Guanlan Pavilion 丨 Winter Olympics "snowflakes" send willows: a romantic "Chinese-style" farewell

□ Zhou Xueze

At 8:00 p.m. on February 20th, the wonderful, extraordinary and outstanding Beijing 24th Winter Olympic Games came to a successful end, and the story of "A Snowflake" continued from opening to closing.

At the closing ceremony, huge snowflakes appeared from time to time, reminiscent of the snow on the Olympic field. People walked into the venue with green willows and clusters, interpreting a romantic "Chinese-style" farewell - willow, stay, stay nostalgic.

China is four ancient civilizations, has a long history of inheritance, poetry and song is a long history, to understand China, we must start from the "snowflakes" and "wicker" these rich imagery, which is the emotional and spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation.

Li Bai, who wrote the finishing touch for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, "Yanshan Snowflakes Are As Big as a Seat", often used "willow" to express his farewell feelings.

Li Bai's "Spring Night Los Angeles Flute": Whose jade flute flies darkly and scatters into the spring breeze full of Los Angeles. In this nocturne, who does not care about the old garden?

Li Bai's "Remembrance of Qin E' Zhen Sheng": Qin Louyue, every year willow color, Baling injury farewell.

Li Bai's "Xuancheng Sends Liu Vice Envoy to Qin": No order Sauvignon Blanc, breaking the willow branch.

From the perspective of traditional culture, the closing ceremony uses willow to express Chinese retain the emotions of athletes and visitors from all over the world, which is very appropriate. Snowflakes and willows are fused together, and they have a deep heritage of excellent Traditional Chinese culture.

In the Book of Poetry, the earliest collection of chinese poetry, snow and willow are placed together when expressing the meaning of nostalgia and longing. There is Chinese a well-known sentence in the "Book of Poetry, Xiaoya Tsaiwei": "Once upon a time, I was in the past, Andyy Willow yiyi." Now I come to think, rain and snow. The meaning of this sentence is: Recall that when I first went out on the expedition, the willows were blown with the wind; now on the way back, the snow is flying all over the sky. This poem sets the tone of "willow" to express farewell, and the meaning of "willow yu stay" in the poem after that originated here. To the Han Le Fu "Folding Willow Song Lyrics", the word "folding willow" appeared for the first time: "do not catch the whip on the horse, but fold the willow branch", which is also used for farewell.

When we look at the poems of Li Bai and others, Liu is associated with the words Baling and Ba'an. In the Guanzhong area of the political center of ancient China, there is the famous scene of "Baliu Wind and Snow", and "Baqiao Wind and Snow Donkey Back" has become a "pun" for ancient scholars who were not afraid of hardship and tempered poetry.

"Ba" is a place name, which is not unfamiliar to everyone. In December 2021, the word "Ba" was once on fire, and archaeologists found a large Han tomb in Jiangcun, Baqiao District, the eastern suburb of Xi'an City, which was confirmed by exploration as the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han, named after the bahe river. In the middle school textbook, there is an excerpt from the article "Hongmen Feast" in the "History of Xiang Yu Benji", which has the sentence "Return the army to hegemony, waiting for the king to come", and the "hegemony" in the sentence, that is, "Bashang", is named after the bashui West Plateau. Bahe Got its name from the Spring and Autumn Period, when Qin Mugong called Himeong Xirong, changed the water to Bashui, and built a bridge on the river, so it was called the Baqiao Bridge, which is one of the oldest stone pillar pier bridges in the mainland. Later generations added three points of water before the hegemony, so Bashui is still used today.

The place of "Ba" has become the "farewell place" in the poetry and song, which is related to its location. Baqiao is the only way out of Chang'an in ancient times, and when the ancients left Chang'an, relatives and friends often went to Baqiao to bid farewell. During the Han and Tang Dynasties, on both sides of the Baqiao, the embankment was built for five miles, ten thousand willows were planted, and the guests were sent here, the willows were folded to bid farewell, and the gods were injured, and there was the meaning of Yang Guan and the intestines. At this point, not only is Baqiao a farewell place, but the wicker on the side of Baqiao has also become a farewell symbol.

However, the evolution of the symbolic meaning of Baqiao and Wicker did not end here, but words such as "Baqiao Wind and Snow" and "Baliu Wind and Snow" appeared.

The original "Baqiao Wind and Snow" and "Baliu Wind and Snow" refer to the scene of snow white willows flying. Because the banks of the Bahe River are full of willow trees, when they bloom, the willows flutter in the sky, like snowflakes, becoming a famous place of "willow color like smoke like snow", and the poet Yong Liu often used the metaphor of "wind and snow" after that. Xie Daoyun, a talented woman of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, said: Why is the snow falling? The willows did not rise because of the wind.

It is also white and fluttering, and it is natural to associate willow and snowflakes, but who would have thought that "Bashi Willow Wind and Snow" would one day become a real "snow".

In the late Tang Dynasty, the meaning of "Baqiao Wind and Snow" came out of a different style of painting. Five Generations of Sun Guangxian's "Northern Dream Trivia" Volume VII: "Xiangguo Zheng Qishan Poetry." Or: 'Is there poetry close to the country?' "Poetry on a donkey in the snow and wind of Baqiao", how can it be obtained here? Zheng Qi's association of the baqiao wind and snow with riding a donkey to find poetry and bitter chanting has a great influence on later generations.

This allusion, which is first said to originate from Meng Haoran, the Ming Dynasty scholar Zhang Dai's "Night Sailing Ship" contains that Meng Haoran has a wide range of feelings and often rides a donkey in the snow to find plums, saying: "Wu Shisi is on the back of a donkey in the snow and wind of Baqiao. "Later Li He, Meng Jiao, Jia Dao and others all had effective laws.

After Zheng Qi proposed that "poetry is on a donkey in the snow and wind of Baqiao", it was gradually accepted by posterity, and the "wind and snow" of Liu Shu gradually became the real "wind and snow" of winter, and was "implemented" by the painter. The Southern Song Dynasty painter Xia Gui, the Ming Dynasty painter Shen Zhou, Wu Wei, Wu Shiying and others, all have famous paintings "Baqiao Wind and Snow Map", they paint not the spring scenery of liuxi, but the mountain rock snow, willow trees into strips, a person riding a donkey through the Baqiao.

The "Baqiao Wind and Snow Map" uses rock and snow to illuminate the coldness, emphasizing a poetic pursuit of "without a cold bone, which plum blossoms are fragrant", highlighting the ideal of "poor and difficult, not falling into the ambition of qingyun". Therefore, in the "Baqiao Wind and Snow Map", snow and willow are perfectly unified.

At the closing ceremony of this Winter Olympic Games, the willow branches sent in the "snowflakes" to bid farewell to athletes and guests from all over the world, which is a Chinese poetic style, reflecting the typical "Chinese" romantic feelings.