The historical Chaozhou has blurred the years, just like an old photo, poured, wet, damp, moldy, at first it seems very clear, but it is vague, not very real. In April 2004, the construction of ArchWay Street on Taiping Road in Chaozhou began to be restored, and 22 arches were recreated one after another, standing on the central axis of the ancient city, like a time tunnel that has been opened. Those who come do not refuse, leading people to the faint past.
——Huang Guoqin, "The Legend of Chaozhou"
Huang Guoqin, author of "Chaozhou Biography".
Why write a biography for a city? How is a city biography different from city history? How do you view the people and stories of the water and soil of Chaozhou? Recently, the city biography "Chaozhou Biography" was published, which is another city biography launched by the Guangdong People's Publishing House "Fu Ren" book brand after the "Guangzhou Biography".
Huang Guoqin, the author of "Chaozhou Biography", born in Chaozhou in 1954, is currently a member of the Chinese Writers Association, a member of the presidium of the Guangdong Writers Association, a first-class writer, and has served as a member of the presidium of the Guangdong Provincial Federation of Literature and Literature, the chairman of the Chaozhou Federation of Literature and Literature, the chairman of the Chaozhou Writers Association, and the editor-in-chief of the Hanjiang Literary Magazine. Huang Guoqin's previous literary creations were mainly essays and novels, and literary creation began in 1974. He has won the China Contemporary Prose Award, the First Qin Mu Prose Award of Guangdong Province, the First and Second Prose Awards of Guangdong Province, and the Third National Xu Xiake Travels Literature Award.
Recently, the city biography "Chaozhou Biography" was published by Guangdong People's Publishing House.
"'The Biography of Chaozhou' is the spiritual genealogy of the Chaozhou people, the history of Chaozhou's urban construction, the history of Chaozhou commerce, the history of the lives of the Chaozhou people, the cultural history of Chaozhou, and it is also a general history of Chaozhou with beautiful writing and easy to read." Wang Quan, the planner of the guangdong People's Publishing House's "Fu Ren Shi" book brand and the responsible editor of "Guangzhou Biography" and "Chaozhou Biography", commented. "To be able to write a city biography to the point of tears does require a deep emotional injection; to establish a biography of a city from the perspective of ordinary people is the concrete embodiment of the people's view of history."
With rich and detailed historical materials, beautiful and affectionate brushstrokes, rigorous and credible historical quotations, and large prose tones, "Chaozhou Biography" shows the details of the people's livelihood in Chaozhou and establishes a biography of Chaozhou culture. The book traces back to the Neolithic FubinGuo until the development and change of Chaozhou as a famous historical and cultural city, an important town on the Maritime Silk Road, an important overseas Chinese town and an old revolutionary area on the mainland in 1949, aiming to show its historical details and the details of people's livelihood.
"The Biography of Chaozhou" writes the history of Chaozhou in literary style. The picture shows the map of Chaozhou City in the Yongle Canon.
The book is divided into dynasties, interspersed with four threads. The first is the form of the city, such as how Chaozhou City has changed from scratch, and the changes in the cities, buildings, and streets over the generations. The second is the form of life, dress, food, streets and alleys, residential structures, customs and festivals. The third is the economic form, how Chaozhou develops the economy, and the commercial development process at home and abroad. The fourth is the cultural form, including Chaozhou's culture, education, religion, folk arts and crafts, which is the more focused content in the book, and it is also a highlight of Chaozhou's local culture.
【Dialogue】
Huang Guoqin: "The Legend of Chaozhou" can be said to be my best book
Wang Quan once put forward four criteria for selecting the author of "Guangzhou Biography": he must be a native of Guangzhou; he must be a mature writer with classic masterpieces and wide influence and attention in the industry; he should be a historian; he should be over sixty years old and have corresponding life feelings and experiences. Wang Quan chose Ye Shuming, a famous writer in Guangzhou, based on this criterion, and Huang Guoqin for "The Legend of Chaozhou".
Since Huang Guoqin received the creative task of "Chaozhou Biography" in April 2020, read nearly 20 million words of relevant materials, opened a strict writing plan, got up at 6:30 a.m., worked at least 10 hours a day, closed the door, pushed off many meals, and completed the first draft by June 2021. Writer Chen Zhongzhong, when preparing for the creation of the novel "White Deer Plain", once said that he would "write a book that can be used as a pillow in a coffin after death", and Huang Guoqin also wrote "Chaozhou Biography" with this idea.
Nanfang Daily: How do you view the genre of urban biography?
Huang Guoqin: I once answered the question of Wang Quan, the responsible editor of Chaozhou Biography. This is an emerging genre and a new attempt. Treating the city as a living, well-informed, and storied historical old man is itself full of the possibility of narration and storytelling. Telling stories and telling history, telling anecdotes that you know a little but know very little, telling the past and present that you want to know and don't know, can stimulate every reader's reading imagination and reading excitement. City biography is a new literature century-old shop protruding from a strange army, the first bloom of a strange flower, she will attract onlookers from all over the world with a different charm.
The biggest difference between urban biography and character biography is that one is macro grasp and the other is specific grasp. Urban biographies are all-encompassing, looking for and cutting is every major event, every stormy meeting, every revolution; character biographies are like solo dances, like solos, although there are accompaniments, there are curtains, but the light chasing light is always on a person.
Nanfang Daily: What new understanding of Chaozhou and Chaozhou culture did you have in the process of writing?
Huang Guoqin: I collected a lot of historical materials on Chaozhou, digested and wrote, and indeed gained a lot of insights that I did not have before. People say that Teochew culture is different from other places, when did it start to be different? "The Legend of Chaozhou" began to be written from the Floating Bin Culture, and it turned out that from the time of the Floating Bin Culture thousands of years ago, the water and soil of eastern Guangdong were different from other places, and the surrounding Guangzhou, Jiangxi, and Fuzhou areas were already different. The ancients said that "one side of the water and soil to feed the other side of the people" did not come out of thin air.
Teochew people are good at management and good at craftsmanship. Several times in ancient Chinese history, the northern people moved south, and the Central Plains people retreated from the political center of the north to Hangzhou, then to Fujian, and then to Chaoshan and found that the climate here was good and suitable for farming, so the residents. At that time, those who could retreat, I think, needed to be well-off, in addition, they were skilled, because people with skills could survive anywhere, so Chaozhou concentrated a lot of outstanding talents and cultivated many skilled craftsmen.
Nanfang Daily: What is special about Chaozhou Biography compared to other Teochew history and culture books?
Huang Guoqin: The existing historical and cultural books in Chaozhou are basically written by historians, who are more rigorous and rational, and write without emotion or consider readability, while writers only consider readability. When I wrote Teochew, I wanted to take into account both, both historical seriousness and readability. If the history in the book is inaccurate, the book will be overthrown, there is no value in existence, and at the same time, as a literary author, I must use literary techniques to eat the historical materials, chew them up, and turn them into my own language. "Teochew Biography" is written in the style of "big prose", which is in line with historical facts and can mobilize the reader's reading pleasure.
Nanfang Daily: What was the mood of writing "Chaozhou Biography"? What do you think of the work of "writing biographies for the city"?
Huang Guoqin: Writers often say that "articles are not heartless things", and to write articles, you must invest your feelings, and you can first move yourself before you can move readers. When I was writing, I also had the belief that I would write about the parts of Teochew history that were strange and unpopular, but did exist, so that readers could see the less well-known history. When I wrote about the story of Wen Tianxiang and Lu Xiufu in Chaoshan to resist the Yuan at the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, I was writing with tears in my eyes.
It took me 13 months to write "The Legend of Chaozhou", and from the perspective of economic benefits, it may be "white labor", which is a disproportionate effort. But I am a native of Teochew, and it is a responsibility and an honor to establish a biography for my hometown, and I am writing "Teochew Biography" with a sense of honor. Because driven by a sense of honor, we dare not slacken off, do not dare to be perfunctory, cope, and be rigorous. This is to be left to future generations, you don't know how many generations later people will see this book again, can not point to the spine of people and scold. Although it is very hard and there is no economic benefit, I am good, or teacher Ye Shuming of "Guangzhou Biography", we are still very happy to write a biography for our hometown.
Nanfang Daily: How do you evaluate Teochew?
Huang Guoqin: So far I have written more than a dozen books, and there are not many books that have moved me to tears, and "The Legend of Chaozhou" can be said to be my best book. My wife got the book and read it, and I told her that it might be boring at first, the prehistoric part is "the white expanse of the earth is really clean", and it will be easier to read when entering the history part, because it provides room for imagination.
【Writing】Xiao Yanjing
【Author】
【Source】 Southern Press Media Group South + client