Miscellaneous peanut trees, grass long warblers flying, sparkling, is a good scenery of Hangzhou in spring. With the recent valley rain festival, this year's longjing new tea before the rain was also picked, sent to a thousand homes, fertile into the water, turned into a refreshing cup of clear tea. Hangzhou female writer Wang Xufeng's newly published novel "Wangjiangnan" is also like this cup of Longjing, and the cover is spread out with layers of green of different shades, like a Jiangnan spring.
"Wangjiangnan" is Wang Xufeng's "Tea Man Trilogy" that won the Mao Dun Literature Prize at the turn of the century, and continues to tell the "new" story of the Hang family of the Jiangnan tea-making family - more precisely, it is the first and second parts of the Shangcheng "There is Jiamu in the South" and "The Marquis of Never Sleep", followed by the third "Building Grass for the City", with the third generation of the Hang family's eldest son Hang Jiahe as the center, adding the Hang family story from 1945 to 1965. Like all the Chinese that were in the great era at that time, the Hangjia family ushered in a series of major historical events such as the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the founding of New China, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, and the socialist transformation, while still clinging to the inheritance and development of the traditional tea industry. The "Tea People" series is a long-scrolled dahe work of the times, which not only has the feelings of home and country that are turbulent, but also depicts the local Jiangnan humanistic customs in Hangzhou with a tight brush, which has made many readers linger, and did not expect that there would be "Xinfan" twenty years later, which is really surprising. Recently, Shuxiang conducted an exclusive interview with Wang Xufeng.
Twenty years later, the "tea man" ushered in a new chapter
The "Tea Man Trilogy", which was published one after another more than 20 years ago, is still the favorite of many readers. These three works were written and published in chronological order: the first " Southern Youjiamu " tells the story of the Hangjia family in Jiangnan from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the first national revolution, centered on the father and son of Hang Jiuzhai and Hang tiandrun; the second "The Prince of The Nightless" recounts the experience of the Hang family in the War of Resistance Against Japan; the third part, "Building Grass for the City", is transferred to the 1970s, telling the story of the fourth generation of the Hang family during the "Cultural Revolution" and ushering in reform and opening up. Therefore, in terms of writing time, "Wangjiangnan" is the latest, but from the perspective of real narrative time, it is actually the third part of this series, from the victory of the War of Resistance to the eve of the "Cultural Revolution". This is also the first thing many people wonder, why will Wang Xufeng "continue" this story twenty years later?
In fact, it can not be regarded as "continuation", and it is not very comprehensive to say "supplement", in the words of Wang Xufeng, it should be "embedded". She confessed that she had originally planned to write the second part of "The Nightless" in chronological order, and even wrote 30,000 words, but she found that she lacked a deep understanding of the events, movements and tea-related history that occurred after the founding of New China, and was not sure how to understand such an earth-shaking grand era. However, out of the writer's heart, she did not want to turn the page hastily, so she first shelved it and turned to writing about the historical period she had personally experienced after the 1960s and 1970s.
It wasn't until 2013 that writing restarted. During this period, Wang Xufeng was transferred from the China Tea Museum in Hangzhou to the Zhejiang Provincial Writers Association, and then to Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University, specializing in tea culture research for many years, from a writer to a scholar, and had a richer grasp and study of contemporary tea history. These were later reflected in the text creation of "Wangjiangnan", which imported a profound knowledge and cultural heritage. Therefore, "Wangjiangnan" is not only a literary work reflecting the great era, but also a warm and thick tea culture and a book of Chinese culture, and the reading process is always accompanied by the fragrance of tea.
When I decided to write, more than ten years had passed since the previous work, Wang Xufeng felt that the time was urgent, "I want to take advantage of the fact that my body can still support it and write quickly, because it takes effort to write a long story, and after a long time, it will be difficult to write in the end." She was right—from then on, it took almost a decade to write it, to be officially published this year. What has brought this series to a successful conclusion is not only the persistence of the spirit of the tea people, but also the clues that Wang Xufeng has found in more than twenty years to understand and grasp the history of modern china: "No era is a fragmented unit, and everything will return to the long river of history." ”
Wang Xufeng, born in 1955, is currently the vice chairman of the Zhejiang Writers Association and the leader of the tea culture discipline of Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University, and his representative work "Tea People Trilogy" won the Fifth Mao Dun Literature Award and the "Five Ones Project" Award in 2000.
A constant life in the storms of history
The title of the book, "Wangjiangnan", is taken from Su Shi's words "Wangjiangnan ChaoranTaizuo". In the hearts of Chinese, "Jiangnan" has long been sublimated from a geographical concept to a cultural imagination. Since the Tang Dynasty, Jiangnan has been an important source of tea, with its own meaning in the title, not to mention the famous sentence "Hugh thinks of the homeland to the old people, and will try new tea with new fire, and poetry and wine take advantage of the years". But what inspired Wang Xufeng was not just "Jiangnan" and "new tea", but the deep meaning behind this poem. She explained that Su Shi's poem does not mean that the deceased and the homeland should take the initiative to forget, but that it can be temporarily left unsettled on the heart, and a new fire will be lit three days after the ceasefire of the Cold Food Festival, and the new tea will also come down, so take advantage of this opportunity to taste. The so-called "poetry and wine take advantage of the years" means that we should live in the present, at this moment, and appreciate a positive life from the present.
Wang Xufeng said that this is also a theme she wants to express in "Wangjiangnan". Before and after the founding of New China, the wind and clouds changed, as the home of industry and commerce, the Hangzhou family rose and fell with the trend of the times, there was development, glory and setbacks, impacts, but if it has been stopped in place, in successive sports, the mood has always been in a state of great opening, then every year the new tea comes down, there is no heart to fry, and there is no way to live a good daily life. "Forgetting the life in front of you in the moment is certainly not a positive state. In order to develop in such a turbulent era, it is necessary to appreciate the beauty of daily life given by the times. ”
In the novel, although the Hang family also moves forward with the wheel of the times, such as participating in the transformation of the public-private partnership, the male protagonist Hang Jiahe's righteous son Hang Fangyue participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the Great Leap Forward and the "Anti-Rightist" Struggle in the city, as Wang Xufeng said, the more important and more impressive length of "Wang jiangnan" is still the daily life and conversation of the Hang family. Whether it is Hang Jiahe teaching the delicate craftsmanship of traditional tea making to his nephew and martyr Lin Forgetful, or the whole family reuniting in difficult years to congratulate the younger generations on their new marriage, appreciating the precious and exquisite gifts given by each person one by one, they are full of the warmth of daily life and big family, and the warm beauty given by traditional Chinese culture that has not been interrupted. Even when the situation is critical, the whole family will worry about soaking a watermelon in cool water to eat. These are exactly what Su Shi refers to in the word "and will try new tea with new fire". Therefore, despite the constant winds and waves, these continuous daily details will make people realize that everything is temporary, and only life is eternal.
At the recent seminar on "Wangjiangnan", Li Jingze, vice chairman of the China Writers Association, mentioned that the novel shows a kind of "constant Chinese spirit", and Wang Xufeng understands the subtle meaning of it: "There were too many major events in that year and month, if you take out the politics of the times and write it, every link will be very intense, but if you put them into daily life, you will dissolve this intensity." It's like a piece of meat cut open, with bones, skin, meat, fat, not just a single bone pestle there. The "flesh and bones" she hopes to present are the overall process and spirit of history, and the real life and complex human nature of people living in history.
Song Huizong Zhao Tuo", "Wenhui Map"
Tea is a spiritual drink
Just like the "Tea Man Trilogy", the most important thing that runs through the book "WangjiangNan" is still tea and tea people. For the Hang family, tea is an inseparable part of their daily life, from growing tea, picking tea, making tea to opening a tea house to sell tea and taste tea, tea is not only an economic source at home, but also a way of life, but also a link between people. No matter what drastic things happen, people can sit around and continue the years in the warmth of a pot of tea.
"Jiangnan Shifu culture has a skill of turning stones into gold, food, clothing, shelter and transportation constitute a very important part, in every dish, every cup of tea can be given a spiritual symbol, so that the simple filling of the stomach of life sublimated." Our Chinese culture not only has the 'red sorghum' of the north, but also the elegant part of the south, which is a polyphonic form. In Wang Xufeng's view, on the one hand, tea represents a peaceful and ordinary Chinese life, on the other hand, it is also a "spiritual drink". As one of the symbols of Chinese culture, tea is closely related to the literati and scholars, and is the sustenance of Gao Yiqing elegance, and these anecdotes and allusions are repeatedly interspersed in "Wangjiangnan".
Lu Yu's "Tea Classic" has a cloud: "Tea is used, the taste is cold, and it is the most suitable person to drink and practice frugality." "Tea, in connection with the virtue of a gentleman, seems to have virtue as well. Wang Xufeng said that the so-called gentleman is a person who has constraints and requirements for himself, and in the novel, he borrows the eyes of an American to express his observation of Chinese - Chinese looks cold on the surface and lacks expression, but warm on the inside, like a hot water bottle. Wang Xufeng speculated that this may be related to China's mountains and rivers, thick people living in large groups, people are accustomed to collective life, it is necessary to spend a lot of energy to study the relationship between people, so as to form rules and character, from self-cultivation to family to govern the country and the world. Therefore, she very much wanted to present such an image conceived by typical Chinese culture, and eventually poured into the protagonist of "Wangjiang South" Hang Jiahe.
Hang Jiahe is the third generation of the "Tea Man" series, the grandson of the first generation of Hang Jiuzhai and the son of the second generation of Hang Tian drunk. Hang Tianzui is a beautiful romanticist, similar to Jia Baoyu-style figures, an alternative representative of Chinese intellectuals, and is deeply loved by readers. Although Hang Jiahe inherited part of his father's lyricism, he had more Zhongzheng Dunhou and was a typical gentleman image, which was also conceived by Wang Xufeng at the beginning, and it was her ideal Image of a Chinese tea person. Compared with other younger siblings and younger generations who went out of the house to participate in the revolution, only Hang Jiahe guarded the great cause, providing backing and shelter for everyone, not radical, but not conservative, but with the rhythm of history itself, it was not fast and slow to carry out changes. For example, tea making, in the era of new and old technological changes, he remembers every process of handmade tea and insists on doing everything himself, but he does not reject the innovation of machine tea making, and the same is true for other aspects of society. Wang Xufeng said that Hang Jiahe represents her concept of society, not only to always remember all the good things in the past, but also to move forward gradually.
The most memorable is Hangzhou
This spring, in addition to "Wangjiangnan", the literary and art film "Willow Waves Smelling Warblers", which was just released in March, is also adapted from the short story of the same name in Wang Xufeng's novel collection "Love West Lake", which depicts a beautiful view of the west lake of smoke and rain, which makes people yearn for it from afar. Wang Xufeng, who came to Hangcheng at an early age and grew up by the West Lake, has a special complex for this city where natural and cultural landscapes coexist.
Hangzhou Gulai is a tea town. Wang Xufeng remembered that every spring when he was a child, his mother would start to send new tea to people, encapsulating the newly produced tea leaves in small pouches of kraft paper, each bag containing one or two or two, and distributing them to relatives and friends. Although tea was rare and needed to be bought with a ticket, the more expensive Longjing tea ordinary people generally could not drink, but sending tea and drinking tea is still a common etiquette and indispensable ritual in the lives of Hangzhou people.
But Wang Xufeng himself was somewhat accidental in his association with tea culture. She was originally a "literary and artistic girl", loved literature and art, and began to write novels very early, but because the college entrance examination did not play well, she wanted to learn Chinese, she went to the history department of Hangzhou University (later merged into Zhejiang University), the school is on the edge of the West Lake, she goes to the White Causeway every day to endorse. Although she claimed to have "average grades" when she studied history, four years of immersion in historical materials have really changed her. After graduation, in 1990, she was transferred to prepare for the construction of the China Tea Museum, "immediately fell in love after going", and was deeply attracted by the cultural connotation of tea. At that time, There were three other traditional culture museums in Hangzhou at the same time, namely silk, traditional Chinese medicine, and southern Song Dynasty official kilns, and Wang Xufeng laughed and said that if he went elsewhere, he might write novels with different themes.
In 1995, "Southern Youjiamu" was published, opening the "Tea Man" series, which became a representative work of contemporary Chinese tea culture novels. In 2006, Zhejiang Forestry College (now Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University) established the country's first tea culture college, and Wang Xufeng joined as a professional researcher. From the time of "Wangjiangnan" to the present, although machine tea making is more common, she leads students to strive to cultivate non-hereditary inheritors of handmade tea, recording traditional crafts with videos and texts. The school also has its own tea mountain, and students also have to pick tea themselves. She believes that the humanistic spirit of the inner show that belongs to Chinese tea will not fade.
Tea farmers picking West Lake Longjing North Evening New Vision courtesy of the picture
A few days ago, it was the day when the new tea in Longjing came down, and Wang Xufeng made a special trip to Longjing Village. Despite the epidemic, there are still many tea lovers who come here to buy and drink tea; tea farmers take advantage of the golden time during the rainy period of the Qingming Valley to pick and make tea. In Wang Xufeng's eyes, the tea mountain at this time is the most beautiful scenery in Hangzhou.