Writings of Huang Weizong.
Photo by Chen Yongshan
In more than 60 years of literary creation and academic research career, Huang Weizong's "high yield" is obvious to all: so far he has published 25 personal monographs such as "Huang Weizong Wencun" and "Huang Weizong Pearl River Cultural Prose Report Integration", and the chief editor of "China's Pearl River Cultural History", "Maritime Silk Road Research Book Series", "Pearl River Culture Series" and other book series, a total of 20 series, 156 books...
He has made extensive achievements and influences in literary creation, literary criticism and cultural scholarship, especially as the first president of the Pearl River Cultural Research Association of Guangdong Province, he took the lead in pioneering and building the Pearl River cultural academic system, contributing to the construction of the "Belt and Road".
Whether it is the long-term deep cultivation of Pearl River culture and the Maritime Silk Road, or the suggestions for the construction of local culture, Huang Weizong's academic process reflects the evolution of Guangdong's local culture from conscious consciousness to firm cultural self-confidence since the reform and opening up. These achievements are not only the evidence of the continuous activity and in-depth study of Guangdong's regional culture, but also a vivid portrayal of the vast Pearl River's "widespread achievement of self-achievement".
Character business card
Huang Weizong male, Han ethnicity, born in November 1935. He began his career in literature in 1958. He has successively served as the editor of the supplementary magazine "Huadi" of Yangcheng Evening News, a member of the Commentary Committee of the Guangdong Writers Association and the editor of "Works" magazine, and a professor of the Department of Chinese of Sun Yat-sen University. He is the author of "Huang Weizong Wencun" and "Pearl River Culture" and other works. His editor-in-chief's "Cultural History of the Pearl River in China" fills the gap in the cultural history of the Pearl River Basin in China. He has won the 4th Guangdong Lu Xun Literature and Art Award, Guangdong Provincial Outstanding Social Science Achievement Award, etc.
Intervene in reality and "open up" the boundaries between literature and society
Huang Weizong took 1992 as the boundary and divided his career into two stages. From 1958 to 1992, he was the first stage, during which he successively served as an editor in the Yangcheng Evening News literary and art supplement "Huadi" and "Guangdong Literature and Art" and "Works" and other literary and art periodicals, and also worked as a literary and art critic. After 1979, he returned to his alma mater, Sun Yat-sen University, to teach and research modern and contemporary Chinese literature.
He has witnessed the popularity of Guangdong literary masterpieces such as "Sanjia Lane" and "Fragrant Four Seasons" in the 1950s and 1960s, and the public's fiery thirst for spiritual food; he has also experienced the peak period of Guangdong's literary circles breaking through the shackles of rigid concepts after the reform and opening up: "Diversified creative methods", "Lingnan culture", "Chaoyang culture", "Third criticism", "special zone literature", "new urban literature", "migrant literature", "women's literature"...
In such an era full of pride and controversy, Huang Weizong had the opportunity to get the affection of Ouyang Shan, Chen Renyun, DuAi, Xiao Yin, Qin Mu, Huang Qiuyun and other predecessors because of the convenience of his work, and at the same time came into contact with Chen Guokai and other young writers of the young generation at that time. Among them, the one who had the greatest influence on him was the literary master Ouyang Shan.
"For Ouyang Lao and his creative research, at first I was motivated by a novelty, and later out of a cry for his bumpy fate, 'uneven and sounding'." Recalling more than 40 years of exchanges with Ouyang Shan, Huang Weizong was full of sighs, "Ouyang Lao's life has always run through a tough fighting spirit, no matter what kind of wind and waves he has experienced, severe tests, he has adhered to his literary and artistic ideas and pursuits, and never swayed left and right because of the change of 'wind direction'. ”
In the 1980s, under the direct guidance of Ouyang Shan, he published two monographs, "Ouyang Shan Creation Theory" and "Ouyang Shan Commentary", the former of which won the Guangdong Lu Xun Literary and Art Award.
Through the study of the works of his predecessors such as Ouyang Shan and Chen Renyun, Huang Weizong realized that the equal emphasis on social significance and cultural and literary attainments is the common direction of refuge in classics such as "Three Family Lane" and "Fragrant Four Seasons". Inspired by this, he gradually established the concept of cultural criticism of "viewing literature from culture and looking at culture from literature perspective", with the interdisciplinary spirit of "opening up" as his goal of governance— which means breaking through from ivory towers and bookstores, from literary research to a more grand and more contemporary field of cultural criticism, which resonates closely with the fiery reality.
Tracing back to the roots, "justifying the name" of the Pearl River cultural heritage
Since being hired as a counselor of the Guangdong Provincial People's Government in 1992, Huang Weizong's life has opened a new page. Since then, the indomitable fighting spirit and the academic concept of "pen and ink should be contemporary" have become more and more vividly reflected in him. His most important academic achievements are the cultural criticism and Pearl River cultural research that he has persistently carried out for more than 30 years.
Huang Weizong conceived the concept of "Pearl River culture" in the late 1980s. At that time, the trend of "cultural fever" was sweeping the country, and he noticed that the great rivers were often known as the "mother river of mankind", and the civilization of the great rivers has always been an important topic for people to study the changes in historical and social development. The Pearl River is the third longest river in China and the largest river system in the south, and is the connection point of inland culture and maritime civilization, with the remarkable characteristics of encompassing hundreds of rivers, achieving change in power, and pioneering first. In addition, the research direction of regional culture in the name of "water" is also an important innovation and supplement compared with the traditional pattern of "Lingnan culture" bounded by "mountain".
"Fundamentally speaking, to talk about 'Pearl River culture' means to connect with the world externally, reflect the style of marine civilization, give full play to the radiation role of the Pearl River internally, and integrate the Pan-Pearl River Basin together." Huang Weizong concluded.
In 2000, the Guangdong Pearl River Culture Research Association was formally established, with Huang Weizong as the first president, and then as the leader of the Guangdong Maritime Silk Road Research and Development Project Team. At this time, the domestic Maritime Silk Road research boom is in full swing, the underwater archaeological discoveries of the "South China Sea I" have caused a sensation in the country, Guangdong has prepared to build a Maritime Silk Road Museum in Yangjiang, and neighboring provinces have increasingly competed for cultural heritage brands such as the "departure port" of the Maritime Silk Road.
Huang Weizong, who was nearly seventy years old at the time, developed a sense of urgency that "time is not waiting for me". He led a team to inspect the coastal ports of the South China Sea on many occasions, to inspect the cultural relics of the Branches of the Pearl River such as the Dongjiang, Beijiang, and Xijiang rivers; they braved the high mountains and long roads, went north and south several times, visited Xiaohe Ancient Road, Meiguan Ancient Road, Zhujie Lane, Xuwen Sandun Ancient Port Site, and other places.
For the various "tosses" experienced on the way, including academic differences in judgment and pen and ink lawsuits, he summed it up in a self-deprecating sentence: "Self-seeking bitterness." In the afterword to the "Floating Life Cultural Tourism", he described the state of mind at that time: "Where is the road to the mountains and rivers? A journey is a journey. ”
In 2010, the "Cultural History of the Pearl River in China", which gathered the ten years of achievements of the research association and Huanghuang's three million words, was officially published and distributed. Huang Weizong believes that justifying the name of "Pearl River Culture", fully understanding its connotation and value, and promoting its strengths and facing its shortcomings can provide fundamental enlightenment and solid support for the cultural construction of Guangdong today. For example, everbright Pearl River culture's open and compatible temperament helps to smooth out conservative local concepts and provide reference for the harmonious coexistence of immigrant cultures.
"Leading the tide to be the first", turning personality into development staying power
In recent years, Guangdong has accelerated the construction of a culturally strong province, which has made Huang Weizong feel "ecstatic", "because this is the goal I have been diligently pursuing for many years, and it is my long-term wish!" ”
He firmly believes that the pearl river culture research, marked by the "integration of the river and the sea" and the essence of "leading the tide to be the first", has entered the stage of "blossoming and bearing fruit", and as long as the positioning is accurate and correctly guided, it can be "done in a big way" in the practice of a culturally strong province.
In the past ten years, Huang Weizong, as the chief editor, has promoted large-scale academic publishing projects such as "Pearl River - South China Sea Culture Book Series", "Pearl River Culture Department", "Maritime Silk Road Research Book Series", and put forward concepts such as "Pearl River Civilization Eight Generations Lighthouse". He pointed out that from ancient times to the present, whether it is the expansion of the north to the south or the west to the east, the Pearl River Basin has repeatedly become a place where winds and clouds converge, forming its own pattern, and has laid the unique position of Guangdong as the source of revolution and culture in China's modern and modern history.
At the same time, Huang Weizong continued to hold the mentality of "using the world" to make suggestions and suggestions for the development of various localities and the promotion of local culture, involving regional culture, ethnic clans, Chinese and overseas Chinese culture, "Belt and Road" construction, science and technology culture, etc., which can be regarded as a typical example of Guangdong's academic circles.
He also successively published well-known cultural essays such as "Pearl River Wenzhu", and was keen to participate in the "Cantonese School Review" discussion, encouraging all localities to carry out the creative activity of "remembering nostalgia"; starting from the "sea atmosphere" shared by Guangdong writers, he put forward the system and concept of "Pearl River Literary School" and "Pearl River School"...
"Do things for a lifetime, and live a lifetime without doing things; it is better to do something, do more, do good, do practical things." This is a creed that Huang Weizong has realized in his more than 60 years of academic career. When the epidemic struck in 2020, he read and wrote books at home, re-read "Dream of the Red Chamber" under the condition of "misty eyes and ears", and even wrote a manuscript of more than 300,000 words of "Beyond the Taste of the Dream of the Red Chamber"; at the same time, he also wrote an "exclusive" literary memory record "Sixty Autumns of Guangdong Literary Circles" based on his personal experience and experience.
As for his life, which is like a long river of surging water, who understands the taste? He laughed and said that it doesn't matter what others think, what is important is that, as always, "do things with detachment, do things with detachment", "this is the ideal state of life as I understand it".
● Nanfang Daily reporter Guo Shan