China News Agency, Guangzhou, January 3rd. Question:
Why is Lingnan culture an important branch of Chinese civilization?
——Interview with Qiu Shuhong, director of the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation, librarian of the Guangdong Provincial Government Museum of Culture and History, and vice chairman of the Guangdong Writers Association
China News Agency reporter Fang Weibin
Guangdong is a cultural desert?
This seems to have been said for more than thirty years.
Qiu Shuhong, director of the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation, librarian of the Guangdong Provincial Government Museum of Culture and History, and vice chairman of the Guangdong Writers Association, has different views on this.
A few days ago, Qiu Shuhong accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency's "East and West Questions", interpreting the contribution of Lingnan culture to the development of Chinese civilization, and discussing what Lingnan culture can explore and try in the future in light of the current situation.
The interview transcript is summarized as follows:
China News Agency reporter: What contributions did Lingnan culture make to Chinese civilization?
Qiu Shuhong: In my opinion, since the Qin Dynasty unified Lingnan in 214 BC until now, Lingnan culture has made six major contributions to Chinese civilization, including: the contribution of marine culture represented by Zhao Tuo culture; the Buddhist culture represented by the Six Patriarchs culture Cultural contributions; ethnic cultural contributions represented by Cantonese culture, Hakka culture, and Chaoshan culture; modern cultural contributions represented by Sun Yat-sen culture; modern cultural contributions represented by the red culture of the Communist Party of China; contemporary culture represented by reform and opening up culture contribute.
Shawan Floating Colors performance at the Guangfu Temple Fair folk culture tour in Guangzhou, Guangdong.
Photo by Chen Jimin
Reporter from China News Agency: What role does Zhao Tuo, the king of martial arts in South Vietnam, play in the exchange and mutual learning between Eastern and Western civilizations?
Qiu Shuhong: In 214 BC, Qin Shihuang sent Ren Xiao as the chief general and Zhao Tuo as the deputy general to unify South Vietnam.
Ren Xiao was the captain of Nanhai County, and Zhao Tuo was the county magistrate of Longchuan.
Soon, Ren Xiao died of a serious illness. At that time, Qin II was in power and the Central Plains were in turmoil. Ren Xiao entrusted Zhao Tuo to take over as the Nanhai Commandant, and told Zhao Tuo to become king on his own, so as to keep Lingnan from the flames of war.
Zhao Tuo implemented the "Harmony of Baiyue" and managed South Vietnam well, preserving and providing a huge territory for the Han Dynasty.
I started to pay attention to Zhao Tuo in 2015, and started to create literature and art on Zhao Tuo's theme.
In the large-scale symphonic epic "Zhao Tuo, King of Nanyue", which I created in 2016 and performed in 2017, I used three sentences to evaluate Zhao Tuo: the hero of the unification of China, the ancestor of Lingnan humanities, and the pioneer of the Maritime Silk Road.
In Guangzhou, Guangdong, the Nanyue King Guards played by college students made their debut on the streets of downtown Yangcheng.
Photo by Chen Jimin
While disseminating the culture of the Central Plains, Zhao Tuo brought exotic culture, marine culture, and navigation technology into Lingnan, and opened the Lingnan civilization from the other end, the Maritime Silk Road.
According to historical records, the Maritime Silk Road began in the Han Dynasty. It can be inferred that Zhao Tuo had contacts with foreign lands very early. A large number of foreign cultural relics unearthed from the tomb of Zhao Xuan, the second king of the Nanyue Kingdom in the Western Han Dynasty, further confirmed the above view.
Since the Qin Dynasty, especially after the Han Dynasty, the entire Lingnan has become an inseparable territory of China; Lingnan culture has become an important part of Chinese civilization with its unique connotation, supplementing and perfecting Chinese civilization; Geographical location has become an important channel and frontier for the connection and integration between China and overseas.
The Guangdong Cantonese Theater in Yuexiu District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, live-streamed the classic Cantonese opera "A Sword of Loyalty".
Photo by Chen Jimin
China News Agency reporter: After Zhao Tuo, another important figure appeared in Lingnan, the Sixth Patriarch Huineng. What contribution did he make to the Sinicization of Buddhism?
Qiu Shuhong: Master Huineng, the sixth patriarch, with the common surname Lu, was born in Hebei, like Zhao Tuo, and was descended from the famous "Fanyang Lu family".
At the age of 24, he heard the "Diamond Sutra" and became enlightened. He resigned from his mother and went north to Huangmei, Hubei Province to pay homage to Hongren, the fifth patriarch. He won the approval of the fifth patriarch with a verse "Bodhi does not have a tree, and the mirror is not a stand. There is nothing in the first place, where is the dust?" He taught the "Diamond Sutra" at night, and secretly passed down the Zen mantle and token. He is the sixth generation ancestor.
The Sixth Patriarch Huineng advocated the method of sudden enlightenment, advocating not to establish words, but to teach outsiders, to point directly at people's hearts, and to become a Buddha by seeing one's nature.
He replaced the cumbersome righteousness with popular and simple practice methods, forming the far-reaching Southern Zen and becoming the mainstream of Chinese Zen.
The thoughts of the Sixth Patriarch Huineng are concentrated in the "Sixth Patriarch Master Dharma Treasure Altar Sutra".
Huineng's Sinicization and folkization of Buddhism has made important contributions to the Buddhist culture of China and even the world with a culture of the Six Patriarchs.
China News Agency reporter: Ethnic group culture is a major feature of Lingnan culture. What elements does it contain? What are the characteristics of each?
Qiu Shuhong: The ethnic culture formed by Cantonese culture, Hakka culture, and Chaoshan culture is a wonderful flower of Lingnan culture, a unique cultural phenomenon in Chinese civilization, and a certain status in human civilization.
Shantou City, Guangdong Province, English singing and dancing performance.
Photo by Chen Jimin
Cantonese culture is the culture of Cantonese people. It is a regional culture in the Cantonese-speaking area. It refers to the culture of the Han residents who use Cantonese in the Guangfu area of the Pearl River Delta of Guangdong Province. The scope is centered on the Pearl River Delta of Guangdong Province and the surrounding western Guangdong , Parts of northern Guangdong.
The regional culture of the Cantonese-speaking area also includes the Leizhou culture, the Gaoliang culture in the western part of Guangdong, and the Guangxi culture in Guangxi.
Cantonese culture was formed in the Guangzhou area, and is popular in Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau, southeastern Guangxi and overseas Cantonese-speaking Chinese communities.
Hakka culture refers to the sum of material culture and spiritual culture jointly created by Hakka people.
Hakka culture is the bond of identity of the Hakka group and an important part of the excellent traditional Chinese culture.
Hakka culture is known as the "living fossil of ancient Han culture". It originated from the Chinese culture of the Tang and Song dynasties and the culture of the Central Plains that the Han people in the Central Plains migrated to the south. It completely maintains the life genes and cultural genes of the Han people.
Chaoshan culture, belonging to Lingnan culture, one of the three major cultures in Guangdong, is a sub-culture of Han culture, a relic of ancient Central Plains culture, and an important part of the excellent culture of the Chinese nation. culture.
Chaoshan culture is a culture created by Chaoshan people (Chaoshan ethnic group), which has the characteristics of compatibility with Chinese and foreign cultures, and is characterized by marine culture.
Chaoshan culture not only has distinct regional characteristics, but also has certain characteristics of Central Plains culture, which runs through the entire social life of Chaoshan people.
A Teochew opera performance at Zaiyang Teahouse in Chaozhou, Guangdong.
Photo by Chen Chuhong
The cultures of the three major ethnic groups in Lingnan and the overseas Chinese culture derived from them are a miracle of human civilization.
Chinese citizens have a long history of emigrating abroad.
After the Tang and Song Dynasties, due to the development of economic and cultural exchanges, the expansion of foreign trade, and the development of transportation, the number of people who emigrated increased sharply. Most of them were called "Tang people" by the people in the country where they lived, and later they were collectively called overseas Chinese.
Chinese people migrated overseas on a large scale in modern times, and at the same time spread Chinese culture to foreign lands, forming an overseas Chinese culture that takes China as the identity orientation, Confucianism as the core of the value system, and is compatible with absorbing foreign cultures.
On the map of Chinese culture, overseas Chinese culture has a unique form. It was formed in a foreign country, which influenced the country of residence to a certain extent, and brought the foreign culture back to the ancestral (home) country to feed back the hometown. Township, unity and dedication, the pursuit of democratic prosperity and cultural characteristics.
The process of overseas Chinese nurturing their hometown is also a process of importing foreign cultures, which constitutes an important basis for the modernization of Lingnan culture.
Young people dance lions in Su Gong Temple in Qingchuan, Dongpo, Guangzhou.
Photo by Chen Chuhong
China News Agency reporter: The "Outline of the Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area" clearly states that "Support Zhongshan to deeply explore and promote Sun Yat-sen's cultural resources". How to summarize Sun Yat-sen culture?
Qiu Shuhong: Mr. Sun Yat-sen is not only a political symbol, but also a spiritual and cultural symbol.
"Sun Yat-sen culture" should include Mr. Sun Yat-sen's political thought and theoretical system, economic thought and social proposition, military thought and strategy and tactics, as well as the cultural elements contained in the above three aspects, as well as Sun Yat-sen's cultural thought, cultural achievements and cultural heritage.
The characteristic of "Sun Yat-sen culture" is that it is the soul of modern Chinese culture. It has not only led and confirmed the civilization process of modern China, but will continue to confirm the trend of civilization in contemporary China and the world.
The former is its historical significance, and the latter is its realistic and future significance, which has profound global and human value.
China News Agency reporter: Guangdong is one of the birthplaces of China's red revolution. What impact has red culture had on modern civilization?
Qiu Shuhong: From around the Revolution of 1911, Guangdong was one of the birthplaces of the Chinese Red Revolution.
Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, Guangdong has become an important holy land of the new democratic revolution.
Guangdong is one of the areas where Marxism spread the earliest and had the most extensive and deep influence in China.
It is also the birthplace of China's modern industry, the birthplace of the labor movement, and the birthplace of the Chinese bourgeois revolution, which prepared the material foundation and cultural environment for the earlier spread of Marxism in Guangdong.
Guangdong was the birthplace of the initial achievement of the Sinicization of Marxism.
During the Great Revolution, the CCP discussed the basic issues of the Chinese revolution in Guangdong.
Yang Pao'an was the first to promote Marxism in South China, and Chen Duxiu applied Marxist theory to the establishment of the Guangdong Party Organization of the Communist Party of China in Guangdong.
In April 1923, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China moved from Shanghai to Guangzhou, and held the third National Congress in Guangzhou, which determined the KMT-CCP cooperation policy of establishing a revolutionary united front against imperialism and feudalism.
Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, commemorating the site of the Third Congress of the Communist Party of China.
Photo by Chen Jimin
China News Agency reporter: Guangdong is the frontier of reform and opening up. What new cultures have been produced here? What new explorations can be carried out in the future?
Qiu Shuhong: In the new period of reform and opening up and socialist modernization, Guangdong has embarked on a development path with characteristics of the times, Chinese characteristics, and Guangdong characteristics, and has become the vanguard, pioneer, and experimental area of China's reform and opening up.
In 2018, the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee made a "1+1+9" work deployment, striving to create a new situation for various tasks in Guangdong in the new era.
In 2020, Guangdong will complete the task of targeted poverty alleviation in an all-round way. The province's 1.615 million relatively poor people and 2,277 relatively poor villages will all meet the standards for poverty alleviation; in 2021, Guangdong's GDP will exceed 12 trillion yuan, ranking first for 33 consecutive years. National first.
With the comprehensive building of a well-off society on schedule, Guangdong has embarked on a new journey of building socialist modernization in an all-round way.
The performance of "Five Immortals Presenting Spikes" at the folk culture tour of Guangfu Temple Fair in Guangzhou, Guangdong.
Photo by Chen Jimin
Guangdong is a fertile ground for the innovation of the theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
In the process of forming socialism with Chinese characteristics, Guangdong has always played the role of a test field and a vanguard.
Under the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Guangdong took the lead in carrying out market-oriented economic system reforms in terms of enterprise management, pricing, finance, infrastructure investment, shareholding, finance, and foreign trade.
The vivid practice and rich experience of Guangdong's "one step ahead" has deepened the exploration of the theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics by the Communist Party of China.
In recent years, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council have planned the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Shenzhen Pioneering Demonstration Zone of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, promoted the construction of Hengqin and Qianhai Cooperation Zones, and promoted Guangdong in its new journey of comprehensively building a modern socialist country Continue to be at the forefront of the country, create new brilliance, and make new and greater contributions to the realization of the second centenary goal and the realization of the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
(use up)
Respondent profile:
Qiu Shuhong: Director of China Soong Ching Ling Foundation, librarian of Guangdong Provincial Government Museum of Culture and History, vice chairman of Guangdong Writers Association, former chairman of Zhongshan CPPCC, member of Chinese Writers Association, member of Chinese Musicians Association.