On the day when the geese were calling in the long sky, our group came to Dingshu Town in Yixing.
Yixing is familiar with it, but it has some diaphragm for Ding Shu. Yixing is well known to women and children, and that is because of its purple sand pottery. In the memory, the peasant's jar, urn, cat sigh, and pot are all from Yixing, but they do not know that their core production area is in Dingshu.
Yixing has been many times in the past. The first time was more than forty years ago, when I was in college and skipped classes for two days plus Sundays. At that time, the three caves in Yixing - Shanjuan Cave, Zhanggong Cave, and Linggu Cave were hot, so they dared to make a second time. Impressed by the magic of nature. After several times, many floating lights were glimpsed, and I always felt that pottery, purple sand and black tea could be seen everywhere in Yixing. Although I also learned that Yixing's humanistic accumulation is deep and talented, the impression of Yixing is an ochre city. However, this Ding Shu trip enriched my perception of Yixing.
Dingshu Town is bordered by Taihu Lake in the east and is illuminated by Qingming in the east, and the tianmu mountain in the southwest is trailing the tail of the green plain. It lies quietly here, the heat is not hot, but the winter is a little warm. However, when I first arrived, Ding Shu's impression on me was still ochre. The terracotta stones standing on the cliff walls, the falling wood of Qinglong Mountain in the breeze of the slanting sun, and the purple sand utensils stacked or mixed on the side of the road are like seeing a farmer returning from planting fields, kind and warm. In fact, in terms of color, why is it ochre? It has a red orange yellow green blue purple, and the ochre color is just its base color.
Let's follow the background color into Ding Shu!
Yixing pottery, with a long history, quarry site Bibi. Dingshu Town is named after the two places in the region, "Ding Mountain" and "Shu Mountain", between which Qinglong Mountain and Huanglong Mountain are the authors. It is said to be a "mountain", but in fact, Yixing is the remnant of the Eastern Heavenly Eye, which is a hilly ear. The highest is at 100 meters. Take Qinglong Mountain, for example, after generations of logging, now only small peaks and deep pools remain, known locally as "quarrying passes", and in recent years it has been set up as "Qinglong Mountain Park".
The park is dominated by a deep pond formed after quarrying and a mountain of clay leftovers. The pond is 70 to 80 meters deep, because it is rich in calcium and other minerals, the water quality is clear; the height of the mountain and the depth of the water are slightly equal, because of the opening of the axe, its shape is steep, standing on the pool. Due to the years and months, the trees between the cracks in the walls are green and green, and each is in a comfortable posture. It is reflected by the pool water, like a bonsai. The whole shape is similar to the East Lake of Shaoxing.
The rocks on the mountain are ochre and iron blue. See, its texture rock. Locals know: this purple sand, clay stone also. Its texture is as hard as promised, how can it become clay? The clay stone is rich in iron, easy to oxidize after opening, placed for as much as half a year, less than two or three months, all decomposed into particles. It is ground into purple sand clay. Its color is light and dark, and the cover is based on the content of iron.
Coming to Qianshu Village, the remaining dragon kiln is on a small slope, its ridge is in the shape of a crouching dragon, about 70 meters long, and it takes 30 or 40 degrees of oblique upwards. Because it is preserved as a mining site, only two kilns of pottery are fired each year. The head of the department is called "Master Fu", and the master's surname is Wu, and he has been here for more than forty years. He has a large body, tiger eyes and a big jaw, and a man. I can't see that I am nearly seventy years old. Master Wu talked about the number of family treasures in pottery, such as purple sand pottery burning to 1400 degrees Celsius, its color is ochre, and when burned to 1470 degrees Celsius, it is iron. Its color shade is determined by temperature. And this is all judged by experience. And when asked about inheritance, he said that he called his son back from college. He believed that his son would do better than he did, because in addition to his experience, there was also his son's culture.
Seeing the clay pots and pots built into walls and niches, and many deep pits, I thought that if the whole Town of Dingshu wanted to form such a scale and accumulate such experience, it would take several generations of efforts for several generations! The reason why Ding Shu Town has produced many kiln masters, as well as many pottery masters who have left their names in history, is that in the long river of history, the hard work and wisdom of potters have accumulated.
Turning over the history of Ding Shu pottery, the masters of pottery arts and crafts are brilliant and talented. In contemporary times, there are nearly twenty state-level masters such as Gu Jingzhou, Jiang Rong, and Xu Xiutang. We visited the "Former Residence of Gu Jingzhou South Street" at the foot of Shu Mountain; went to "Yixing Changle Hong Pottery" to visit the 85-year-old Chinese master of arts and crafts Xu Xiutang and listened to him introduce the history of the inheritance and development of Yixing pottery; visited Li Ailin at night and visited his "Yangxian Purple Sand Famous Pottery Museum" to be impressed by his level of appreciation and the collection of so many ancient and modern purple sand pottery works of art; walked into the studio of Fan Zefeng, the general secretary of the party branch of Xiwang Village, and immersed himself in pottery production. He also led the whole village to get rich together and felt admired. In Fan Zefeng's studio, we saw many young women, sitting in front of the window, drawing beautiful patterns on purple sand with fibrous hands. Such a purple clay pot would cost anywhere from sixty to one hundred hours. Suddenly remembering the poem "I don't know the weaver girl under the fluorescent window, several degrees to throw the shuttle to weave", its clever wisdom is also hard.
Fan Zefeng said that as an art, pottery needs to be quiet and nourished, and it needs to find inspiration. So they often work until two or three o'clock in the night to rest, and then start work at noon the next day. That picture is a static. If you think about it, a person sitting alone under the window lamp, brewing a pot of Yixing black tea in a purple sand pot, or burning a sandalwood incense, the breeze is pleasant, and there is a sound. She injected all this and her own thoughts into purple sand before she carved it into a purple sand pot. They are so delicate, so agile, each with its own manners, that they want to rest. Are you saying it's just a pot?
In the whole town of Dingshu, almost every family is engaged in pottery. In the absence of successors to many intangible cultural heritages, the pottery craftsmanship as an intangible cultural heritage has emerged in Dingshu. In addition to its rich economic returns as a local primary industry, it also lies in the inheritance of the spirit of master craftsmen from generation to generation. Li Ailin said that many young people like his son returned to their hometowns after studying abroad. His daughter-in-law, who graduated from Shanghai Overseas Chinese University, also joined the ranks. He believes that there is such a group of highly educated descendants engaged in the pottery industry, which makes the industry more dynamic and contemporary. They have culture, they have new ideas, they will promote and promote, so Ding Shu's purple sand pottery artist Ding flourishes, and the incense continues.
It was late at night when I came out of Li Ailin's "museum", on the ancient street facing the Li River, and in the surrounding homestays, the houses were brightly lit. I knew that under the light sat potters one by one, pouring their ideas and ideas into one work of art through their dexterous fingers. The ochre vessels, which have both fireworks and a flexible sense of art, all embody the soul, that is, culture.
Yes, Ding Shu is a cultural town with purple sand pottery as the background. With more than 7,000 years of pottery history, where is the charm of culture not flowing? The tranquility of Jiangnan, the simplicity of the folk customs, and the human fireworks emitted by the dragon kiln once attracted Su Dongpo, who was nearly half a hundred years old, to build the "Dongpo Caotang" at the foot of Dushan Mountain. Because of its "village bridge original tree like my hometown", "Dushan Mountain" was changed to "Shu Mountain". The "Dongpo Caotang" of that year has now become the "Dongpo Academy", and the charm of the Dongpo is like a place, attracting local young students to come to the academy to recite ancient poems and accept the influence of traditional culture. Dingshu Town has been infiltrated by thousands of years of purple sand pottery culture, in addition to celebrity attractions such as "Dongpo Academy" and "Gu Jingzhou South Street Former Residence", there are also the former residences of Zhou Peiyuan, Xu Beihong, Wu Guanzhong and other masters around it. They have become leaders in their respective fields, and must have been influenced by the purple sand pottery culture, which in turn influenced future generations.
And this emphasis on culture has become a tradition of Ding Shu. Walking on Gunan Street, known as the "Purple Sand Source, Cradle of The Master", in addition to many simple and elegant purple sand pottery shops and workshops, as well as the "former site of the Minle Bookstore", "the former site of the Mao Shunxing Pottery Shop", "the former site of the Chen Zhenqing Purple Sand Pottery Shop", there are also many reading courtyards opened by modern people. In leisure time, relatives and neighbors or three or five friends sit idly and chat, taste tea and read. It added a bit of bookish atmosphere to Ding Shuping.
Dingshu Town is located in the combination of urban and rural areas, and the construction of new rural areas and the transformation of old urban areas are related to it. Many places I have seen elsewhere tend to be torn down and restarted, and then the designer is asked to make a few house plans, and then build them uniformly. Such a transformation, new is new, but lacks personality and appears to be sculpted and dull. In some places, even the store signboard is complete. And Ding Shu is not. Listening to mayor Wu Zhenqiu, the government put forward the policy of "selling, renting and reforming", giving a general requirement: the style must be coordinated with the surrounding areas. This not only preserves the traditional style, but also enhances the function of the building and makes it livable. The whole urban and rural construction gives people the feeling that they are given shape with things and are natural. There's a chimney here, a section of clay wall left there; the waterhole here is repaired, and the vegetable beds are more regular. Each embraces the terrain and is varied. Seemingly casual, in fact, it is a large-scale stroke that does not show traces. This is actually another culture: the livability of modern urban and rural areas and the high degree of integration of human fireworks.
At noon after leaving Ding Shu, he went to a peasant's house. Farmhouse dishes that exude the smell of fire on the stove add to the warmth of home. I recognize one of them as "pond fish stewed eggs". Pond carp should be the standard written language, and in Ding Shu called "Tubu fish", it is commonly known as the soil with purple sand. Later, a small mushroom-like dish came up, and Xiao Li, who accompanied it, said that it was called "goose mushroom" because of its picking season, when the geese flew south. What a great name! Hearing her say this, a smart picture appeared in front of my eyes: a group of geese lined up with the word "ren", lined up with the word "one" flew from the sky, and three or five farmers carried baskets and collected mushrooms in the bamboo garden - "geese come to mushrooms". Think of the night pot of drowning utensils in the museum, which was almost every household in the museum, but it is called "Moon Farewell". It's amazing. Even ordinary titles are appreciated by all. This is Yixing, this is Ding Shu, a place full of cultural atmosphere everywhere.
Leaving Ding Shu's mouth, looking back at the remnants of Tianmu Mountain and the town lying under the autumn sun, I feel that it is no longer ochre. Instead, it contains "red orange yellow green blue purple", which has a different main color with the times and the seasons. That's the color of the sun, that's the light of culture.
There seems to be a loud goose crying in the long sky, calm and persistent...
November 3, 2021 at Bamboo House
Author: Tang Shuomei
Edit: Fan Jiale
Editor-in-Charge: Yang Jian
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.
![Wang Yonghao, | of Jiangnan: Let culture divide the future of Ding Shu[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)