dream of Red Mansions" as an example. Lin Daiyu went north to Beijing along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.
The Ming Dynasty writer Zhang Dai also recorded in the collection that he had traveled along the canal to Yanzhou, Shandong.
"I also have a small dream. I hope that one day I will take a boat from Hangzhou to Tongzhou and walk a circle along the road that Lin Daiyu and Zhang Dai have walked." Li Jingze believes that the Grand Canal connects the life, economy and culture of North and South China, and has a profound impact. The North-South culture has also forged the different character of the North and South.
He said that since the Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, the difference between the north and the south has become a very important phenomenon in Chinese culture, embodied in painting, music, and poetry.
This difference is also a manifestation of the richness and creativity of Chinese culture.
"It is this canal that closely connects our rich terrain, topography, customs, lifestyle, language, and personality."
Speaking of the protection and inheritance of the Grand Canal culture, Li Jingze believes that it is not enough for us to display the good and ancient things along the canal. The most important thing is to make the Grand Canal truly a river carrying national cultural creativity. . "I believe that in the new era, more great writers and poets will emerge along the canal." (End)