December 16, 2021 Yangcheng Evening News Foshan News A14 edition
Text, photo/ Yangcheng Evening News reporter Ouyang Zhiqiang correspondent Shunxuan
Lingnan has always had the saying of "Shunde Ancestral Hall Nanhai Temple", and the ancestral hall culture can be said to be a typical representative of Foshan Shunde culture. Recently, China's first ancestral hall culture series documentary "Home in Shunde" was broadcast on CCTV-4 Chinese International Channel for three consecutive nights, following the search for "taste" Shunde and the search for "beauty" Shunde, so that the national audience will once again embark on the journey of finding the "roots" of Shunde.
The reporter learned that the film is a key project supported by Foshan's literary and artistic masterpieces, and is the first series of documentaries in the country that pays attention to the culture and family inheritance of ancestral halls. Divided into three episodes of "gathering", "scattering" and "xing", each episode is 50 minutes, along the vein of "family, family, hometown, home country", focusing on recording the inheritance and status quo of Shunde ancestral hall architecture and culture, taking Lingnan regional culture as the background, presenting the Chinese civilization heritage, flow and more colorful reality landscape, so that the beauty of the ancestral hall is perceived by the public, the Lingnan cultural context can be inherited, and the positive energy of people's continuous pursuit of a better life is transmitted.
The Golden Building of Shunde Bijiang shines brightly and is decorated with golden and brilliant wood carvings
There were tens of thousands of ancestral halls in Shunde
The reporter learned that the construction of ancestral halls in Shunde began in the Song and Yuan dynasties and flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties. In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, large and small ancestral halls spread throughout urban and rural areas, almost one village and one temple, one surname and one ancestral hall, more than tens of thousands, magnificent construction, exquisite handwork.
According to statistics, there are more than 850 ancestral halls included in the roster in Shunde, and there are still 476 complete ancestral hall buildings in the whole district. Shunde ancestral halls are included in a total of 229 cultural relics protection units at the provincial, municipal and district levels, and these ancestral hall buildings carry the glorious reputation of "Shunde Ancestral Hall".
Each ancestral hall is a condensed family history. The ancestral hall records the continuation of the bloodline of a family, condensing the deep attachment of countless clansmen. At the same time, the furnishings, genealogies, couplets, and monuments in the ancestral hall also record the rise and fall of a family's honor and disgrace.
The "Chronicle of Shunde County" writes: The heaviest ancestral hall in Shunde, the magnificent of the large family, spend tens of thousands of gold. Its large and small ancestral halls are represented by the church structure, a thousand people's clan, a small surname single family, and several ancestral halls. The "Great Ancestral Temple", the Temple of the Ancestors, the Temple of the Ancestors, the Temple of the Ancestors, the Distant Ones, and the Collecting Tribes. Among them, the grandeur of the ancestral hall is the most important in the north of the Bijiang River.
Shajiao Chen Clan Ancestral Hall
In Shunde, the styles of ancestral halls of the Ming and Qing dynasties were different. Most of the ancestral halls of the Ming Dynasty are wooden structures, with gray sand oyster shell walls, lotus bucket arches, and there are hanging peaks and partial peaks. Typical of which is the apricot altar Feng Jian Liu Clan Ancestral Hall. In the Qing Dynasty, most of them used granite and black wood as pillars, water-milled large green bricks as walls, granite as steps, and hard mountain tops, typical of which were shajiao Chen clan ancestral hall and apricot altar Su clan ancestral hall. In addition, in Shunde, there is a pair of majestic stone lions guarding the door of the ancestral hall of the general famous and prestigious family. The dynasties of Shishi are also very easy to distinguish. The Ming Dynasty's multi-handsome and thin, the Qing Dynasty's multi-belly round body rolling.
Li Jianming, a well-known scholar in Shunde, introduced that in Shunde, the ancestral hall set up in the name of the ancestors of the first migration is called the "Great Ancestral Hall". Such as Le Congsha Edge He Clan Ancestral Hall, Xingtan Beishui You Clan Ancestral Hall, Le Congluan Luzhou Zhou Clan Ancestral Hall and so on. The ancestral halls set up by its descendants are mostly named after this person's name, called "a certain gong ancestral hall", such as the Songzhuang Qiu Gong Ancestral Hall in Chen Cun Wenhai, the Mu Zhai Chen Gong Ancestral Hall in Xingtan Longtan, and the Michuan Lu Gong Ancestral Hall in Leliu Dawan. Some ancestral halls are named after official positions, such as the Chen Gong Ancestral Hall of the Chayuan in Xinhua West of Longjiang, the Imperial History Ancestral Hall of the Le Congliang Sect, and the Song Suffrage Li Gong Ancestral Hall in the Apricot Altar. In addition, there are also titles such as "family ancestral hall", "ancestral temple", "ancestral hall" and "hall".
Haochuan Ouyang Ancestral Hall
The cultivation culture of the ancestral hall forms the spirit of Shunde's upward mobility
Most of the ancestral halls in Shunde are special buildings for ancestor worship, that is, the family ancestral temple, also known as the ancestral hall. Therefore, it can be said that the ancestral hall built in the various villages of Shunde is the family emblem symbol and the folk history museum of shunde families.
If anyone in the clan raises a person or enters the army in high school, a pair of flagpole clips will be erected to proclaim glory. In Shunde, there is no shortage of people in the villages where high schools raise people to enter the army, and there are 17 jinshi and 106 children in the village of Bijiang. In the village of Xingtan Maning, there have also been 10 Wenjin soldiers and 36 Wenju people, so in the face of the flagpole clips that abound in front of the ancestral hall, the Shunde people who are often seen are also "turning a blind eye". People often see the stone steps at the head of the river chung port that are the flagpole clips of the past.
The support of the Shunde Ancestral Hall for the participation of the clan in the imperial examination cannot be ignored. In many genealogies or history books, there are records such as "giving the clan sages anointing fire and giving birth to children to pay for examination papers, and raising people to test the road fee", so the readers enjoy the material support of the whole clan, and also shoulder the high hopes of the entire family. The title of the golden list is no longer a simple personal meaning, but a driving force that makes the entire family glorious and exuberant, and forms a spirit of upward mobility, and for hundreds of years, this endless ancestral hall cultivation culture has been deeply infiltrated into this land.
It is worth mentioning that some ancestral halls are of special value due to the special status of their owners. In 2002, the Huang Clan Ancestral Hall, which was rated as a provincial cultural relics protection unit, is the family ancestral hall of Huang Shijun, the wanli champion, and has a history of more than 300 years.
Since Shunde is the area with the largest number of Zhuangyuan in Guangdong, and the Huang Ancestral Hall is the family ancestral hall of Wanli Zhuangyuan, the restored Huang Ancestral Hall has become a Zhuangyuan Museum, which is the first museum in Guangdong to take the Zhuangyuan culture as the theme.
Exterior view of the Bijiang Golden Building
Carry forward the ancestral hall culture in a new way and concept
In addition to a very small number of natives in Shunde, most of them are immigrants from the Central Plains in the past generations, from thousands of years of continuous southward migration, although they have taken root in Shunde and flourished, they still always remember the origin of their surnames and the great deeds of their ancestors in the depths of their hearts, so the ancestral hall has not only become a microcosm of the ins and outs of a clan lineage, but also an excellent entrance to study a local folk culture.
Scattered throughout Shunde, the many ancestral halls are huge in scale and intricately carved. Such as the Xingtan Chang Sect Li Clan Ancestral Hall. Built at the end of the Qing Dynasty and covering an area of 20,000 square meters, this ancestral hall has a total of 3 large mansions, 3 gates, each entrance has a straight alley, the alley is a house on both sides, the house is not large, but there are more than two gates. The houses are connected to each other and, at the same time, to the central compound. Therefore, there are many doors. After repeated verification, the villagers pointed out a total of 99 doors, so some people called this ancestral hall 99 doors.
The Lecong Chen Ancestral Hall, commonly known as the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall, has 98 large and small horizontal side doors, and is one of the two largest ancestral halls in Guangdong. Since the foundation stone was laid in 1895 in the 21st year of Guangxu, nearly 1,000 people started construction every day, and it took 5 years to complete, and its engineering is rare in the history of ancestral hall architecture.
In addition to its sacrificial function, the ancestral hall is also a place within the family to punish evil, maintain harmony, celebrate righteous deeds, record family history, and enlighten teaching. Today's ancestral hall has gradually receded from the deep feudal color of the past, entered the daily life, and become a place for people to do activities and leisure. During the day, it is the activity center of the children, and at night, it is the exchange place for the music and art lovers, and every festive feast in the village has become a happy paradise for neighbors to raise a glass and celebrate, sing and dance.
Shunde's dragon boats, lion awakenings, martial arts, cuisine and ancestral hall culture are closely related, and young people in Shunde have spontaneously organized many cultural associations to discover and protect these exquisite cultural heritages from the perspective of the current era. In the hearts of the older generation, the ancestral hall has become their spiritual home from their ignorance of clan culture in their youth to their spiritual home in their old age. The older generation still spares no effort to contribute to the culture of the ancestral hall family, and the younger generation inherits the spirit of the ancestors and carries forward the traditional cultural inheritance in new ways and concepts.
Today, Shunde is building a high-quality development pilot demonstration zone, adhering to the use of water beauty city, city gathering talent, and talent to revitalize the city. Economic development depends on people, urban quality improvement depends on people, and cultural inheritance and innovation also depend on people. In the documentary "Home in Shunde", although the Shunde ancestral hall is shown, what is internalized is the unique connotation of Chinese national culture, and the spiritual core of the Chinese nation's inheritance and endless life shines in the film.
Source | Yangcheng Evening News
Editor-in-charge | Wei Qin