Kunming in Xu Zhiyuan's Eyes: A New Narrative of the Old Frontier

Eight years ago, there was a very dramatic change in Myanmar, I went to Myanmar, flew to Yangon, went all the way north, to Mandalay, I wanted to see what was happening in the country, and finally flew north from Mandalay to Kunming. I went to Mandalay to follow the exile of the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the Yongle Emperor, all the way down from Nanjing, the Qing army rushed over, its generals betrayed, and finally ran to Burma.

I went near Mandalay to find the site he had been to at the time, and now the story is rarely mentioned. Finally back in Kunming, at that time I found Kunming to be a broader story, it was a story about exile. A lot of Nanjing people come here, it's a story about exile, the former center out of a sense of distrust, they were banished to a frontier, they brought a new culture. There is a lot of romance in exile, exile means some kind of powerlessness, while exile means new possibilities, it escapes the narrative of the original center, and new attempts can be made on the frontier.

The story of Yongle Emperor is rarely told, but it involves global change at the end of the 17th century. The fall of the Ming Dynasty was related to the sudden collapse of the mexican silver mines, to the decline of the maritime trade in Manila, which brought about the contraction of trade throughout Southeast Asia, and the contraction brought about the financial tension of the entire Ming Dynasty, which led to the inability to deal with the invaders in the north, and finally the emperor died in Kunming.

I think it's a very grand story, it looks like a little episode, but then there's a really global story, all the regions, the inconspicuous places, the whole pulse of the globe.

Only when I go to Yangon, go to Cambodia, go to many places, you go to those places, there will be new discoveries. Because each of us will look at the problem in a certain center, in the Ming Dynasty, Nanjing is the center, Beijing is the center, Yunnan is on the border, south of the clouds. If you look at it from another perspective, you will find that for the whole of Southeast Asia, for the world around Myanmar, Kunming is a kind of central existence, radiating from here to the wider world. If you look at Los Angeles in the United States, Los Angeles is the southernmost city in California, but for Latin America, Los Angeles is their center.

With this shift of perspective, you will find a completely different story. The last exiled emperor died tragically here, and finally he was very helpless, and there was a helpless dialogue with the Golden Dagger Camp, the emperor said that you were a courtier of the Ming Dynasty, why did you rebel against me? Wu Sangui can't say it, which is also a very poignant story, about loyalty and betrayal. In the end, Wu Sangui became a betrayer, and was eventually replaced by a new regime, extending the interesting story of Wei Xiaobao. This is my impression of Kunming.

I stayed at the Green Lake Guest House this time. I love Green Lake very much, and when you take a walk around Green Lake, you see a very condensed history. I saw the Lecture Hall, the yellow building, which at that time was the training base for one of the earliest military cadets in China. Among these young people are leaders like Cai Yi. Cai Yi was in the Patriotic War, when Yuan Shikai did something against the trend of history, in the distant Yunnan, became a task to counter this trend, from Tianjin all the way to haiphong, from haiphong by train to Hanoi, from Hanoi to Yunnan. Here a new story is born, a trend that is very leading in China against the fading trend, and this is the story of the Wutang.

You look at the back of the Lecture Hall not far away, the backstreet is the residence of the Southwest United University, suddenly in 8 years, in such a small space in Yunnan, so many well-known scholars, so many outstanding students, only eight years, but created a very romantic full of scientific discovery, humanistic exploration, resistance consciousness such a story, this story is actually infiltrated in the streets and alleys, if you go to find out, the story of Southwest United University is not only the short existence of the university, is a certain spirit, a certain method, Some kind of dialogue that can constantly complete the echo, in that place you will find such a condensed feeling, as long as you narrate it, discover it, we can all find what is helpful to us at this moment, because each of us actually lives in the continuation of history.

When we mistakenly think that we can get rid of history, history will always find us again, we live in a constant reverberation of history, and each generation will encounter similar dilemmas, similar challenges, and we often cope with similar ways, when we say that we are making great strides, in fact, we are not moving forward as fast as we believe.

When we talk about the past, the past is never old, they become a new fashion in some very new way, and the past often comes back to us with a new fashion. Now Yunnan has a new feeling, in a sense like the California of the new era, when all the young Americans, writers, artists in the 60s and 70s, when they were bored with the gloomy weather on the east coast, the traditional cultural systems and institutions, ran to distant California, where there are beaches, sunshine, you can try all kinds of things, is a new frontier.

When we talk about the frontier, the frontier may be marginal, and at the same time a lot of new possibilities, so the California Renaissance was born in California. At this moment, Yunnan has played a similar role in a sense, so many people have run from Beijing and Shanghai to yunnan, which is not only a kind of refuge, but also a breeding of some new opportunity, and has become a new story.

During the Ming Dynasty, the Nanjing people came over as a forced movement to the border, and the Southwest United Congress brought some new impetus because of the forced migration of war, and now I feel that a certain self-imposed exile has emerged, and this kind of exile may contain new possibilities. This is my feelings about Kunming and Yunnan now.

I was going to find the old customs office in Kunming, which should have been demolished long ago. I greatly admire a great scholar Benedict Anderson, who wrote the most famous work of the past 40 years, "Imagined Community", and he said that nationalism is something that has been created, that its place needs to generate new consciousness on its own, because of the birth of new printing, the birth of new means of communication, they imagine themselves from similarities, there is a search for a common identity, so they create their own nation, they create their own country, This book allows us to look at our country from a new perspective, to look at the whole history and culture.

A series of things that look old, but inside are actually reshaped by each generation. Just like Cai Yi and Liang Qichao, our concept of the Chinese nation was created 100 years ago, after being exiled to Japan, because after encountering other cultures, they re-understand what their culture is, and only then will they understand what the Chinese nation is and what it means to be a Chinese.

Benedict Anderson, the greatest scholar of the last 40 years, was born in Kunming and later returned to England, where he was Irish, his father was Irish, and his mother was English. Ireland has no way out due to a variety of poor economic conditions, so Irish young people are a bit like our Fujian young people who want to go to the world. Customs was in Kunming at the time, and Benedict Anderson's parents gave birth to him in Kunming.

Benedict Anderson returned to England from Kunming and then to the United States to study, and for a long time in Indonesia and Thailand, his life wandering in various places and observing different cultures gave him a completely different perspective on how important the uniqueness of each of us is, and how ridiculous the self-righteous arrogance of each place is. He believes that only by really constantly comparing and understanding each other in diversity will you eventually truly explore one of your own uniqueness and possibilities.

So I am especially looking forward to Kunming, everything that happens in this city, to be able to constantly find its true uniqueness in a rich and diverse system, we have a kind of proud laziness, and at the same time there is a very keen observation and keen search, if these factors can be combined, I think Kunming will be a new great story, and this story may be happening. (Focus Finance according to Mr. Xu Zhiyuan's speech in Kunming, not reviewed by myself)

postscript:

On December 11th, Midea Real Estate TOP Series Jingrui Product Launch Conference was held in Kunming, Yunnan Province, and the "Future in The Land" co-creation plan was launched simultaneously. Co-creation Project joins hands with writer and founder of One Way Space Xu Zhiyuan, co-founder & host architect Meng Fanhao of line+ Architects, Shen Shaomin, contemporary artist Shen Shaomin, design partner/design director of Gad Jiedi, Hu Weijian, president & managing partner of CCD Hong Kong Zhengzhong Design Firm, Ge Yaxi, founder of LSD interior design, and other well-known figures in the cultural and design circles to jointly explore the link between local culture and future lifestyle in the form of content co-construction.

At the press conference, Xu Zhiyuan delivered a speech to interpret the city of Kunming from a unique perspective and discover a new narrative of Kunming. In a sense, this is similar to the values of Midea Property. In terms of product creation, the Midea Real Estate TOP Department jingrui, which landed in Kunming, hopes to integrate into the city's genes, present the local humanistic style, pursue a return and restoration of life, and realize the innovation and leadership of lifestyle, link local culture and future life, and become a new narrative of Kunming city.

This article originated from Focus Finance