【Editor's Note】
Located in the center of China's north-south coastline, Shanghai is the choke point of the Yangtze River into the sea.
Shanghai is born of the sea, thrives on the sea, and expands by the sea. Throughout the ages, the development of Shanghai has been nourished and influenced by marine culture. From the perspective of marine culture, Shanghai has experienced changes in urban forms such as Jiangnan fishing villages, domestic trade ports, Far East shipping centers, and international shipping centers.
Culture is the soul of the city, marine intangible cultural heritage is an important carrier of Shanghai's marine culture, is a valuable cultural heritage left by the ancestors, in the context of comprehensively enhancing the soft power of Shanghai city and building a "humanistic city" in 2035, it is time to discuss the protection and inheritance of Shanghai's marine intangible cultural heritage in depth.
Standing at a new starting point in 2022, The Paper launched a special report on "Shanghai's Sea and Marine Intangible Cultural Heritage "Shanghai" People", through a series of short films, leading Pengyou into the work and life of non-hereditary inheritors, tasting the charm of marine intangible cultural heritage, and exploring the profound significance of "sea" in Shanghai.
Episode 4 "Pudong Pie Pipa" Director: Zhao Chenlin Photography: Zhao Chenlin, Xie Shuo Editor: Zhao Chenlin (08:21)
In 2008, the Pudong pipa, jointly declared by the people's governments of Huinan, Kangqiao and Xinchang, was included in the list of national intangible cultural heritage by the State Council. 10 years is enough time for a small tree to stretch its branches and blossom and bear fruit. Wang Ruilin, a post-90s Anhui girl, became the representative inheritor of the Shanghai district level of the Pudong pipa in 2018. This year is her sixth year of Shanghai drift, and pipa has accompanied her through 25 spring and autumn seasons. Today, her life has come to a new turning point, facing the triple collision of school, career and family, she is still questioning her original intention, insisting on ambition, and being loyal to ideals, freedom and romance.
The following is the self-statement of Wang Ruilin, the representative inheritor of the Pudong pipa in Shanghai-
"I just want to do lute-related work"
I am an Anhui girl, the original choice of "Shanghai Drift" was very simple, because Huinan Town (located in Shanghai Pudong New Area) lack of professional Pudong Pipa teachers, and I happened to be in my senior year, after graduation want to find a job that I really like and relatively free. My family wanted me to stay in Anhui to work, so I also found a well-paid and relatively stable job in the province at that time. But I love the lute so much that I just want to do lute-related work.
The person who helped me to tie this line of inheritance is Mr. Pan Yabo, who has taught me pipa for 25 years, and the benefactor on the road of learning art; the other is Mr. Hu Longchang, the former director of the Huinan Town Cultural Service Center, bole on the career road.
Mr. Pan was born in a pipa family, and his maternal grandfather, Mr. Shen Haochu, was the fifth generation of pipa masters of the Pudong school, and his master, Mr. Lin Shicheng, happened to be his grandfather's proud protégé. Director Hu Longchang formulated the first five-year plan for the protection and inheritance of "Pudong Pipa Culture" in Huinan Town, and is also committed to creating a cultural business card of "Pudong Pipa Town". What state was Huinan Town in at that time? There is no heir of the Pudong pipa to stay in the local area, so the relevant work cannot be done for a long time. Director Hu wants to introduce full-time teachers to the Pudong Pipa Teaching Institute in Huinan Town before retiring.
At the end of 2015, Mr. Pan gave my personal pipa solo concert CD to Director Hu, who recognized my pipa playing skills and told me that if I could come and work, the conditions would be difficult at the beginning, and the future would get better and better. When I heard that I could go to the birthplace of the Pudong pipa to do inheritance work, I was enthusiastic and moved, and I came over.
At the 2015 solo pipa concert, Wang Ruilin took a group photo with teacher Pan Abel.
Director Hu did not scare me, the first year of coming was indeed very bitter, and I encountered more difficulties than I imagined.
I still remember when I first arrived in Huinan Town, I asked the driver in the taxi, I said do you know that Huinan Town has a Pudong pipa, he said he didn't know, thinking that the pipa originated from Jiangsu. So in the first year, we had to do a lot of popularization of the Pudong pipa, such as holding public lectures and public welfare classes. Admissions at that time was also difficult. Due to the low penetration rate, parents do not understand the pipa and will not bring their children to experience it. At first, few people were interested in these lectures and courses, and some children learned for half a year, and a large number of people chose to give up because they were too difficult to learn.
In order to attract more children to know about pipa, I ran a public welfare class without charge. In the first six months of my arrival, I felt that the public welfare class was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there will be more children who come to learn pipa, but on the other hand, everyone will also wonder if the free teaching is not because the teachers are not professional enough and the teaching is not good enough. During that time, I also carried the pressure of this aspect. Fortunately, after less than a year of study, the children were able to play some simple music, and the doubts disappeared.
Wang Ruilin opened a pipa public welfare class
I had thought about ending this period of Shanghai drift. I signed a labor dispatch contract with the Huinan Town Cultural Service Center, took the minimum wage in Shanghai, the rent cost accounted for three-quarters of the wage, and encountered work problems, which is very painful for people who have just graduated and have no work experience.
In order to solve my own food and clothing problems, I began to run paid classes. Since it is a project with the government, the cost of the course will be lower than the market price. Now in the face of zero basic children are still free to teach, until they reach the level of pipa level two, I began to charge. I don't ask parents to buy a lot of lessons at once, usually with adjustments based on students' learning. Some children do not have time to practice after middle school, I will suggest that they suspend for a year or two, wait until the middle school or college entrance examination is over, if they still like the pipa, then continue to learn.
In the first year of Shanghai Drift, I would ask Teacher Pan, Director Hu and my parents for help. They gave me great advice and always reminded me, "What do you really want to do?" "I confirmed my heart again and again: I only want to teach the lute, I just want to do the work related to the lute.
Of course, I also have countless heart-warming moments. For example, Mr. Pan, who is nearly eighty years old, will take the initiative to help me control the courses and performance activities, and will also happily agree to the lecture invitation; for example, Director Hu still silently fights for many performance opportunities for me after retirement, so that I can introduce the Pudong pipa to more people through one performance after another; for example, in the first year of my first year in Huinan Town, Pudong TV Station came to me to shoot short films, which made me feel that my inheritance work has received social attention and recognition, and these camera opportunities can also motivate children to perform well. It is a great encouragement for both children and parents.
It was my students who brought me the most comfort. In the summer of the first year, only the office of the small room was equipped with air conditioning, and there were still many children in the public welfare class at that time, about 20 children attended classes together. It was very hot, the classroom was small, I was already sweating, and I felt that the children were about to suffer from heat stroke. After class, a child wiped his sweat and asked his mother: "Can I come to the next class?" Can I learn from the teacher again in the next lesson? "At that time, I would feel that what I did was meaningful and rewarding.
Recently, there was also a very cute little baby who said to me before class: "Teacher Wang, I have an idea. I have a new dream! My previous dream was to be a policeman, but my latest dream now is to become a pipa teacher! "I was very touched after listening to it, maybe the pipa brought her not only to learn to play the lute, but also a non-genetic seed slowly sprouting."
"Let the children love the pipa from the bottom of their hearts"
Teacher Pan has always liked my personality and thinks I can do it if I dare to do it, but I am too anxious. When I was a child practicing pipa, I always wanted to learn a piece of music in a short period of time, so Teacher Pan said that when I played the pipa, I was like "a baboon in a cage". During the period when I first came to Shanghai, such "acutes" also caused me a lot of trouble. For example, in the summer vacation when I first joined the company, almost every night was full of classes, very tired, when the children could not play well, I would be anxious for them, and it was easy to get angry or lose patience.
Lack of teaching experience in the early days, many times I was in a hurry, and I slowly learned to sink my heart into teaching methods. The practice of the basic skills is very important, but it is very boring, and I hope that I can understand more about what children like, and be a little more innovative in teaching, so that they can first become interested, and then love the pipa from the bottom of their hearts.
I used to hold a "Hanfu Yaji" event where children dressed up in elegant Hanfu and learned pipa in a sunny park or in an quaint tea room. My teaching is not limited to the repertoire of the examination book, I often teach them to play some red songs or classic Western music, such as "Singing Mountain Songs to the Party", "Liang Zhu", "Chardas Dance" and so on. I also encourage them to play their favorite pieces of music with the lute. Children with strong learning ability will find scores on various websites, and after they send me the practice videos, they will say, "Teacher, I think I play well!" ”
Wang Ruilin led the trainees to carry out the "Hanfu Yaji" activity in the park
Not only playing music, but also some other art forms that combine pipa, such as singing and dancing, are also of interest to children. Every year, Shanghai holds an exhibition and evaluation of new works by new talents. In the past five years, almost all of our works have been based on the Pudong pipa. There is a song called "Plucked Time", which is sung by a children's voice group and won the Shanghai "Newcomer New Composition Award". The lyrics tell the story of children learning the Pudong pipa. "The strings ran through my fingertips, and my mother told me to practice." The four strings of the lute are also the strings of dreams. They played and sang on stage, resonantly and moved.
In fact, performances and competitions are the two major sources of motivation for children. Performances allow them to show off their style; competitions, whether the results are good or bad, are a process of growth for children. And being able to wear different beautiful clothes for each performance is really very attractive to little girls. There are several pairs of sisters in my students. The sister came to study first, often had the opportunity to perform on stage or participate in competitions, the sister was very envious, asked her mother: "Why does my sister's clothes look so good every time she performs?" I also want to wear beautiful clothes and go up and play tunes. ”
In order to let children and parents intuitively see the teaching effect, I will hold a debriefing performance every year. The most impressive one was during the winter vacation last year, when I rehearsed a debriefing performance for the children, and the epidemic suddenly broke out near the performance. This event was originally canceled, but I think it is a pity, the children bought beautiful clothes, but also confidently practiced the song, I did not want to let their expectations be disappointed, so I consulted with the leader, and finally decided to use online recording to show their learning results.
2021 Huinan Town Pudong Pipa Transmission Institute Learning Achievement Report Performance
In recent years, I have heard the most voices urging me to open a piano shop or set up a studio, but I don't want to start my own portal now. On the one hand, I don't think my teaching experience and life experience are enough to support me to do such a thing, and more importantly, the town's cultural service center is a good platform, and the local government can provide so many performance opportunities for children to gain confidence and accumulate experience on the stage. Usually, the government invites me to participate in public welfare performances, and I try my best to bring my children to perform on stage.
In the past five years, my temperament has been much calmer. In the past, when I was in class, I felt that I was about to "faint", but now I can understand why children find the pipa difficult to learn. When I was a child, I was particularly anxious to practice the song well, so I would study very hard, although I rarely found this kind of hard work in children, but I was pleased that many students had gone from "my mother urged me to play the piano" to "active practice".
I once saw my own shadow in a child. This child was also "forced" by his mother to practice the piano at first, and later won an award in the competition, performed well on stage, was praised, and gradually had the confidence and interest to insist on learning the pipa. Her mother would send me a video of her playing while crying, not because she was reluctant to practice, but because she couldn't always play well and cried.
I will treat every student with my heart, and they love and fear me. Some seriously studied children made rapid progress, and some of the first students had already reached the level of pipa level ten.
There is a threshold for the pudong pipa playing skills, and when students can play the difficult Pudong pipa classics such as "Ten Faces Ambush", I can teach them the relevant techniques. Although some children have not yet had the opportunity to master the pudong pipa playing skills, I will tell them some stories behind famous songs. In this regard, I continue Mr. Pan's teaching method. When I was a child learning new songs, Teacher Pan not only had to tell me the story herself, but also assigned tasks to my mother to consult the materials and tell me the background of the creation of the songs. I liked the story of chu and Han fighting for supremacy in "Ten Faces Ambush", and learning this song was once my goal. Later, I was able to perform the piece, and because I knew enough about the connotation of the piece, it was easier for me to grasp the essence of the performance.
I have held Pudong Pipa Open Classes in various communities in Huinan Town, and in the class I will definitely tell children and parents about the history of Pudong Pipa and some stories that have been handed down. For example, the grandfather Ju Shilin "pipa played open Hushuguan", Chen Zijing jinjing taught the prince pipa and was awarded the reputation of "the first pipa in the world". In my usual teaching, I also told the children about the inheritance spirit of the Pudong pipa. Mr. Shen Haochu compiled the "Yangzheng Xuan Pipa Score", the so-called "Yangzheng" is to remind yourself to have a healthy atmosphere.
Mr. Shen Haochu's "Yangzhengxuan Pipa Score" and "Haiqing Qing Swan"
Shanghai drifter's "charging" journey
When I first joined the company, the Huinan town government listed me as the "eighth generation of heirs" in the Pudong pipa lineage. This identity has been controversial. Generally speaking, the "first generations" we refer to are people who have made outstanding contributions to the development of the genre. I am a student of Mr. Pan Aber, and Mr. Pan is a student of Mr. Lin Shicheng, the sixth generation of inheritors, although the identity of the inheritors is justified, but when it comes to "the first generations of inheritors", I am still young, I have not achieved much achievement, and at that time, I have not submitted the application of the district-level inheritors, which will indeed be questioned by the predecessors. I didn't really care about that identity at the time. For example, his eldest disciple Zhou Xianshun opened a pipa school in Liaoyuan, Jilin Province, and can cultivate a large number of pipa talents every year. We all see ourselves as heritage workers, the inheritors of the Pudong pipa.
From a national perspective, the inheritance and protection of the Pudong pipa is more optimistic. Before Mr. Lin Shicheng, the Pudong pipa was a single transmission of master and apprentice, and after Mr. Lin went to the Central Conservatory of Music to preach and receive a career, he cultivated a large number of talents, making this pipa school flourish throughout the country. In addition, Mr. Lin also compiled the scale score of the Yangzheng Xuan Pipa Score into a more understandable stave, and the formal score was widely disseminated.
As the birthplace of the Pudong pipa, Huinan Town issued a five-year plan for the protection and inheritance of the "Pudong pipa culture" in 2016, including the five goals of basically forming the "Pudong Pipa" historical documents collection, the display site of research results, the gathering place of inheritors, the skill exchange base, and the academic research center. The first five years have come to an end, we have held several large-scale exhibitions, competitions and performances, and I have also participated in a lot of popularization work, but if we want to form a cultural business card of "Pudong Pipa Town", we still have to do a lot of things, which cannot be done by our own efforts, and need to be jointly promoted by the government and all sectors of society.
Wang Ruilin and the students participated in the Shanghai non-genetic inheritance activities
My job is to inherit and protect the Pudong pipa. In addition to teaching at the Pudong Pipa Transmission Institute, I will participate in performances, for example, at the Pudong Culture and Art Festival in October 2021, I played a string of songs for the Pudong Pipa-themed dance drama "Clear Strings". I also participate in activities such as "Non-Legacy School", "Non-Legacy Community", "Non-Legacy Wall". The so-called "non-legacy into the big wall" is to give inmates a pipa lesson to help them master a skill for making a living, while cultivating themselves. They are particularly serious about learning, cherish this learning opportunity, and perform at the New Year's concert every year, but the class has been suspended due to the epidemic in the past two years. I have also been to the "Harbor Cemetery" to play, let the music comfort the living people, and popularize the Pudong pipa in a very warm way.
Wang Ruilin participated in the stage photo of the dance drama "Clear String Line"
In 2018, I successfully declared myself as a district-level inheritor, and the burden on my shoulders was heavier. At present, I am only a full-time teacher in the Huinan Town Cultural Service Center, and I am weak in popularization and inheritance, and sometimes I even feel inadequate. The curriculum is close to saturation, and I have to go to schools or communities on weekdays to open free youth interest classes, adult training classes, and weekends to take public welfare classes and paid classes. I desperately needed assistants, but it wasn't easy to recruit new teachers. Students with the same major as me are more willing to settle within the teaching staff, and can have stable jobs and considerable salaries. I need to think about how to settle down in Shanghai.
My family and teachers constantly urged me to continue to study, ask more teachers, and accept new things, otherwise it would be easy to rest on my laurels, and Director Hu also encouraged me to study for further study. I also want to study the Pudong pipa technique in depth, do some physical and physical collation and induction, and think about the more profound problems of inheritance, rather than just teaching children how to learn pipa skills well.
Three years ago, I decided to go to graduate school. During the graduate school, the support of my family was very important to me, and they would comfort me: "You are still young, fight for what you like, don't leave regrets, if you are too tired to work outside, you can go home at any time." "For the first two years, due to the busy work, I didn't seriously prepare for the exam. My grandmother was older, and she said to me, "I'll burn incense at home and bless my granddaughter to get in." "I just found out that the examination is not a one-person affair, it carries the hope of the whole family.
In September 2021, when I returned to my alma mater, Anhui Normal University, at the age of 28, the familiar teacher was surprised to see me and asked me: "You are already working in Shanghai, why do you want to come back to graduate school?" "Some of my younger students in the same major will throw similar questions. It can be hard for them to empathize, and in the time after school, I can feel a fresh stream of blood coming back into my body. Five years of working in Shanghai is actually a process of continuous "discharge". In the campus classroom, I can gain new knowledge, make new friends in the same major, and start a "charging" journey of Shanghai drifters.
I also hope that I will improve my professional strength during my graduate school years and be able to settle in Shanghai through talent introduction after graduation. Of course, my leaders and the parents of the students were afraid that they would not be able to keep me, and they were expecting me to find a local to marry, so they often introduced me to others. If it weren't for the parents of the students, I probably wouldn't have met my current boyfriend.
All efforts will have romantic results
In the first two years of my employment, I was particularly motivated, and I wanted to stay in the training center every day and not go home, so I really didn't have the emotion of missing home during that time. When I was busy, my mom would hang up when she called, and then she would be worried and guess what I was doing. For a while she didn't even dare to call me, knowing that I must be busy, dialing later and afraid of disturbing my rest, so she simply stopped talking to me on the phone. She said she would remember to call my family if I was free.
Just came out to run, completely without caring about the feelings of my family, but in the past two years, I have a lot of feelings. When I first graduated from college, my parents were still in good health, and they thought, "You are drifting outside, I don't rely on you, I rely on retirement wages, and our little life is particularly good." "In the past two years, my grandfather and grandmother's physical condition has not been good, and they are afraid and dare not get sick. The parents said: "You work outside the home, you can't come back to take care of us, what happened at home, we don't dare to tell you." "Just by taking care of their families, children who go out can't compare with children who work locally. My parents are getting older, and I can't give them the love they need. At this time, it will feel very sad.
I have been very close to my grandmother and grandfather since I was a child, and the most unacceptable fact in these two years is that we see each other less. Grandpa has to cry every time he sees me, my grandmother has often insomnia in recent years, and when she came home in 2021, she held my hand and said, "I think every night, from the time you went to kindergarten to think of you starting work, I just broke my finger and counted, I can see you three times a year, and I don't see you more than twenty times in total." "So every time I go home, my heart is also tormented. Drifting alone for six years, the whole family is worried.
Now I go back to my alma mater for graduate school and usually live in Wuhu. Although my parents moved to Hefei because of their work, there are still many relatives in Wuhu who can take care of me, and they can often go home to see me. For parents, their hearts are much more solid. And I began to agonize with a new problem: how to combine work and study?
Today, I commute between Shanghai and Anhui every week, and I still return to Huinan town to work on Fridays and weekends. In the past, I would open pipa interest classes in primary and secondary schools, but now I can only adjust to online classes. The leaders hope that I can coordinate the time on both sides, and the students and parents also trust me, so no matter what, I will stick to the two "positions" of work and study.
Wang Ruilin participated in non-genetic inheritance activities
From Shanghai to Wuhu, the fastest time is to take two and a half hours by high-speed rail. Traveling around two places a week really trolleys me physically and mentally. I wanted to sleep on the high-speed train for a while or read a paper, but I was in a state where I couldn't sleep and couldn't learn knowledge. The week before, my cats and I were in serious trouble, I had insomnia every night, and the cats didn't dare to get out of my bed all week because they had never left the rental house in Huinan Town.
Shanghai is a city that young people yearn for, where they can seize many opportunities and find many possibilities, as long as they have worked hard, they will definitely see the returns, which is one of the reasons why I want to take root in The Magic Capital. From the moment I landed, I was mentally prepared to run on both sides for the next three years, but occasionally I had moments of inner vulnerability. One day it was very hard to catch the train, I photographed the speeding train, and typed a line of copywriting in the circle of friends: the most learned this year should be, contentment.
The nose is sour, but the heart is burned by the flame called "love". When I was a teenager, accompanied by a pipa and supported by relatives and friends, I wanted to know how to be happy.
The pipa is like a companion in my work and life, and it is also my spiritual support. When I lived in high school, I would bring the pipa to school and use the daily lunch break to practice. Even on the eve of the most intense college entrance examination, I did not stop learning the pipa. Along the way, the power of persistence is great. The lute is a very popular instrument of mine, and I don't want to give it up easily.
After six years of Shanghai drifting, I still want to take root in the "Hometown of Pudong Pipa". Because I believe that all efforts will have romantic results.
(This article is based on Wang Ruilin's oral account, and the photos in the article are provided by Wang Ruilin herself unless otherwise noted.) ）
Poster Design: The Paper, Zhu Bichen