Braids and little feet: The Last Empire's City Portrait
Text | Han Weiwei
I believe that many people have a deep old Beijing complex like me, and old Beijing for us is not only the rows of red wall and yellow tiles that ordinary people once could not enter, not only the sorrow of autumn insects in the royal garden, not only those brocade food and priceless treasures that we cannot touch, but also the vivid life scenes in the city well, and the loud shouts and drinks full of Beijing flavor.
The heat rising from the mouth of the long teapot and the flexible hands of the guy who poured the tea, the bench, the shaved head of the coal stove, and even the whip of the servants who came from the street can bring us some aftertaste. Unfortunately, there were no cameras or videos in those days, and we could only look for those special breaths with memories in the words that were only words.
Memories carry the feelings of most people, and I believe that there is no one who does not cherish their own good memories. Pushkin said that everything that has passed will turn into a kind remembrance.
Fortunately, this unknown painter in France has vividly recorded the life of our ancestors. The soldiers, farmers, industrialists, and merchants, their food, clothing, and housing, are shown here. Playing octagonal drums, counting treasures, playing ten idle children, lifting monkeys, playing with jars, all kinds of market scenes are readily available.
In this book, we are also shown a lot of snacks, some of which have been passed down to the present, such as river fishing, osmanthus cake, pea yellow, spiced beans, brine boiling, and some are rare, like chicken heads, autumn food and so on.
I believe that most young people now do not use the rod scale, "there is a rod scale between heaven and earth, and the scale is the common people... You are the fixed star." The first star on the scale rod is called the "fixed star", which is the basis point at which the scale and the scale rod are balanced. Other scales are called scale stars, and the color of the scale stars must be white or yellow, and cannot be black, because you can't do business with black hearts.
In fact, each star of the scale pole symbolizes the stars in the sky, and the tail end of the scale pole is named Fu, Lu and Shou Three Stars, which is used to warn the business that "people are less than one or two are not blessed, two or two are short, and three or two folds of life are missing." The culture of the ancients, a scale is enough for us to learn for a few days.
If it weren't for this book, I would have almost forgotten what is called "Pingsheng Three Levels" (bottle sheng sanjie), that is, the Fang Tian painting halberd of the Erlang god, three inserted in a bottle, which means pingsheng three levels. Not to mention that it is also made into a kite, which has an additional layer of meaning of flying higher.
If the museum is limited to the pursuit of the object, and does not study the customs and human feelings behind it, it loses most of its significance. The significance of these pictures is not only to the surface, the taste can be conveyed through the object, and the customs of life depend on the activities of the characters.
Like funerals, the details of funerals in this book are very rich, from mourning to the costumes of men and women, as well as mourning sticks and prayer flags that young people today have almost no chance to see.
The pictures in this book also show many images of lamas in Beijing, as well as ascetic monks and monks, we all know that the Qing Dynasty is very advocating Buddhism, and the officialization of lamas is also a major feature of the Qing Dynasty, through their costumes and actions, we can glimpse one of the spots of this system.
The ancients were masters of sending affection for things, whether it was a weeping stick in a funeral or a large and small object burned in the temple, all of which conveyed human feelings with things.
Probably because the painter is a foreigner, he has a curious eye for all this, so that he can observe in detail and paint everything he sees. It even includes picking up poverty and picking up dung. This is fortunate for us, if it is a local painter, it may be because it is commonplace, do not express these trivial things, resulting in missing a lot of meaningful things for future generations.
Secular life is relatively weak in natural research, and this is precisely what is most relevant to our lives.
Cervantes said that history gives birth to truth, that it can compete with time and preserve the old things. Let this book lead us in the search for the things we are about to or have forgotten!
About the Author
Han Weiwei, a research librarian of the Dahe Village Ruins Museum in Henan, has been engaged in cultural research for nearly 20 years. He has published more than ten academic papers, participated in the compilation of more than ten monographs, presided over a number of research projects such as "Prehistoric Faience Culture in Henan", and won the first prize of Henan Provincial Social Science Achievements.