The first rays of light in 2022 sprinkled on the colorful inlaid porcelain of the characteristic ancient buildings lined up in Chaonan District of Shantou City. According to the words of the famous cultural scholar Feng Jicai: "Using ancient buildings with inlaid porcelain, everyone is like wearing a flower crown." "The ancient craft has been passed down to this day. In addition to inlaid porcelain, wood carving, clay sculpture and other arts have been able to bloom in Chaoshan architecture.
In addition to inlaid porcelain, wood carving, clay sculpture and other arts have been able to bloom in Chaoshan architecture.
Shantou is located on the coast of the South China Sea, of which Xiashan Street has been a commodity distribution center in eastern Guangdong since ancient times, an important commercial port center, and a well-known overseas Chinese township at home and abroad. Countless ancestors have successively made a living, and they have cherished Sangzi all their lives, even if they cannot return to their hometowns and return to their roots, they must also contribute to feeding their hometowns.
Generations have inherited the spirit of hard work of their ancestors
In November last year, Feng Jicai came to the Chaoshan area to investigate, and said in the article "Chaoshan GuanyiLu": "The fundamental of urban cultural protection is to protect its own urban personality, and urban personality must also be found and recognized from its own history." ”
If you walk on the winding countryside road of Chaoshan And the ancestral halls standing in each township, they carry the most silent whispers of history.
With a history of 2800 years, the Zheng family, one of the major surnames of Chaoshan Province, has been pursuing the goal of loyalty, filial piety and benevolence for generations, and has inherited the family style culture. In October 2020, Zheng Huigui, a descendant of the Zheng family, posted a video of the ancestral hall anniversary online, which received the attention and likes of many people.
Cheng Ancestral Hall.
Recently, the reporter contacted him. Zheng Huigui took reporters to visit. In Nantian Township, the Zheng Ancestral Hall Dazun Hall is particularly chic, and the side door is engraved with the image of "Phoenix Soaring". On the walls around the ancestral hall, stories such as "Three Heroes Fighting Lü Bu", "Moon Hua Gift" and "Fruitful Fruits" are painted, implying auspiciousness. The ancestral hall plaque "Da Zun Tang" is coupleted with the book: "Da Xian Sect Gong Qian Qiu Ye, Honorable Zu De Wan Nian Spring." "Sincere and ancestral, with the meaning of reaching the supreme, hence the name "Dazun Hall".
And the origin of this ancestral hall, there is also a story related to overseas Chinese.
The ancestral hall is a symbol of traditional culture, a spiritual source that unites family relatives, and a manifestation of Confucian cultural and humanistic feelings. According to the locals, because the villagers who have been thinking about their homeland for a long time, they feel that the nantian township long house has not been able to build its own ancestral hall, so they made a grand ambition to build it.
Many touching stories took place during fundraising. According to the local people's recollection, there was an old man who returned to his hometown after working hard in Hong Kong, and his personal life was usually very frugal, "he would rather lay down a stool and sleep upside down, but also try his best to save money to repair the ancestral hall."
The townspeople not only raised funds in the township, but also contacted overseas Chinese in the United States, Thailand and other places, and raised funds to build a shrine. Dazun Hall was inaugurated in 1996. In 2020, the ancestral hall was renovated and the ancestral hall anniversary celebration ceremony was held, so Zheng Huigui took a video and put it on the Internet to get everyone's attention.
The root system Chaoshan spared no effort to feed his hometown in the foreign countryside
"Nantian" was called "Lantian" in ancient times, taking the meaning of "Lantian Shengyu", and is a famous civilized township. The local villagers have such a story -
The ancestor of Jinpu, Zheng Shenggong VIII, Zheng Mianling, created Nantian, and there is a bitter story with ups and downs. In his youth, he married the lin women, thriftily maintained the family, and raised a daughter and two boys, but as his life was gradually becoming more and more substantial, his wife and two sons were unfortunately killed by the plague. Zheng Gong was deeply saddened and went to his daughter's house to settle down.
At that time, in the year of confusion, Zheng Mianling deeply felt the importance of re-establishing a court in his daughter's home and starting another business. Zheng Mianling came to Nantian, the middle and lower plain of the Lianjiang River, built a draft liao, and raised ducks, got up early and greedy, and worked diligently. Later, he married weng shi and raised three sons in a row, and the family business gradually developed. The Zheng clan also gradually became a fast-growing wang clan in Nantian Township at that time, and has continued to this day.
"This history is quite legendary, but it is also so that future generations can always remember the difficulty of starting a business in their ancestors, so they cherish the present and strive to be strong." Zheng Huigui said.
"Haiyang County Chronicle" has a cloud: "Those who live in the city have many jobs, many miracles, those who chase the last profit, and many goods to sail, and they regard their homes as if they were sending." "Nantian Township is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese, and there are many people who have made a living, which is closely related to the spirit of hard work of the ancestors for generations.
According to the Nantian Genealogy book, it is difficult for people to start a business in a foreign land, and at the beginning they are mostly engaged in cool work, such as trailer boys, valet shoulder luggage or cargo, and handymen, and later there are also people running small businesses in the Nanyang area, such as grain stores, snack points, charcoal shops, Chinese medicine stores, cloth shops, etc. Starting from small traders and hawkers, Nantian people are self-reliant and sincere and trustworthy, and have experienced arduous struggles, developed so far, stretching overseas, and many business elites have emerged.
Overseas wanderers are concerned about the prosperity of their home and country and the prosperity of Sangzi, and they have no hesitation in developing slightly, and they have generously donated money to their hometown, which can be described as a pure son who has always had a patriotic heart and love for the hometown. It is understood that Nanli Mianling School was funded by overseas Chinese, built in 1996, and later became a first-class school in Guangdong Province, cultivating many talents. Nantian also set up the "Hengzhen Scholarship Foundation" to encourage children and grandchildren to further their studies.
As Feng Jicai said: "Protecting the overseas Chinese culture of the city is not only the need of tourism, but also a unique spiritual resource for urban development." ”
"This spiritual wealth is stretching over the Chaoshan land, penetrating deep into the veins of the countryside and inspiring future generations to write a new chapter in the new era." Zheng Huigui said.
[Nanfang Daily reporter] Shen Congsheng
【Author】 Shen Congsheng
Southern Probe