Qianjiang Evening News hourly news reporter Zhang Jinhua
Wang Xufeng's close-up.
In early spring, the rains are followed by stings. Soon, Sheqian Tea, Mingqian Tea, Rainy Tea, west Lake Longjing will be listed in a dial.
"There is no law of the law, one side of the water and soil to support the other side, so many people in the world drink tea, each drinks their own is."
It was also at this time that Wang Xufeng, a famous writer, winner of the Mao Dun Literature Award, and also an expert in tea culture, after the "Tea Man Trilogy", held out a cup of "new tea" - it was another novel related to Hangzhou Longjing tea: "Wangjiang South".
Wang Xufeng recounted his past with tea-
"I was born in Hangzhou, a tea country, and I studied history in college. The formation of tea culture is also a process full of history.
I worked a lot after graduation, and later, I went to participate in the preparation of the China Tea Museum, which was a very direct factor (that prompted me to start writing).
At that time, I happened to be in the reference room of the Tea Museum, which was my first contact with so many tea people all over the world. I learned that there are so many stories to write, which is one of the reasons why I went directly into the field of tea culture creation.
If there is no such special reason, even if I am a Jiangnan native and like to drink tea, I may not have written such a novel.
I went to the end of 1990 (China Tea Museum), and I started writing about it in 1991, and those lives came to me, and I felt that I had to write this thing down quickly.
When I wrote the novel, I had a maxim for myself: What kind of life comes to me, I will go to what kind of life.
At this time, just as the tea came to me, I walked towards it without thinking. ”
Wang Xufeng said that since 2013, the writing of this wish work "Wangjiangnan" has been started. But after delaying, overturning and overturning, during that time, Wang Xufeng has changed from a professional literary worker to a professor of tea culture in colleges and universities, and the Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University where she teaches is the only tea science and tea culture college at home and abroad. Although he has not stopped creating after his transformation into teaching, over the years, Wang Xufeng's heart has been completely immersed in tea.
The novel "Wangjiangnan" recounts the ups and downs of the Hang family of the Jiangnan tea family and the fate of the characters in the magnificent social process of the nearly two decades before and after the founding of New China.
The main body of the novel, the Hang family, takes "tea" as a livelihood, but after experiencing the era of frequent wars, China's tea industry has fallen into a historical point, and the Longjing tea, which is the main business of the Hang family, is no exception. The tea people represented by the Hang family have overcome various difficulties and hardships, rebuilt the tea affair step by step, and in the process of the construction of New China and the development of China to the world, they have contributed their own efforts with "tea".
"I am no longer overly worried about the lack of modern tea knowledge and understanding of historical events, and literary creation is originally a process of unity of knowledge and action, that is, knowledge is action. What I really want to make clear through creation is the fate and direction of the characters in the novel during this period of time, including the overall understanding and judgment of this era. ”
Although "Wangjiangnan" tells the story of the Hang family, it also shows the way of life of Chinese, conveying the unique character and concept of Chinese.
In the novel, tea is everywhere, or "tea" is the real protagonist.
Tea is one of the "seven things to open the door" in the lives of ordinary Chinese people, and in Wang Xufeng's view, tea is also an important material for Chinese businessmen in special years to exchange foreign exchange and help the country rise. To some extent, tea can also represent Chinese, representing the gentle and elegant Chinese character. Wang Xufeng's "Wangjiang Nan" makes a history of Hangzhou related to tea flesh and blood. In her pen, the "country" is carefully guarded by countless pure hearts, making people feel the temperature of human feelings beyond the thickness of history.
Hangzhou is also everywhere. Hangzhou's place names, palms, customs, such as Laba and xiao Chinese New Year's Eve in the folk how to live, "Hangzhou Wind" and Hangzhou dialect at hand, we follow Wang Xufeng through to Hangzhou around 1949, in Hangzhou City from Qinghefang, Yongjinmen, Qianwang Ancestral Hall, Hubin Road, West Lake, Wang Zhuang, Jingci Temple, Stadium Road, out of the city, to the outskirts of the city, to Longjing Village, Twin Peaks Village, WengjiaShan, Meijiawu, Yunqi Temple, etc. all the way to roam, drink a cup of tea, Wen Yiwen Hangzhou Palm, "Wangjiang South" for Hangzhou people, It's a very intimate, down-to-earth book.
At the end of the book, there is this passage:
"The warm wind blows, and the tourists are not drunk. At the turn of the spring and summer of the following year, there were new teas on the market, and although the people in the city had to buy tea with a limited amount of tickets, some good tea finally appeared in the tea shops along the street, and the tea tents on the hillside in the suburbs also re-entered the tea heart and chirped. The tea affair finally came out of the yuan qi injury of a few years ago. People began to secretly long for their own little time to drink life. It should be noted that some ancient traditions still potentially influence the Chinese hidden deep living habits, just as The Tea Saint Lu Yu said, birds, beasts and humans all live between heaven and earth, relying on diet to maintain life activities, how far-reaching the practical significance of drinking. ”
Good spring, let's have spring tea
Spring breeze in March, spring warm blossoms. The film "Willow Wave Singing Warbler", adapted from Wang Xufeng's series of novels "Love West Lake", is being roadshowed nationwide. Wang Xufeng was busy in the gap between the film platforms and accepted an exclusive interview with this reporter.
【Q&A Section】
The following is the dialogue between this reporter and Wang Xufeng --
["Hanger Wind" blows, this is a "very Hangzhou" book]
Qianjiang Evening News: "WangjiangNan" can be said to be a "book of Hangzhou", hangzhou family from the old mansion of Qinghefang to Wengjiashan, Meijiawu, Longjing and other tea estate tea gardens, everywhere is Hangzhou place names, scenery, but also wrote a lot of Hangzhou customs, such as Lapa Ba, XiaoNian, such an accurate real writing, is it a writing style you want to highlight in the book "Wangjiang South"?
Wang Xufeng: When I was young, I had a vision to write down a piece of Hangzhou on paper. As for scenes such as Hangzhou's folk history, it is even more the content I hope to convey. As the ancient capital, an important bearer of Chinese cultural symbols, and the legacy of the Southern Song Dynasty culture for more than a hundred years, Hangzhou is still preserved in the streets and alleys of Hangzhou, lakes and mountains, it is charming and profound, pathos and joy, far from the space for manifestation, deep excavation, interpretation and improvement. In terms of words, I am probably one of the people who write the most about Hangzhou. Because Hangzhou is inexhaustible, she is a place to organize ideas and create a paradise of beauty, and I want to write about her for life.
Qianjiang Evening News: Why put so many real historical figures (relatively big people rather than small people), such as Zhou Enlai, Tang Enbo, Wu Juenong, etc., into the narrative of the book, do you let the big people and the small people appear on the same stage, each in place, to complete their mission, is it out of what consideration, is it to add a sense of history?
Wang Xufeng: Novels, once expressed in a vast time and space, tend to have epic texts, with large spans, wide horizons, many levels of character group portraits, and large spans. The core of my novel is placed on the national drink of the Chinese nation, "tea", which is a comprehensive ontology with a great span. Therefore, the characters who are dependent on the fate of tea are all-round, and it is logical to convey them with literary brushstrokes as historical facts.
Qianjiang Evening News: You are an authentic Hangzhou native, in this "Wangjiangnan", there are many dialogues, we see the shadow of Hangzhou dialect, very Hangzhou characteristics, such as "small Sith, no lai, papaya, chestnut, oil pier", etc., in the writing process, you are very bold in using the Hangzhou dialect, or very careful state, afraid of causing readers' reading difficulties?
Wang Xufeng: I have always thought that although the Chinese written language is mainly evolved by one dialect, on the whole, it was born, built and perfected from the dialects of various ethnic groups, so Yang Xiong of the Western Han Dynasty specially wrote the book "Dialects", and the "collecting style" that appeared at that time included the mission of the central government sending the central government to collect dialects in various places and then enter the Yayan after concentration. I grew up in Hangzhou, but because I lived in the military compound, I always used Mandarin as a living language, and when I was young, I worked in the factory at the bottom of Gongchenqiao, and learned the authentic standard Hangzhou dialect from my co-workers. With this as a reference, he gradually understood the hybrid advantages of the Hangzhou dialect set between the Northern Kingdom and the Wuyue dialect, and after comparing it, he was deeply interested, and has been exploring the possibility of adding the Hangzhou dialect to the Mandarin language family in the text, so that it can enter the national language level beyond the region. As for the use of the writing process, I have mastered a principle, that is, when the dialect used can be transmitted in written language without special explanation, so that Chinese can generally understand. For example, Hangzhou people say "Haiwei", with the meaning of "powerful and powerful", but with "Haiwei", even people who have never heard this word before will understand. In short, our Chinese vernacular is still in the process of innovation and improvement, and Hangzhou dialect will make its own unique contribution to this.
A tea man.
[I want to be a "tea person" as my intrinsic requirement]
Qianjiang Evening News: We know that when you were in college, you majored in history, and "Wangjiangnan" is a very significant feature, you tell the history of tea from ancient China to the Republic of China and to the Republic of China, such as talking about Wu Juenong going to Japan to study tea, and after returning to China, he promoted machine tea making, etc. When creating this book, did it still take you a lot of energy to grasp the historical materials, do you do the work and sort out? How do you generally grasp the statements and proportions of historical materials and expertise in novels, and what is your attitude?
Wang Xufeng: Because after graduating from university, I worked as a newspaper reporter, then went to the china tea museum reference room, and then simply became a special professor and teacher of tea culture in tea colleges and universities, so collecting information is not a particularly difficult thing. But how to combine historical facts with literary fiction has always been in a kind of text experiment. When I was in college, gentlemen told us about the "History of History", and they would call it "the departure of no rhyme" and "literature and history do not separate families". In fact, in the history of tea, many historical facts are full of literature. For example, after Mr. Wu Juenong in the "Preface" in "Wangjiangnan" bought a house with his disciple Zhang Tangheng, the Japanese residents did not dress up, so they spread out the mats and lived in their guest house; for example, the first chapter of the novel is written that Chen Brei was buried in the Wuyun Mountain Tea Garden in Hangzhou after his death. These processes are real, but they contain a strong literary character. Expressing this part of the content, what I am most worried about is not the literary part, but the accuracy of historical facts, and I always feel that my professional teachers and classmates are staring at me.
Qianjiang Evening News: We know the story of your profound fate with tea in this life, what is the status of "tea" in your life now? Ancient literati have a lot of tea, can you reveal, what is your personal "tea" lifestyle today? Is your favorite tea longjing tea?
Wang Xufeng: Of course, I love Longjing tea incomparably, Hugh is in love with the old people's country, and will try new tea with new fire, and poetry and wine will take advantage of the old age. But I am now a professional worker who teaches tea culture, and I must love every good tea without personal feelings, all over China, and the tea producing countries in the world. I drink tea every day, mostly green tea, and there is black tea. Black tea versus white tea, I have to boil and drink. Of course, tea is inseparable from me on the material level, but the spiritual need of tea is beyond the material level, which guides my life values and makes me become a "tea person" as an intrinsic requirement.
Qianjiang Evening News: I feel that you are also a foodie, there is a detail in the novel, it is about the Hangzhou family every year to give "tea bubble rice", you also wrote how this "tea bubble rice" is made, very curious about this recipe is your fiction, or is there really such a "tea bubble rice"? Can you still eat it now?
Wang Xufeng: Tea rice is a cultural symbol in tea culture, which has become a "tea rice culture" after it was spread to Japan, and has even been made into a movie by a big Japanese director, symbolizing daily ordinary life. I made tea and rice, and this tea rice in the novel was created by me, but the process of really making it is indescribable and can only be understood, you have to taste it while doing it, and it is appropriate, and like being a tea person, it is an experience, not just an experience. Only with the recipe to do, I am afraid it is not very good.
Qianjiang Evening News: You also presented the dispute between tradition and modernity in the field of tea culture in the book, it seems that the author is not too entangled, such as tea making, tea ceremony must respect the tradition, in the process of modernization, this is a topic that cannot be avoided, what kind of view do you hold on to the traditional culture in the face of the impact of modernization?
Wang Xufeng: Whether it is writing or teaching, work or life, my principle is the principle of Hang Jiahe in the novel: I advocate reform and reform, and I do not advocate destroying everything and then rebuilding, destroying and rebuilding, I do not trust everything that has no context. Just like after a child is born, although there is something of its own, genes are inherited. I think history can be divided into stages, but human nature is endless. Therefore, my position is that there is new in the old, and there is old in the new, and there is no end to life. Tea making is the same, whether it is handmade tea, or mechanical tea, or a combination of the two tea, let this divergence always exist.
[Stepping out of literature, life is so vast]
Qianjiang Evening News: You have said that many names in the "Tea Man Trilogy", such as Shen Luai, Wu Chaqing, Tiandun, and Shuke, these names come from nanshan cemetery, in order to find the names of the characters in the novel, you wrote a book, called "Nanshan Cemetery", which has more than 30,000 names, nearly 40,000 names, and you choose in it. In "WangjiangNan", we see many beautiful names of the new generation of the Hang family, such as sending grass, dedi, defang, and yingfeng are classical, and Hanghan, Hang Brown, Hang Fangyue, and Hang Pan seem to be modern, where does the inspiration for these new names come from?
Wang Xufeng: I increasingly believe that taking a name is one of the important indicators for evaluating your literary ability. Whether in text or in real life, it is quite necessary to take a good name. In the novels I write about tea, the names generally have the meaning of tea, and some even get them directly from the history books. For example, "get the dip" directly comes from the old saying "get the dip and solve it". For example, "flat water" and "frost" are themselves the names of tea. Taking a name from a literary work is enough to write a big paper. I usually pay more attention to collecting names, good names will be written down, maybe when to use.
Qianjiang Evening News: Before the "Tea Man Trilogy" as a famous IP, this new "Wangjiangnan" is also about the story of tea culture, with a complete timeline and story line, the main characters appear one by one, there are plot conflicts and characters, will film and television dramas be filmed?
Wang Xufeng: Less than a week after the novel work was officially listed, nearly ten film and television companies have contacted me. Of course, I hope to be able to make a TV series and make more and greater efforts for the spread of tea culture.
Qianjiang Evening News: After transforming into a tea culture scholar, what kind of attitude have you had towards writing over the years, and what position does writing occupy in your life? Are there any other writing plans that follow?
Wang Xufeng: When I was young, my love and obsession with literature reached an unimaginable level, and at that time I even pitied the scientific workers, thinking that without poetry and novels, how they lived. This extreme understanding is only corrected when you go to college, life is so vast, human nature is so rich, that you can't experience it in the literary circle, you can't recognize it. I now set my main goal on doing a good job in the education and dissemination of Chinese tea culture, and I have written papers and monographs, and fictional works also have a large span. But overall, the cultural narrative of Jiangnan, Zhejiang and Hangzhou will still be addressed, and this original intention has not changed.
Qianjiang Evening News: Finally, can you tell me about the recent reading, can you recommend a few books to the readers of Qianjiang Evening News?
Wang Xufeng: In recent years, I have mainly read tea culture treatises, such as Lu Yu's "Tea Classic", and I think your newspaper hopes that I will still provide some literary or cultural masterpieces that can be accepted by the majority of readers.
Attached: List of books recommended by Wang Xufeng
Doctor Zhivago novel Soviet Pasternak won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958
Introduction to Chinese Culture
"Tao An Dream Memories", "West Lake Dream Search", Ming and Qing Dynasties Zhang Dai
"The World Speaks New Language" Ye Lang and others edited sanlian bookstore
"Where is Jiangnan" Yang Nianqun
"Monkey and Boy" Wang Meng
"China in the Upper River Of the Qingming Dynasty" By Duan Long
Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk, Turkey
Biography
Wang Xufeng, the winner of the 5th Mao Dun Literature Award, was the editor and reporter of Zhejiang Workers Daily, a librarian of the China Tea Museum, the executive vice chairman of the Zhejiang Writers Association, and the vice chairman of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the China Association for the Promotion of Democracy. He is currently the honorary dean of the College of Tea Science and Tea Culture of Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University, the director of the Chinese International Promotion Tea Culture Dissemination Base, a national first-class writer, a director of the China International Tea Culture Research Association, the vice president of the Zhejiang Tea Culture Research Association, the first batch of "four batches" of talents of the Central Propaganda Department, the winner of the special allowance of the State Council, the winner of the outstanding achievements of young and middle-aged science and technology in Zhejiang Province, and the "Five One Project" award of the Central Propaganda Department four times.
The first two novels of the tea man trilogy, "Southern Youjiamu" and "The Prince who Never Sleeps", won the Fifth Mao Dun Literature Award in 2000; "Southern Youjiamu" won the "Five One Project" Award of the Central Propaganda Department, in 2007, the long-form reportage "Let Us Ring the Bell of Hope" won the "Five One Project" Book Award of the Central Propaganda Department; in 2009, the long-form reportage "Letter of the Family country" won the "Five One Project" Book Award of the Central Propaganda Department and the Xu Chi Award of Chinese Reportage Literature for the third time. In 2012, the long-form reportage "The Flower of Doctrine" won the "Five Ones Project" Book Award of the Central Propaganda Department and the Annual Women's Literature in China.
This article is the original work of Qianjiang Evening News, without permission, it is forbidden to reprint, copy, excerpt, rewrite and carry out network dissemination of all works of copyright use, otherwise this newspaper will follow judicial channels to pursue the legal responsibility of the infringer.