In recent years, there have been more and more strange cases, some pretending to be Qin Shi Huang, some pretending to be the Qianlong Emperor, some saying that Cixi is alive, and some claiming to be descendants of the imperial family... All kinds of things, all kinds, but the routine is almost the same, nothing more than eating the elixir of immortality, there are hundreds of billions of assets waiting to be unfrozen, and someone needs to provide unfreezing funds.
In fact, the pattern of these scammers is still small, what is hundreds of billions of funds, compared with a person, it is simply a small witch.
This person said that he was born the Emperor of Kowloon, and the whole island of Hong Kong was the ancestral property of their family, and in order to recover the ancestral property, he tirelessly sued for more than 50 years of "land status".
Although he did not regain sovereignty later, the ink treasure written during the complaint became a priceless treasure of Hong Kong, and he himself became the cultural memory of generations of Hong Kong people. He is Zeng Zaocai.
The young man left home and returned home, and the family tree became a royal family
Zeng Zaocai was born in November 1921 in Liantang Village, Zhaoqing County, Guangdong Province. His childhood experience is not considerable, but as Mr. Jin Yong said, "In a chaotic world, people are not as good as dogs", and the 1920s and 1930s, when Zeng Zaocai was born and grew up, was even more chaotic in a chaotic world, first a warlord melee, followed by Japanese aggression, and his childhood life can be imagined.
At the age of 20, the Japanese invaded Guangdong, and Zeng Zaocai was forced to flee his hometown and defect to his uncle who was far away in Hong Kong.
After arriving in Hong Kong, Zeng Zaocai planted land in a vegetable garden, spun yarn in a spinning factory, worked as a water canal maker, worked as a porter, and finally found a relatively stable job at the garbage station.
At the age of 35, Zeng Zaocai met Wen Fucai, who was 15 years younger than him, and the two fell in love at first sight and soon got married.
Although the life after the marriage of the two is poor, it is also a taste, and if there is no accident, the two may live a plain and happy life like most people.
But a family tree that appeared by chance broke the peace of this small family.
Soon after the marriage, Zeng Zaocai took his wife back to his hometown in Guangdong Province.
During his stay in his hometown, Zeng Zaocai did not know how to get a so-called Zeng clan genealogy.
Genealogical records say that zeng guangzhen, the ancestor of the Zeng family, was the minister of the Zhou Dynasty, and the second ancestor Zeng Chaofeng was a horse of the Zhou Dynasty, who was named the Emperor of Kowloon by Zhou Tianzi, after which the Zeng family was hereditary and ruled Hong Kong for thousands of years. Because of the Treaty of Nanking, the Qing government ceded the land that belonged to the Zeng family to the British, resulting in future generations of the Zeng family no longer being able to inherit the "throne".
The act of clinging and fabricating in the genealogy is a common phenomenon in ancient times, in order to make one's clan look more lofty. Even if you are as expensive as Confucius, you are not exempt from the vulgarity, claiming that your ancestors were Shang Tang. So it's good to look at the genealogy things, you don't have to take it seriously.
Taking a step back, even if the genealogical records were true, they would have been thousands of years ago and had little to do with future generations.
After Zeng Zaocai obtained the genealogy, at that time, he had no way of knowing whether the genealogy record was serious, but the content of the genealogy was deeply remembered in his mind.
It may be that the records in the genealogy provoked Zeng Zaocai's worship of his ancestors, and after returning from introspection, he went to the "Three Mountains King Temple" on Niuchi Mountain from time to time to worship his ancestors.
Finally there was a car accident on the way back.
The accident hit Zeng Zaocai hard, not only making him disabled, but also making him lose his garbage dump job.
As the saying goes, "poor and lowly couples for a hundred days", at the beginning, Wen Fucai could still be obedient to him, but as the days went on, he lost patience with him, and he either complained or scolded him on weekdays.
Under the cold of the world, Zeng Zaocai thought of the family tree, if he is still the Emperor of Kowloon, he has used this kind of hard life? Affected by this white eye? A bold idea sprouted in his mind...
For more than fifty years, he did not give up, and the Lion Rock sued the people
One day in 1956, without warning, Zeng Zaocai took to the street with ink and a brush, learned the method in the play, and wrote the first "land shape" near the Xiumaoping Village where he lived: "The emperor of the country has been rich, and the first ancestor of the first ancestor, The first emperor of the Zhou Dynasty, the second grandfather of the Zhou Dynasty, the second grandfather of the pants, zeng chaofeng..."
Thus began his fifty-year journey of "filing a complaint".
For fifty years, he dragged his disabled legs from Kennedy Town to Quarry Bay, from the North of the New Territories to Tin Shui Wai, and almost every corner of Hong Kong; Electric boxes, lampposts, overpass piers, anti-earth walls, he is not rejected, see where to write.
Most of the things he wrote were similar, most of them were the contents of his so-called genealogy, and there must be the title of "Emperor" at the beginning, but one moment it was the "Sino-British" Emperor, and the next it became the "Sino-Japanese" Emperor.
He did not remember the names and order of his ancestors too accurately, such as the first ancestor, one moment writing Zhou Guangzhen, the other writing Zhou Guangchao, what is the specific name, it is estimated that he himself is not very clear; The typography is even more chaotic, the font size is different, and the phenomenon of channeling and chaotic lines abounds.
This kind of thing, to the eyes of ordinary people, is just a crazy graffiti.
Hong Kong law prohibits graffiti in public and offenders are punishable by a fine of HK$500 or 3 months' imprisonment.
Perhaps because Zeng Zaocai is a disabled person, or it may not be as knowledgeable as a madman, in short, the Hong Kong police have shown enough tolerance in dealing with Zeng Zaocai, never put him in prison, and rarely fined him, most of the time it is a day of detention, and he is also charged with a lunch during detention.
Zeng Zaocai had eaten the last meal and was worried that there was no place to solve lunch, so he was happy to let the police detain him.
Since the punishment of the police has no deterrent effect on Zeng Zaocai, Zeng Zaocai's boldness is getting bigger and bigger, and more and more writing is also written.
The police saw that Zeng Zhaocai had repeatedly taught him, and later did not bother to take care of him.
On the eve of Hong Kong's return to the motherland, Zeng Zaocai finally wrote his "declaration of sovereignty" in front of the British Governor's Palace, which "occupied" his territory, and the police could do nothing about it.
Zeng Zaocai went from a crazy person who scribbled everywhere to a well-known celebrity, and he also wanted to thank the tolerant Citizens of Hong Kong.
At first, when Zeng Cai was scribbling graffiti everywhere, there were still people watching and some people stopping it, but people slowly found that the crazy and upside-down old man had no malice except scribbling and scribbling, so he got used to it.
Many people even became followers of Zeng Zaocai, and some gave him ladders and ink when he wrote; Some bought him water and food; Some provided him with better paints, and some of Zeng's works could be preserved in the present, officially due to the provision of fine porcelain paint and plastic colors by the enthusiastic masses.
However, to complete the thrilling leap from a Hong Kong "celebrity" to a Hong Kong "spokesperson", it is still up to Zeng Zaocai himself.
Zeng Zaocai, who had been in the same place for decades, sued him of his "land", and the three sons and daughters died continuously, which did not affect him; The two daughters married to a foreign country, and it did not affect him; In order to prevent him from "filing a complaint", his eldest son beat him more than once, and finally his wife left him, but he still went his own way, and regardless of the previous suspicions, he made his wife an empress and his son a prince...
Some people have counted that in 50 years, Zeng Zaocai has written a total of more than 55,800 pieces of land.
Many Hong Kong citizens have found that this kind of perseverance shown in the process of Zeng Zaocai's "complaint to the ground" is not exactly the Lion Rock spirit that the hearts and minds of the Hong Kong people have in mind?
What is even more amazing is that many Hong Kong citizens found that when they were primary school students, Zeng Zaocai wrote there, and later went to college, he still wrote there; Then I stepped into the workplace, fell in love, got married, had children...
When recalling the past, it seems that every important node of life has the figure of Zeng Zhaocai; Every relentless change in the city has a graffiti of the past...
As a result, Zeng Zaocai became part of the urban memory of generations of Hong Kong people.
As early as the early 1980s, Zeng Zaocai had already become the "spokesperson" of Hong Kong, and the story of Zeng Zaocai was put on the screen many times:
Zheng Shaoqiu's "Rogue Emperor" is based on his story;
Liu Jiang's "Uncrowned Angel" has an allusion to his storyline;
Zeng Zhiwei's "Happy Don't Talk" even borrowed his name directly...
In 1993, the beyond band wrote the song "Destiny is Your Home" for Zeng Zaocai. As the song goes, "Born you are an indomitable man, a face that doesn't need to be groomed, it's not bad."
At this time, people still valued his "urban memory" function, and it was only his spirit that was praised, and he never regarded the things he scribbled as art.
It wasn't until one person came along that all changed.
Once on the exhibition hall, it became famous all over the world
This person is the famous Hong Kong art critic Liu Shuangyang.
In April 1997, under the planning of Liu Shuangyang, the Hong Kong Art Center and the Goethe-Institut jointly held a solo exhibition of calligraphy for Zeng Zaocai.
For the first time, Zeng Zaocai's street graffiti appeared in the Hall of Daya.
The exhibition sparked a huge controversy among Hong Kong citizens.
But when people calm down and carefully read these graffiti that have been seen countless times in the streets and alleys but have not looked closely because of disdain, they find that they are indeed quite beautiful, and there is a rule in the chaos, and they are cute in simplicity.
In this way, a "madman" who had only been in school for two years and had not received any artistic training turned into an artist.
Since then, it has been even more out of control.
In 2003, the Venice Biennale, the world's most important art exhibition, invited Zeng Zaocai to participate, and it was the first time since the exhibition was founded in 1895 that Hong Kong artists were invited to participate.
Although the Hong Kong Arts Development Council did not recognize Zeng Zaocai's status as an artist, he was unable to go to the exhibition in person, but his work was eventually brought to the scene by the curator, and once it was unveiled, it caused a sensation, and even top artists like Yoshitomo Nara praised his work.
At the end of October 2004, Zeng Zaocai's work was listed at Sotheby's Autumn Auction, and a 51CM*76CM inkboard work was sold for HK$55,000.
In the "Ten Most Representative Hong Kong Designs" selection event held in the same year, Zeng Zaocai's works were selected with high votes without suspense.
After that, his works changed from simple works of art to cultural symbols of Hong Kong, which were painted on cars, T-shirts, environmental bags, square scarves and other items, with a strong recognition, people know at a glance that this is Zeng Zaocai, this is Hong Kong...
A generation of legends has gone to heaven, and there is no longer a Nine Dragon Emperor in the world
On July 25, 2007, Tsang died of a heart attack at Kowloon Hospital in Hong Kong, ending a legend.
Hearing the news of the "death" of the "Kowloon Emperor", Celebrities from Hong Kong's cultural circles such as Leung Man-tao, MC Jen, Yi Fei and others expressed their condolences and respects.
After Zeng Zaocai's death, Hong Kong citizens will no longer see the old man scribbling on the street on crutches.
His previous works were also gradually purged due to their influence on the cityscape.
But after the removal, people found that the cityscape is neat, but the rest are cookie-cutter skyscrapers, cold glass curtain walls, so where are the characteristics of Hong Kong? Where is the temperature in the city? Only then did people realize the importance of The Graffiti of Tsang Cho Cai to Hong Kong.
As a result, the vast number of Hong Kong citizens spontaneously organized a group called "The People of the Kowloon Emperor" to call on the Hong Kong government to protect the ink treasure of Zeng Zaocai and continue the collective memory of Hong Kong people.
Finally, in 2009, the Hong Kong SAR government recognized the cultural value of Zengzao's treasure and carried out the restoration and protection project of Zengzao's treasure.
But at this time, there were already few treasures left that had once been all over the streets of Hong Kong.
The rest of the situation is not optimistic, most of them can not give better protection due to the base problem, and finally in addition to the Tsim Sha Tsui Tianxing Pier stone pillar and Kwun Tong Road electric lamp post on the two ink stains on the protective cover, the others can only let them rain and wind after shooting the video data, slowly disappeared in the long river of years.
Now that Hong Kong has returned to the motherland for more than 20 years, under the longitude and latitude of history, in the re-examination of Zeng Zaocai's actions in that year, no one should say that he is crazy.
Culture and art aside, Zeng Zhaocai's non-violent and uncooperative indictment of the British government's land encroachment seems to be the vanguard of anti-colonialism in Hong Kong.
How can his fearless courage make some people in Hong Kong who are now licking the West unbearable?
There is no longer a wealth in the streets of Hong Kong, and now the problems on the side of a thousand cities are getting worse and worse. Hong Kong citizens walking through the busy cities, facing similar skyscrapers, similar streets, will there be a feeling of not knowing where they are?
The former Hong Kong used tolerance to create Zeng Zao cai, but did not use tolerance to leave him for a long time, which is Hong Kong's regret, not the regret of Zeng Zao Cai.
The deceased Zeng Zaocai has not been forgotten because he faded out of the streets of Hong Kong, but has become an inexhaustible treasure in the art world and academia.
Finally, Lin Yifeng's "Tu Cheng" expresses his respect for Zeng Zaocai: Qingfeng's sleeves walk around leisurely, the city swings the imperial pen wall electric box lamppost, records the epic Gangjiu is the strongest, sweat mixed with ink font size is uneven, and the smiley face is always the same; Favorite to drink Coke, white paper wood board stone old shirt bath towel dinner card, everywhere can show their strengths, cut the ground to harvest the pot Zeng or Tung Chee-hwa, the territory has always been the same...
bibliography
1. The Paper: "Graffiti in Hong Kong, "Kowloon Emperor" Zeng Zaocai and his street writing"
2. China News Network: "Graffiti in Hong Kong, "Kowloon Emperor" Zeng Zaocai and his street writing"