Yang Zaichun will write down suggestions for netizens' calligraphy homework on small pieces of paper
Comment on netizens' homework after TV projection
Yang Zaichun CCTV lecture footage
The word "wandering point" handwriting
Mr. Yang Zaichun would love to write a letter to our editorial department.
The content of the letter is about a "year-end questionnaire" that we designed at the end of 2021, and Mr. Yang Lao, a 40-year-old reader of Beijing Youth Daily, silently wrote his answer after reading the newspaper. However, until I went to see him, I had not been able to answer all the questions.
In March this year, I would also like to contact Mr. Yang Lao. At that time, the Weibo topic "79-year-old uncle online grading netizens' calligraphy homework" was on the hot search, and the protagonist was Yang Zaichun. A native of Tangshan, Hebei Province, he is one of the founders of the Chinese Calligraphers Association, and in the 1990s, he was praised as a "calligrapher with tens of millions of students" for giving calligraphy classes on CCTV for three consecutive years. Today, after playing with new media, he has attracted more than one million fans on the short video platform, and the topic of "Yang Zaichun" has reached 250 million hits. Not only that, from the 1980s until his retirement, Mr. Yang Lao published more than 40 monographs and reference books such as "Xingcao Zhangfa", "Ink Chapter Method", "Character Structure and Chapter Method", "Xingshu Penmanship and Lanting Preface", etc., with a total circulation of more than 15 million copies, which played a considerable role in promoting the popularization of traditional calligraphy art.
It wasn't until after the Tomb Sweeping Festival that I met With Mr. Yang, who had just undergone a minor operation. In two hours, Mr. Yang told his seventy years of calligraphy life. It is worth mentioning that in the unfinished answer sheet, there are two questions that he answered like this:
First, if you were to use three keywords to record 2021, which three words would you choose? He said, "I am a 78-year-old man who has been working in publishing all my life and has been engaged in the popularization of calligraphy education. He worked as the editor of the journal of Beijing Sport University, the president and editor-in-chief of the publishing house, worked for three more years, and retired at the age of 63. After retirement, he has also been engaged in calligraphy education, and in the past two years of the epidemic, he has been at home and engaged in online teaching. My three key words are: ordinary heart, expectation and disobedience to old age..."
Second, which "new thing" will enter your life in 2021? Mr. Yang replied, "Video number, vibrato, b station, these are what strange words were a year ago!" This year broke into my living space, we set up a small team, at the beginning there were hundreds of people to watch it is very happy, now hundreds of thousands of people, sometimes tens of millions of people watch me correct student homework! ”
Before leaving the door, I looked down and just saw the newspaper at the door, and Mr. Yang's family smiled and said to me: "You see, today's Beiqing Daily has just arrived." ”
"Ask Mr. Yang"
If I could give me another ten or twenty years, I would definitely teach all the skills in my body to more students
In addition to calligraphy, Mr. Yang Lao, who is nearly eighty years old, is also the head of the Tao when he talks about short video shooting. He said that now short videos are more difficult than TV programs, before his calligraphy class on CCTV was 23 and a half minutes, and now the short video content is not even a minute, and it needs to catch the user's eyeballs within three seconds to attract fans.
Popularizing calligraphy knowledge on the short video platform originated from 2021, when a student put forward the suggestion of shooting short videos to give lectures, which once again aroused the original intention of Mr. Yang Lao's calligraphy education. "I want to attract more young people with a fast food culture that meets the tastes of young people, and I am very cooperative with my shooting team, I am more like a lead actor, what to say, what clothes to wear and what kind of expression to make, such details are to be considered." Every day, the filming team will discuss the content of the video, what kind of words will be better in the first three sentences, what is the subject of the shooting..."
After the continuous adjustment of the team, they also opened a column of "Ask Mr. Yang". Netizens who love calligraphy can upload their own calligraphy through the background, ask Mr. Yang To correct their homework, and point out the mystery. Unlike many calligraphy bloggers who often use professional terms to explain, Yang Zaichun likes to use the simplest and most popular words to popularize science for netizens, "I am not to show how advanced I am, but to let everyone understand, because I am teaching calligraphy." ”
Click into Yang Zaichun's homepage, you can see a lot of popular science small videos, including how to bubble brush head, how to stack grids, how to cut paper and other common sense content, but also at the request of netizens, write down "five blessings Linmen", "poison does not invade", "solar terms poetry" and other content. Nowadays, many netizens have become Mr. Yang Lao's students through online grading of homework, and their careers are very different, including cooks, workers, veterans, etc., all of whom met on the Internet because of their love of calligraphy, and even fans of CCTV programs that year.
Shenzhen chef Xu Lincai is one of them. Once, he copied Yang Zaichun's "Rolling Waters in the East of the Yangtze River" and consulted Mr. Yang Lao through a private message. Yang Zaichun graded his calligraphy work word for word and praised him for writing it well. Later, Mr. Yang learned about Xu Lincai's experience, because of the poverty of his family, 14-year-old Xu Lincai went to work in a restaurant, often busy until late at night to have time to pick up a brush to write, but never gave up calligraphy. After mr. Yang's encouragement, he is more confident to stick to his calligraphy dreams.
Wu Shuzhen, a 41-year-old worker in Shandong, still cherishes Yang Zaichun's publications of "Xingcao Zhangfa", "Xingcao Hundred Laws", and "One Hundred Cases of Kaixing Shuzhang", and constantly practices calligraphy; veteran Jiao Chaojian, since he was a teenager, began to contact Yang Zaichun's calligraphy works, has always regarded calligraphy as an important spiritual food, after he retired from the army, still insisted on posting every morning and evening, Yang Zaichun once corrected his homework online and gave him encouragement.
As the number of fans grew, so did the number of jobs received. Yang Zaichun can only pick a part of the representative homework every week to make a video explanation, he will sit in front of the TV, the homework that needs to be corrected will be cast on the TV, and after clearly displaying the details that need to be explained, he will go to the desk to do a demonstration. The unmade video correction will be answered by the fans in the form of voice or graphics, for example, he will mark the homework on an A4 paper, or demonstrate his own writing style... And this kind of well-interacted "online teaching correction" has indeed made more people contact and fall in love with the art of calligraphy.
Yang Zaichun said, "This is a good opportunity to popularize the traditional Chinese calligraphy art. I did not abandon my original intention, if you can give me another ten or twenty years, I will definitely teach all the skills in my body to more students. ”
Forbidden City Pro Post
A bottle of ink that was knocked down made me start to really understand calligraphy
In fact, since Yang Zaichun was 6 years old, his father began to urge him to practice calligraphy in old newspapers and copy Yan Zhenqing's "Duo Pagoda Stele". Yang Zaichun recalled that from primary school to junior high school, the whole stage was forced to practice words. In fact, he prefers to "wrestle his head and beat his hand" than to practice words, but at that time, as soon as he returned home, he had to immediately put away the state of movement, practice words quietly, and could not eat at the table without writing.
Still, looking back on his childhood experience now, Yang Zaichun is grateful to his father. He believes that in that era, "forcing" was necessary in the process of learning calligraphy for the first time, after all, learning calligraphy was a "hard job", and there must be an external force to supervise children, from unconsciously to consciously like calligraphy.
In 1959, at the age of 15, Yang Zaichun was admitted to the preparatory class of the Beijing Institute of Physical Education (now Beijing Sport University), that is, the high school class. Having just graduated from junior high school, he left Tangshan alone and went to Beijing to study. In Beijing at that time, the painting hall of the Palace Museum often exhibited the authentic calligraphy of the Ming and Qing dynasties. On the weekend, Yang Zaichun borrowed a bicycle from the coach, took a brush, white paper, ink, a small horse and prepared dry food, and rode to the Forbidden City to copy it.
"At that time, the Forbidden City did not charge money, so as soon as I went, I stayed for most of the day, lying on the ground and began to post. Because I think that in the process of improvement, I always have to absorb good nutrients, and I don't know which one is good and which is bad, but what can be hung in the Forbidden City must be fine. At the beginning of the visit, as long as I walked by a tourist, I quickly covered my own words, did not dare to let people see, and then gradually became confident, and then I copied it there. After a long time, the people who watched the forbidden city all knew me. Mr. Yang looked ahead, laughed softly, and said, "Those days there, now that I think about it, are very beautiful." ”
One day, when Yang Zaichun was looking down at the copying, the tourists looked up at the calligraphy and painting works on the wall, did not pay attention to their feet, kicked down the ink bottle, and stained the bricks of the Forbidden City. Yang Zaichun thought to himself, the bricks of the Forbidden City are said to be "golden bricks", how can this be good? He hurried to get the mound to clean up, but he couldn't wipe it clean, and the staff began to reprimand him when they saw it. Although it was late autumn, Yang Zaichun was sweating profusely and unable to defend himself. When he was embarrassed, an old gentleman came over to help him break the siege, and then asked him who his surname was and how old he was. He replied: "My name is Yang Zaichun, and I am 17 years old. The old man said, "You like calligraphy so much, come to my house when you have time." This old gentleman was Yang Zaichun's first official teacher, Huang Gaohan. After that, Yang Zaichun went to the Forbidden City for one week and then went to Mr. Huang Gaohan's home to study for another week.
Mr. Huang Gaohan wrote the Wei Monument and the Lishu, and asked Yang Zaichun to write and do his homework every day, which was counted as a "daily lesson". "The horizontal folding pen in the Wei monument, that is, the folding pen on the right side of the treasure cover and the hook pen under the 'B', often appear in the outer square and inner circle, the outer side is the square pen, and the inside is the round pen. It's hard to do it all at once when we write. Mr. Huang told me that the brush is not always vertical, and when writing, you must pour it down, and then the side is out, you can write it in one stroke. Yang Zaichun was open at that time, and since then, he has often used this method in his teaching to inspire and teach students.
Yang Zaichun believes that after years of practice, the old gentlemen have pointed out a shortcut for the students. In the process of learning calligraphy, many problems are often not comprehension problems but technical problems, mastering the method, you can solve a large part of the problem, so the guidance of the leader is particularly important.
Three gentlemen
I really have to thank the three old gentlemen for their harshness on me
More than three years passed, and Mr. Huang introduced Yang Zaichun to Mr. Zheng Xuexian. "Mr. Zheng Shuxian was the president of the Chinese Calligraphy Research Society at that time, a famous calligrapher, and it can be said that he was the 'no.1' who wrote zhangcao, and we all call him "Reciter" or Zheng Shulao. Now that I think about it, I had an epiphany in the process of learning calligraphy, and I understood the theories and concepts of calligraphy from Zheng Shulao, and the technique of calligraphy was obtained from Mr. Huang. Yang Zaichun introduced.
The first time he went to see Elder Zheng, Yang Zaichun took a bunch of "Many Pagoda Tablets" that he had come to, but Elder Zheng only looked at it once and threw it aside. Yang Zaichun was very frightened, and Elder Zheng immediately began to ask, "Why did you write from the back to the front?" Yang Zaichun wondered, "I just came word by word from the beginning of this post." Seeing that he did not understand, Mr. Huang prompted at the side: "Elder Zheng said that you are writing calligraphy backwards." Yang Zaichun was still confused, and Zheng Shulao asked again, "How did Chinese calligraphy come about?" Yang Zaichun replied, "It is from the oracle bone, the big seal, the small seal, the eight points, the Lishu..." Zheng Shulao said, "I ask you why you wrote from the back to the front?" It does not conform to the principle of text development. Yang Zaichun finally understood at this time and said, "Elder Zheng, do I want to start practicing from the Oracle?" Elder Zheng Said Solemnly: "There are many oracle bone knives and few penmanship, you have to start with han wei carved stones." ”
After that, Elder Zheng Let Yang Zaichun come to many precious posts and rubbings, and asked him to close the post, randomly pick out a word, and write it down on his back to pass the pass, otherwise he would keep writing. "For the words in the post, I will speak to the words when I write, read out the various strokes, and say where they are, so that they can be good." Mr. Yang said and then wrote it with his finger on the table, the traditional character "race" has nine horizontal lines, it must be required that the distance of the nine horizontal lines written down is equal, called "cloth white", the cloth white is uniform, it proves that the written word is accurate. "Thinking about that time, I really have to thank the two old gentlemen for their harshness on me." Yang Zaichun recalled.
In 1976, the Tangshan earthquake, Yang Zaichun returned to his hometown to fight the earthquake and provide disaster relief, and Zheng Shulao also moved to Shanghai due to the earthquake. At this time, the two masters and apprentices never had a chance to meet again. Later, Zheng Bida, the eldest son of Zheng Shu, wrote in his memoirs that there was always a dark and thin young man who came to the house to take care of my father, his name was Yang Zaichun.
Ask Mr. Yang Lao, will the emotions of getting along with Zheng Shulao be like friends? Mr. Yang raised his head, paused, and waved his hand again: "You can't say that you are friends with the old man, you are more like father and son." Teachers and apprentices are like father and son. ”
In the 1980s and 1990s, there was another old gentleman who helped and influenced Yang Zaichun a lot, that is, Qi Gong. Yang Zaichun said: "At that time, I began to do publishing work, and Mr. Qi Gong instructed me to publish more calligraphy publications that the people can understand and popularize. This is particularly important for guiding the selection of topics in my later publication directions. ”
After that, Yang Zaichun often brought various manuscripts to Mr. Qi Gong for review, and more than a dozen books published before and after were instructed. Once, he held a large manuscript of the "General Survey of Chapters and Laws" and asked Mr. Qi Gong to review it. Yang Zaichun recalled, "Sir asked me, 'The General Survey of Chapters and Laws?' There are rules for walking and eating, what is your rule? He also asked me, 'Do you have something inscribed here?' I replied, 'It's all ink.' Mr. Qi smiled and said, "Then it should be called the Ink Chapter Method Overview!" Subsequently, Mr. Kai inscribed three titles for me to choose. Maybe it wasn't how good I was, but Mr. Kai has always encouraged me to do more in the education of calligraphy popularization, which I have always remembered to this day. ”
23 and a half minutes
CCTV was the first person to open a calligraphy class during the prime time and received 100,000 letters from the audience every year
Elder Zheng Once said to Yang Zaichun: "If I can make more young people like calligraphy in my life, I will not live in vain." This sentence had a great influence on Yang Zaichun, and it also became his original intention to popularize calligraphy after that.
After the reform and opening up, Yang Zaichun obviously felt the "calligraphy fever". Mr. Qi Gong's practice at that time had a great influence on him, mr. Yang recalled that Mr. Qi once said: "Except for the names of the men's and women's toilets in Beijing Normal University, which I did not write, the rest was written by me, and I wanted students to know that a college student should write well." Like Mr. Qi Gong, Yang Zaichun has also written the names of many places at Beijing Sport University, and he also hopes that students will feel the charm of calligraphy in a subtle way when they see teaching buildings, venues, school hospitals, etc.
Not only that, in 1979, Yang Zaichun and a group of friends founded the Chinese Calligraphers Association. "At that time, some people said that Yang Zaichun's writing was very ordinary, but he did a thing of immeasurable merit, that is, the calligraphy boom in the Beijing area rose, and he made a certain contribution." Yang Zaichun laughed.
In the early 1980s, Beijing's Dongxicheng, Xuanwu and Chongwen districts all had cultural centers and clubs in which calligraphy classes were held, and Yang Zaichun rode from Beijing Sport University to various urban areas to give lectures, "to ride more than twenty kilometers to the city", and to run at least two or three places a day. Yang Zaichun said: "At that time, I gave lectures everywhere, many students embarked on the road of calligraphy, and now many people who are active in the Beijing book world have taught me. I am very pleased that my enlightenment education has determined their lives. ”
After 1989, Hong Minsheng, then deputy director of CCTV, thought that there were too few cultural programs on tv channels, so he approached Yang Zaichun to discuss opening a calligraphy lecture program on CCTV. "Hong Minsheng likes to write and loves to write lily. I prepared a plan according to his suggestion, called a series of lectures on traditional Chinese calligraphy, more than 40 days of lectures, and I gave 43 lectures myself. At that time, there were only two CCTV stations, and the lectures were arranged at 12:30 p.m. every day in the central set and 6:30 p.m. every night in the central set. Speaking of this, Yang Zaichun couldn't help but be happy, he said: "Later, Jiang Kun saw me and said that I was a big star, and they talked to the actors for 10 minutes and then stepped down, I had to talk about 23 and a half minutes in prime time every day, and as soon as I turned on the TV, It was Yang Zaichun." ”
At 23:30, Yang Zaichun had to write while speaking alone. In the studio, he was faced with a countdown table, and after 23:30, the program stopped, so he had to lecture on time. "As now, there had to be copywriting, verbatim manuscripts, and rehearsals at home. When I lecture, I often exude a Tangshan accent, and I am tall and black-faced, so it is easy to be remembered. Yang Zaichun explained.
Yang is red again, and when he walks on the road, the audience often recognizes him. That year, Yang Zaichun's Beijing Sport University Press received about 100,000 letters from the audience. As vice president, he could not read them one by one, so he explained to the staff that three types of letters must be returned: one is a letter from a border guard; the other is a letter from a cancer patient; and the third is a letter from a disabled person. The rest of the Q&A letters, he will integrate and reply uniformly in the TV lecture, such as what brand of brush to use, what paper is needed, and other issues. He said that he was really standing at the head of the tide.
"A place to stay"
Calligraphy bloggers have raised objections, and eventually "black" turns to "pink"
Today, Yang Zaichun, who has millions of fans, seems to be standing at the head of the tide again, and the number of video plays has increased steadily. The team believes that the current stable playback volume has reached their original intention, the communication effect is good, so that more people can see the real calligraphy knowledge, "This general direction is right, to avoid big ups and downs, but also to avoid relying on weirdness or hot spots to attract attention, to better spread traditional culture, we are around this theme to refine, to shoot videos." ”
Once, Yang Zaichun made a video about the word "God" in cursive, often with a "wandering point", explaining: "The horizontal of the 'Shen' on the right half of the cursive 'God' often appears in the form of a circle. If you draw a horizontal line into two circles, and finally click on the outside, it is actually a typo. If you just write a horizontal line into a circle without turning the pen, and point out the outside, this is to prove that the horizontal in the word 'God' has become a 'free point' and the point is outside. Mr. Yang said while taking a pen to demonstrate, "but a young calligraphy child on the Internet posted a video saying that what I said was wrong, thinking that I was ignorant." He posted a video saying that it was right to write it in two circles and then click on a 'free point'. So, I went to the post and looked up a lot of information to prove that I was right about the 'free point', and finally I made a video to respond to him. ”
Mr. Yang saw the calligraphy shared by the calligraphy blogger through the video, and thought that the "little friend's" characters were actually well written and worked hard, so he sent a paragraph to encourage him. After watching the lettering blogger, he hid the video that had previously raised objections, and then turned Yang Zaichun's "black" to "powder", often praising Yang Zaichun's video works.
Not long ago, a veteran found Yang Zaichun through the Internet. After he retired from the army, he has been giving educational public welfare speeches for poor students of ethnic minorities in Guizhou, and because of the limited funds, he wants to ask Mr. Yang Lao to write him the number of the army according to the collection price. After Yang Zaichun learned about his experience, he presented an inscription to encourage his dedication to the cause of public welfare education. Veterans received one after another thanks, saying that they would "devote their lives to contributing to the cause of education."
In this way, Yang Zaichun, who is nearly eighty years old, is busy from morning to night, very hard, but at the same time very happy, "I treat students equally, and the criticism that should be criticized should also be encouraged." Calligraphy is a very abstract concept, the ancients wrote is a tool, writing and calligraphy are two concepts. My current role in the new media is to let more people who want to write Chinese characters improve a little, help them, and take them into the kingdom of calligraphy. ”
Text/Reporter Han Shirong Courtesy photo/Yang Fan