In 2002, CCTV filmed the documentary "A Man and a City." In the film, writer Liu Xinwu recalls the Silver Ingot Bridge in Beijing, the Silver Ingot GuanShan is one of the famous Sixteen Scenic Spots of Yanjing, when the weather is clear, standing on this small bridge located in the middle of the city, looking west, you can leisurely admire the West Mountain, and the beautiful skyline is unobstructed.
Liu Xinwu sighed, "How wise the ancients were in planning the city of Beijing, and how elegant their aesthetic taste was." Unfortunately, the lookout point of the silver ingot is now desecrated by some tall buildings that should not be built there. ”
Also in the same year, Hämpel, president of the German Architectural Society, visited China, "Now when I drive inward from the outskirts of Beijing, I don't know where I am." I can be in Miami, Singapore or Frankfurt, all the high-rise buildings are the same, there is no special personality of each, only from the words written, I can see that I am in China, this is not a good future. ”
01
Increasingly similar cities
In 1908, another German, Hermann Föscher, came to China to build a railway station in Asia at the time for Jinan.
This railway station was listed as the first stop in the Far East by the post-war Travels in the Far East published by the Federal Republic of Germany. It witnessed the transformation from the demise of the Qing government to the Republic of China, to the Japanese military management of the railway during the War of Resistance Against Japan, and then to the history after the founding of New China.
At the end of 1991, due to the increase in passenger traffic, Jinan planned to build a new railway station. A year later, the old railway station in Jinan was demolished. At the time, there was a heated debate over whether to demolish the old railway station. Many experts and scholars believe that the old railway station is a "three-dimensional history" that can be touched, has a high cultural relics value, and should be preserved.
Figure | The old Railway Station in Jinan has been demolished
However, in the 1990s, the pursuit of modernization and the rejection of capitalism were a prevailing trend of thought, and those in power at that time had a strong "national self-esteem". An official in a high position said that the old railway station was a symbol of colonialism, and seeing it reminds you of the oppressive years of the Chinese people.
The official also commented on the old railway station from the architectural details: the green roof (the curved dome) of the bell tower (referring to the four-sided bell tower) resembles the steel helmet of Hitler's army. In the end, the official's opinion played a fairly important role in the demolition of the old train station.
Paradoxically, the old railway station, which "symbolizes colonialism," was demolished, and the Seven Loyalties Shrine, which represents the national spirit, was not left behind.
After Zhu Yuanzhang's death in the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Dixingbing, the King of Yan, competed with his nephew for the throne, and Tie Xuan, who was then a politician in Shandong, led the crowd to hold Jinan, and later promoted Shangshu to the army because of his retirement from the enemy. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, in order to commemorate the seven loyal martyrs who defended Jinan such as Tie Xuan, the official ordered the construction of the Seven Loyalty Shrine in Jinan. During the Cultural Revolution, the Seven Loyal Ministers' Tablets enshrined in the ancestral hall were destroyed. In 2002, the Seven Ancestral Halls were demolished and wal-Mart supermarkets were built on the original site.
The day of the demolition of the Seven Loyalty Shrine coincided with the 600th anniversary of Tie Hyun's death.
The demolition and protection disputes that took place in Jinan have also been experienced in the capital Beijing. According to Wang Jun's "City Chronicle," at the State Council working meeting after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Liang Sicheng and Wu Han, vice mayor of Beijing Who called himself a "reformist," were red-faced. Once Wu Han said bluntly, "You are an old conservative, in the future, Beijing city will build high-rise buildings everywhere, and your archways and palace gates will not become chicken coops and bird coops surrounded by high-rise buildings. It is said that Liang Sicheng cried bitterly on the spot.
Figure | Beijing's once old archway
This is not the first time Liang Sicheng has had a disagreement with the ruler. On the issue of the protection of the ancient buildings in Beijing, he also argued with Peng Zhen, the mayor of Beijing, and finally put down a sentence: On these issues, I am advanced and you are backward; fifty years later, history will prove that you are wrong and I am right.
The demolition of the old railway station in Jinan, the Seven Loyalty Temple, and the disappearance of the palace gate of Beijing Archway, several seemingly isolated incidents, the causes are similar, the process is the same, and the ending is of course the same.
In 2005, Liang Sicheng's son, Liang Congjie, heard from some foreigners in Beijing that some people called Beijing a "second-hand Hong Kong", and he immediately felt sad from it. "Beijing has such a long history and cultural context, but it has not been properly utilized, and now it has fallen to be called second-hand Hong Kong.
A year earlier, Yu Kongjian, dean of the Institute of Landscape Architecture at Peking University, had made a trip to Jinan. He specifically went to Baotu Spring to look at it, and thought that there was a big article to do, "Jinan has such a big square, also called Quancheng Square, and the spring water flows to the north side of Quancheng Square but is drained away in vain." He finally lamented that Jinan has very good environmental conditions and can be built into a very beautiful city, but like some other cities, its characteristics are slowly disappearing.
Figure | Jinan Quancheng Square
Yu Kongjian wrote a book called "The Road to Urban Landscapes : Communicating with Mayors." In the process of communicating with mayors, Dean Yu also has a lot of experience, for example, he believes that in order to change the similarity of urban landscapes, it is necessary to reflect on the sense of the chief who is deeply rooted in people's minds, "Who has the power and who has the final say is a very important aspect of influencing urban construction." ”
For Dean Yu, he is concerned about solipsism and administrative intervention in urban planning and construction, while for the writer Feng Jicai, he is concerned about the absence of humanistic intellectuals in the process of urban planning and construction.
"When our country entered the center of economic reform, some confused concepts came out, and culture set up a stage for economic singing, that is, culture was in a subordinate position, economy was the goal, and culture was the tool. If our humanistic intellectuals had played a good role, our more than 600 cities would not have become the same. I think it's a huge cultural loss because we've spent at least a thousand years creating hundreds of different, colorful and individual cities, and now we're in the same place. ”
02
Lost regional culture
Historian Shi Jingqian once quoted a passage from the missionary Min Ming in "The Land of the Great Khans" to illustrate a special talent of the Chinese.
"Chinese good at imitation, and all European goods, as long as they have seen them, can be imitated very well. They copied several things in Guangdong Province, and because they were flawless, they sold them to the mainland in the name of imports from Europe. ”
Min Ming Wrote this passage between 1674 and 1677. Three hundred years later, according to an incomplete count, China has at least ten White Houses, four triumphal arches, several Sphinxes, and at least one Eiffel Tower. According to statistics, there are at least 102 small Kyotos, 68 small Kamakuras, 52 small Switzerlands, 43 small Santorini, 40 small Nara, and even 27 small Morocco.
Figure | The Yingquan District Government in Fuyang, Anhui Province resembles the White House
As Yu Kongjian puts it, "The urban landscape is a symbol of ideological and aesthetic taste. The wandering of national identity and national cultural identity is a reflection of the current situation of the urban landscape. "The cottage landscape reflects precisely the loss of regional culture.
Jia Pingwo once described the significance of the Qin Cavity to the people of Shaanxi:
"There are only two kinds of people they most admire in their lives: one is the leader of the country, and the other is the local Qin famous corner. That is, anywhere, these famous characters are not present, as long as the parents of the famous horns are found, there is no need to queue up to buy oil in the store, there will be seats when eating in restaurants, that is, blocking the car in the middle of the road, as long as you shout: I am so-and-so or something, the driver will also have to stop. ”
In 2018, Qin Cavity performance artist Quan Qiaomin sent a circle of friends: Students of the 49th grade, don't sit at home and sulk. Can't bear to watch our grandson learn drama for six years and still don't know what Qiba (one of the opera performance programs) is? At that time, the famous Qin Cavity drama company Yi Folk Society had died two elderly people in a row within half a month, and the last batch of students in Qin Cavity had few left, and they were all over eighty years old.
Figure | The Qin Cavity Drama Society with a century-old history
Qin is to the people of Shaanxi, just as it is to the people of Suzhou.
Pingtan has appeared in Su Tong's novels many times, forming a unique regional writing, and even inspired him to create "My Imperial Career". Nowadays, in Suzhou, among the book venues that specialize in performing commentaries, only the old bookstores such as Guangyu Bookstore and Meizhu Bookstore are still in business, and many of the bookstores that were once full of guests have long ceased to exist.
Along with the bookstore, there are also critics.
The data shows that Suzhou Pingtan School enrolls about 50 students every year, which is far lower than the demand of Suzhou Pingtan market. There are not enough young artists to inherit the skills of the older generation of artists, resulting in the current working artists in Suzhou Pingtan generally over the age of 50. At the same time, the lack of success in the evaluation of the bomb industry has made many classic commentaries eventually lost. "Heroic Martyrs", "Sui and Tang Dynasties", "Da Hong Pao", "Gu Dingchen" and other books have become a masterpiece.
Figure | Suzhou Pingtan artist
Scholar Chen Shenglai concluded:
"The Qin cavity in the northwest, the Zizi in the Central Plains, and the commentaries in jiangnan are difficult to find in the corresponding cities, and the superficialization, vulgarization, entertainment, and commercialization of urban culture are becoming more and more serious, dissolving and degrading the traditional customs and aesthetic interests of the city, smoothing out and detracting the cultural characteristics of the city, and disintegrating and destroying the nostalgic support of the city."
As early as the 1980s, Luo Dayou pointed out through the song "Lukang Town" that the modern way of life that people obtained was at the cost of human alienation and the demise of locality and nationality.
"Taipei is not my home, my hometown has no neon lights", the neon lights here are symbols of globalization aimed at market expansion. Luo Dayou lamented that the town of Lukang, which represents his hometown, could not escape the sweep of globalization in the end, the red bricks turned into cement walls, and the incense of the Mazu Temple was no longer burned, "The people in the hometown got what they wanted, but they lost what they had." ”
"Lukang Town" in the 1980s formed a subtle intertextuality with today's China.
In 2000, Starbucks opened in the center of the Palace Museum. The New York Times commented that if we want to find an extreme example of the extension of globalization, it is that the coffee culture that prevailed in the United States spread to the most sacred historical part of China, the Forbidden City in Beijing. Even McDonald's, which runs inside the Kremlin, can't match that.
Figure | Starbucks, which opened at the Forbidden City, was shut down due to controversy
As of 2021, Starbucks has opened 5,400 stores in more than 200 cities in China, and streets and alleys can be seen everywhere. Nowadays, it is not difficult to find a cup of coffee in any city, but it is not so easy to take a sip of tea. As Baudrillard points out in Consumer Society,
"The logic of commodities has been popularized, dominating not only the processes of labour and material products, but also the whole culture, sexuality, interpersonal relations, and the fantasies and impulses of individuals."
In 2014, He Dong interviewed Fei Xiang, "It is rare to meet a person like you, born in Taiwan, exiled to New York, transferred to London, mother Beijing, and then went to Shanghai." The average person will ask you a question, what is the difference between these cities? I would like to ask you, under this great culture and great modernization, what are the similarities between them? ”
Fei Xiang replied:
"I think the saddest thing right now is that it's too similar. Originally, New Yorkers had the style of New Yorkers, but now the young people in Beijing are similar, and they are all very fashionable, and Shanghai is even more so, it has become almost the same. Anywhere you can see those cafes, even billboards, this season we invited which internationally renowned artist to advertise, that advertisement, these major cities can basically run a lap in a month, I said it's him again, I got off the plane and he was again. ”
Thirty-five years ago, in 1987, Fei Xiang first appeared on CCTV Spring Festival Gala, singing "Hometown Clouds". Where is home now?
03
Use old bottles to serve new wine
In 1993, Jackie Chan was introduced by people to buy ten ancient buildings in Anhui in China, planning to find a piece of land to rebuild the old house and let his parents live. Unexpectedly, his parents died within ten years. Jackie Chan believes that these old houses are the essence of Chinese architectural art, and if they are not put out for people to appreciate, it is a waste. So he began to plan the donation of these ancient buildings.
At first, he wanted to donate the buildings to Hong Kong, but the land issue has never been discussed. Eventually, he donated the building to Singapore.
Jackie Chan chose to donate the ancient building to Singapore, not only because Singapore officials knew that Jackie Chan had the intention to donate, and immediately found a piece of land for him at the University of Science and Technology Design in Singapore, but also because professor Gu Jian of the university made a careful examination and design of the surrounding environment in order to display the four old houses, and showed Jackie Chan "exquisite models and three-dimensional drawings and laser scans".
According to Jackie Chan, "I was so touched that I almost had the urge to donate the other six buildings to them." ”
Figure | Jackie Chan donated ancient buildings to Singapore
In fact, Jackie Chan first collected ancient buildings because his father always had a wish to return to China to live in an antique house. Similar to this wish, Mu Xin has also been.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Mu Xin, a young master from a large family in Wuzhen, played the piano at home, read Western albums, and did not expect to be broken three fingers during the Cultural Revolution, and after being imprisoned, he silently played Mozart on the hand-painted black and white piano keys to survive.
Mu Xin, who had been wandering overseas for half his life after the Cultural Revolution, returned to Wuzhen alone in January 1995. At that time, Wuzhen's "houses were in ruins, like the ruins of cemeteries", and the Sun family garden where he lived from childhood became a sand turning factory, and workers were pulling bellows. After returning to New York, Mu Xin wrote an essay "Wuzhen" documenting the trip back home, which was published in Taiwan's "China Times". Mu Xin wrote in the article, farewell forever, I will not come again.
Later, Chen Xianghong, secretary of the Wuzhen Party Committee, saw this essay of Mu Xin, contacted Mu Xin through Chen Danqing, and asked Mu Xin to consider returning to his hometown, the manufacturer that occupied the former residence has moved out, as long as the old man replies, he can renovate the former residence at any time. At the same time, Chen Xianghong began his plan for the revival of Wuzhen.
Figure | Wuzhen in the early years
The first thing Chen Xianghong did was to demolish a new house. At that time, Chen Xianghong took a photo of Wuzhen a hundred years ago to make a comparison, demolished all the new houses in the scenic spot, moved out several factories, and buried high-voltage lines, low-voltage lines, cable TV lines, and telephone lines into the ground.
A few elderly people were not accustomed to him demolishing houses, standing on the bridge every day and scolding him, and some people poured feces at the door of his office for three consecutive days.
After demolishing the new house, it is necessary to repair the old house. In order to repair the old as old, Chen Xianghong searched for wood and stone all over the country. Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui demolished the old streets, old bridges, old houses, the informant the first time to inform, he sent someone to send cars to transport over the number, and later all used to repair the old houses in Wuzhen Xizha.
After demolishing the new house and repairing the old house, Chen Xianghong invited the old shadow puppet artists who had been lost for a long time to come out, carried forward the local flower drum play that had long been stopped singing, revived the boxing boat performance and the high pole boat performance, and reproduced the handicraft workshops that were on the verge of being lost, such as blue printed cloth, wine workshop, and silk workshop.
In 2005, Mu Xin returned to Wuzhen again, "I came back and saw the house number of Wuzhen East Street on the house number, the same as what I saw when I was a child. ”
After Wuzhen was rebuilt, Huang Lei took a look at this location and brought the crew to shoot the scene. This play is the highly rated "Like Water Years" after being broadcast in 2003, and Wuzhen appears in the lines in a soft and wide implanted way, attracting a large number of tourists. Chen Xianghong and Huang Lei have since been known as the eldest brother and younger brother.
In the follow-up development of Wuzhen, Huang Lei pointed out the direction for Chen Xianghong, "Why should an ordinary tourist stay here?" Seeing the water, listening to the birds, being in a daze, having sex, basking in the sun? You're missing real thickness here. In 2008, Huang Lei invited Chen Xianghong to Nanjing to watch the drama "Crush on Peach Blossom Garden", and after watching Chen Xianghong decided to hold a drama festival in Wuzhen.
Figure | Wuzhen Drama Festival scene
The Wuzhen Drama Festival allowed Chen Xianghong to realize his wish to build an old bottle and use it to hold new wine. And "many places in China are making new bottles and filling old wine." Up to now, there are 312 historical and cultural towns in China.
One Chen Xianghong cannot solve the problem of homogenization of 312 famous historical and cultural towns, nor can it solve the problem of increasing similarity in Chinese cities. Liu Xinwu asked this question in the documentary "A Man and a City":
"In the novel, I do not blame anyone else for the demise of good things, I am torturing myself, such as the destruction of Longfu Temple, although I have no specific responsibility, but as a member of the nation, the settlers of Beijing City, shouldn't I ask myself about my spiritual responsibility?" 」
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Written by | Huo Sijiao
Edit | Sun Yalan
References for this article:
1. A brief analysis of the current situation and development of Suzhou Pingtan Yangzhou University Zhu Tianyue, Zhang Zhuoyuan, Dou Lingyan
2, Jinan plans to rebuild the old railway station that has been demolished for 21 years Professor's evaluation: stupid and stupid Oriental Morning Post
3. Remembering Liang Sicheng: "Fifty years later, history will prove that I am right" The Paper Xu Di
4. Wuzhen Case: The Cultural Revival of a Small Town Southern Weekend Shiyan
5. Homogenization of urban space: essence, problems and their transcendence Tao Qiqi of Soochow University