In 1978, in Shashi, Hubei Province, I met Bonsai after a serious illness.
That year, I had nasopharyngeal cancer, and I was given radiation and chemotherapy in Wuhan Tongji Hospital, which made my face dark and I couldn't even touch "a hair" on my head. After being discharged from the hospital, one day when I walked to the flower room of the municipal party committee, a pot of five-needle pine on the root art shelf suddenly jumped into view, and I still remember the vicissitudes of dryness, curved branches, and verdant leaves. Facing the pot tree, I just stood on the threshold of death with soft legs, and I couldn't help but think of the twists, tenacity and tenacity of life - how similar is human life to bonsai?
So, on that drizzling spring day 44 years ago, I met Bonsai.
After that, bonsai "entered my life", went up the mountain to find piles, found Shennongjia; went down the river to find stones and found the Xiangxi River; learned from painting to be virtual and dense, learned from calligraphy, and spent all their spare time in the mix with bonsai.
In 1993, when I went south to Hainan, when I went to the island, my luggage was checked in, and I was holding a pot of small bonsai of Nantian bamboo that had just bloomed.
Top: Tree Species: Bolan Title: "Chu Feng"
Part II: Tree Species: Boland Title: "But Smell the Birds"
In Hainan, which is known as "tree raising paradise" in the industry, I almost traveled all over the landscape of Qiongdao Island, and in less than half a year, I had dozens of pile heads, which were held on the roof of room 401 of the old municipal party committee compound. Heavy wind and rain, especially when the typhoon, shaky, as if a roof of water is going to pour out, the left and right fang neighbors are worried that the house can't stand it, sometimes there are "complaints", simply, in the spring of 1999 in Xiuying Phoenix Flower City leased a few points of land, built a small "Chu Feng Garden", specializing in bonsai.
Time flies through the ordinary and trots forward. Fingers crossed, and bonsai have been in cahoots for 44 years!
Top: Tree Species: Po Mei and Volcanic Stone Title: Liang Zhu
Bottom: Tree Species: Pandan Title: "Duo Dance"
Friends have asked me online over and over again what is the benefit of making bonsai? Worth spending 44 years of your life? In addition to the loftiness of passing on traditional culture, I do not dare to say four benefits. The first is to forget about worries. The world is troubled, there are many worries, once you pick up the scissors, the broken things are not on the heart, what else can not be released? The second is to succeed. What a joy to watch a rotten pile head that a peasant woman doesn't even want to burn a fire become a work of art under your scissors and lead wire! The third is to send affection. Mr. Zong Baihua once said that art is a view of life. I am always trying to give my works my thoughts, feelings and style; the fourth is pleasant. Imagine a century-old dragon's blood tree, resting on a Ming and Qing stone mortar, an old man with long hair and a shawl, facing a pot of literati tree bonsai on the stone mortar, a cup of Biluochun in his left hand, and a scroll of idle books in his right hand, "a cup of fragrant tea for half a day." "What a comfort; the fifth is fitness. Making bonsai is both mental and physical. Plot layout, creative title, brain power; insect fertilization, pruning and modeling, pulling grass and changing pots, physical strength. It's a good thing to be able to do with both the body and mind.
Top: Tree Species: Bolan Title: "One Arm makes fun"
Bottom: Tree Species: Boland Title: "Forge Ahead"
To make bonsai is also to learn from nature closely. Hugo said: "Man is a product of nature. Tagore said, "Nature is always the source of all beauty." "I think that in the face of nature, man is just a three-year-old child who is very young and learns to speak. Learning from the vastness and depth of nature is not enough. And do bonsai, read and appreciate every day, speculate on taste every day, listen to the vicissitudes of a century-old tree every day, watch young trees grow up, who said that the tenacious tenacity, generosity, vividness, elegance and calmness of the tree, can not give people some education and enlightenment?
Note: Originally published in "Flower and Wood Bonsai", the first day of the Tiger New Year was changed to the Chufeng Wood and Stone Museum
(Text/Hu Qingkui)
Artist Bio:
Hu Qingkui, a native of Songzi, Hubei Province, graduated from the Department of Biology of Wuhan University. He is a member of the Communist Party of China. In 1993, he moved south from Jingzhou, Hubei Province, and successively served in the Discipline Inspection Commission of Haikou City and the Discipline Inspection Commission of Hainan Province. He was the station chief of the Hainan reporter station of China Discipline Inspection and Supervision Daily. He retired in 2012.
In 1992, he joined the Hubei Branch of the China Writers Association and was awarded the senior title of journalism in the same year. He is a member of the Chinese Prose Literature Society, the Chinese Poetry Writers Society, and the China Reportage Literature Society. Reviewer of social science journals in Hainan Province. Member of the expert database of the Organization Department of the Hainan Provincial Party Committee.
Winner of the Contemporary Chinese Prose Award. There are novels, essays, reportage, poetry selected periodicals, anthologies and annual volumes. He has won several national awards. The essays "Xisha Soil", "Under the Pear Tree", and "Fisherman and Wild Duck" were selected as tourism volumes, women's volumes and lyrical volumes of the "Chinese Prose Series" respectively. The essays "Fisherman and Wild Duck" and "Me on the Trail" won the first prize of the 2011 and 2012 National Essay Writers Forum Essay Contest. The essay "Mother's Hand" was selected for the "Selected Masterpieces of Chinese Essayists". The essay "Dongzhai Mangrove Tree" won the 2010 National Best Prose New Work Award. The long-form reportage "Wind and Currents in Hainan" won the "Soul of China" National Reportage Essay Special Prize and was included in the national compilation of teaching books for colleges and secondary schools. In 2005, the reportage "Approaching Huang Chengmo" won the National Short Reportage Award of the Chevani Cup "Harmony and Beauty". The reportage "Lucheng Loyal Soul" won the first prize of the first "Pioneer Cup" reportage essay contest of people's literature. In February 2022, the essay "Looking Back at the Year of Hometown in Haikou" won the gold medal in the first national literary and art competition "Nian Wei XiangQing".
A number of essays and novels have been selected into the high school Chinese reading classics and test questions.
The essay collection "Peach Blossom Water" (Popular Literature and Art Publishing House), "In the South of the Sea" (Southern Publishing House), the reportage collection "People on the Red Land" (Hainan Publishing House), the long-form reportage "Wind Flow hainan" (Hainan Publishing House), the poetry collection "Chuyuan Xinyun" (Chinese Culture Publishing House) and the monograph "Hainan Tree Species Bonsai Production and Conservation" (Hainan Publishing House, Sanhuan Publishing House) have been published publicly.
He is currently the vice president of Hainan Stone Appreciation Association and Hainan Bonsai Special Committee, and the director of Hainan Chufeng Wood and Stone Museum.