Everyone has their own place of memory, it can be a landmark, an attraction, a street, a big tree... It is a place that carries your memories, and it is also a place where only you can understand its meaning - life is born here, sweat is swayed here, destiny meets here, and every minute of it is tied to the sails of memory, blown by the wind of time, and sailing to the future. And the city is this ship with memory sails, carrying the memories of thousands of people who have lived, traveled, and even just passed by the city.
Fuzhou, as one of the country's famous historical and cultural cities, seems to fit this metaphor very well. It is the capital of Fujian, one of the most prosperous capitals in South China, and a port to the ocean, like a huge ship, inspired by the mountain wind and sea tide, sailing in the waves of time and space. Countless memories are embedded in the city.
The royal city built by the King of Minyue, its rammed earth foundation and rubble, still supports this ancient city deep underground. The majestic main hall of Hualin Temple has personally experienced the past of the "King of Kaimin" and his heirs in the chaotic world of five generations. The inscription of Wushi Mountain records the past of the Song Dynasty Nandu and the paper drunken gold fans in the south of the Jiang'an River. The grand "Sending the King Ship" festival is still held every year at the Shangshu Temple of the Ministry of Water, and the back of a cultural polar dynasty is gradually sinking in the noise. The pond hall tree stone in the Hibiscus Garden has heard the chanting and praise of many literati and gentlemen. In an old mansion in Three Lanes and Seven Alleys, Yan Fu, the enlightenment giant who awakened the countrymen with the way of heavenly performance, gradually stopped his thinking. Even an old banyan tree on the side of the stone bridge has witnessed the city's wind and rain for nearly a hundred years, looking at every pair of steps across the bridge, from cloth boots and straw shoes to the most fashionable sports brand.
The vista of time becomes a perspective of space, and memories are scattered in this way in the city, the past gradually passes, the future becomes the past, endless recovery and oblivion, creation and rebirth, changing rapidly, like a dream. If dreams are born in the past based on memories, then when the dream wakes up, opens your eyes, and sees a new dawn.
This article is from the B04-05 edition of the Beijing News Book Review Weekly feature "The Old Dream of Three Mountains" on October 28.
"Theme" B01丨Three Mountains Old Dream
"Theme" B02-B03丨 Min don't remember
"Theme" B04-B05丨Three Mountain Trails
"Social Science" B06-B07丨Haishan Jiwen
"Art" B08丨 "The Little Golden Snake" Death education, or an alternative fable of coming-of-age
Written by | Lee Shayne
Drawing | Small flying knife
Stop in the crowds and listen to the noise of the city that fills the surroundings like morning light, smell the smell of meat swallow and taro kueh wafting around with steam, the jingling of swallow peels, stirring up the hustle and bustle of bargaining, and a fresh vitality flows in the air - Fuzhou is such a city that brings novelty to people all the time.
"When I first arrived in Fuzhou, I walked through the streets and alleys and saw many shops, all of which had a big anvil placed in the store; One or two strong men took wooden cones and knocked them hard at a large piece of pork on the anvil. What is it about beating pork like this? Every time I see it, I always feel strange; Later, I asked a friend in Fuzhou and learned that this is the raw material for making meat swallow. The so-called meat swallow is to beat pork to a pulp, add flour, and then make a skin, like the skin of a wonton, and use it to wrap vegetables and vegetables. I heard that this thing is in Fujian, and it is only a unique specialty of Fuzhou. ”
Nearly a century ago, when Yu Dafu came to Fuzhou, the sounds he heard, the scenes he saw, the smells he smelled, and the novelty he brought to him seemed not much different from today. Where history makes people laugh, it is often hidden in these seemingly inadvertent but continuous places day after day. Walking in the streets of Fuzhou, as long as you are careful enough, you will be touched by history from time to time.
Because the city he entered, history is by no means a dusty pile of boring old paper, but vividly presented to the world, even if it is silent for thousands of years, the years have not imprisoned its hands and feet, and do not let it exude a seductive charm. Those ancient buildings are not solemn and cold exhibits in the museum's glass display cases, but a temperature full of human feelings.
When a time traveler has sore feet and wants to take a break, they will stretch out their arms, take them into their arms, and whisper their stories in their ears.
temple
The main hall of Hualin Temple
"Among the many old buildings in Fuzhou, if you can only see one, or can only recommend one, the answer must be the main hall of Hualin Temple."
The ancient building researcher of the old building complex in Fuzhou "does not leave his name for the time being" said. Sincerely, perhaps it is not an exaggeration to add such a sentence, that is, if among the many old buildings in Fujian, you can only see one, then the main hall of Hualin Temple will also come out on top.
When the world mentions the old buildings of Fujian, the first thing that comes to mind may be Fujian Tulou - that is indeed an impressive wonder of South China architecture. However, the ancient buildings in the eastern Fujian region where Fuzhou is located have a completely different style from the western Fujian where the tulou is located. The main hall of Hualin Temple can be said to be one of the places where the high standard stands, and those who come here will first be deeply shocked by its huge volume, with its thick eaves pillars and majestic bucket arches, all of which show the majestic majesty. Although the gods and Buddhas gradually disappeared from here for various reasons half a century ago, they are still shrouded in a certain divine aura.
Time has given it vicissitudes and vicissitudes and appearance, but also given it the qualifications to be proud of South China. The phrase "the oldest surviving wooden building south of the Yangtze River" is well deserved. Although today's introductions will quote the Song people's "Records of the Three Mountains": "In the eighteenth year of the Qian clan, his minister Bao Xiurang was made the county guard, and then Yi'e was made a Buddhist temple, and Qiande was also in the second year." However, carbon-14 determination of the wood of the main hall of Hualin Temple yielded the following results: "The tested samples are generally as old as 1200 years, and the earliest is more than 1400 years", far earlier than the founding date recorded in historical documents. Therefore, many scholars speculate that when the then county shou Bao Xiu let the temple be built, he dismantled the old materials of the Min royal palace and appropriated them here.
As a wooden building, the construction style of the main hall of Hualin Temple is both similar and different from the records in the Northern Song Dynasty's "Building French Style", and how its bucket arch paving is calculated and named has even become a major unsolved case in the architectural community. As an architectural style, it is not only the first model in South China, but also far away from the ocean, affecting the close neighbors with water. A construction style imported from China during the Kamakura period in Japan, it is called the "Great Buddha Style" because it was used to rebuild the Great Buddha Hall of Todaiji Temple in Nara. Japanese scholar Tanaka Tan and Chinese architectural historian Fu Xinian have found that this construction style, which has a great influence on Japan, is highly consistent with the architecture of the main hall of Hualin Temple, which is likely to come from the construction and design concept of the main hall of Hualin Temple.
"Today's people visit Hualin Temple, they need to enter through the very conspicuous mountain gate on Hualin Road. Hualin Temple still implements the pricing of the last century, the ticket is only 2 yuan, the ticket is quite ancient, the hand-drawn scenery of the main hall of Hualin Temple, if you have valid documents such as student ID, you can also half or free tickets, plus 1 yuan to get a profile. Even Shaxian snacks have bid farewell to 'one yuan into the store' for more than ten years, and tickets for major scenic spots are often hundreds of tickets, and the ticket prices of Hualin Temple can not be described as bad. Fortunately, the ticket has not been canceled, and the low threshold makes people who admire the ancient architecture have no burden, and at the same time blocks many idlers, so the Hualin Temple is always very clean, and it is easy to get the honorable treatment of one person to book the venue and appreciate the national treasure alone. ”
Leaving the name for the time being is just right, whether it is for the visitors who admire the name, but also for it, it is just the right purity. Perhaps it is more appropriate to borrow a common plaque in Buddhist temples: "Tetra Pak has love".
Fuzhou Temple of Literature
"Hall of the Saints" is the name given by Fuzhou people to the Fuzhou Temple of Literature. For the post-70s and post-80s in Fuzhou, the Fuzhou Temple of Literature is not the solemn atmosphere today, but a children's palace for children to play and play. Xiao Feidao, a small flying knife in the old building complex in Fuzhou, once mentioned that he had more impressions of the Fuzhou Temple of Literature, "cordially staying at the statues of Lei Feng and Liu Hulan in the atrium square, and the garden party on June Day every year."
Fuzhou Temple of Literature was originally located in the northwest of Fuzhou City, moved to the present site in the seventh year of the Tang Dynasty, and has been added, modified and destroyed in successive dynasties, and the current Temple of Literature was rebuilt in three years of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty, although the scale is not as good as before, but it is still the highest specification building in Fuzhou at that time. The four huge stone pillars in the hall, according to the records of Guo Baiyin, a famous eunuch in the late Qing Dynasty of Fuzhou, were hoisted by winch at that time, and more than 200 migrant workers were mobilized.
The political scientist Sa Mengwu of the Republic of China era grew up in the late Qing Dynasty, and when he was young, he worked as a student at the Temple of Literature to worship Confucius. In particular, he told a legend about the "Tomb of Confucius" in the Temple of Literature:
"In the Temple of Confucius, there is still a Tomb of Confucius, and the Tomb of Confucius is in Qufu, so why is there also a Tomb of Confucius in Fuzhou? According to people, a fire in the Temple of Confucius in a certain year, even the statue of Confucius was burned, which was a big event. All city officials, from the governor to the county magistrate, were to be removed from office and even killed. After consultation, the officials did not report to the central government and buried the broken statue of Confucius in the tomb. However, in order to reshape the Confucius statue, it was necessary to transport clean soil from Qufu County, 'there is no silver three hundred taels here', so they did not dare to transport it, and only made of good wood to make Confucius statues instead of clay Confucius statues. ”
Looking at Guo Baiyin's "Rebuilding the Stele of the Temple of Literature in Fuzhou", the most recent fire in the Temple of Literature in Fuzhou is the fire recorded in the stele on the day of "Ding Wei in the autumn and August of the first year of Xianfeng", and the latest reconstruction of the Temple of Literature is also due to this fire. So is the legend that Samengwu heard about this fire? Unknown.
Today, the statue of Confucius in the Dacheng Hall of the Temple of Literature is neither a clay sculpture nor a wood carving written by Samengwu, but a new carved from bluestone.
residence
Small yellow building
The small yellow building is located in the yellow lane of "three lanes and seven lanes". "Three Lanes and Seven Alleys" is now Fuzhou's city card, and almost every tourist who comes to Fuzhou will visit Three Lanes and Seven Alleys.
"Go to Guo Baiyin Mansion to feel the grandeur of the mansion halls of Fuzhou in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, go to You's residence to experience the exquisite decoration of the pattern of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, go to the Little Yellow House to see the Qing Dynasty garden, go to the Ermei Book House to see the exterior decoration of the Qing Dynasty Shuzhai, and then run to Guanglufang to see the mountain garden will of Yintai, the amazing lobby of Xucuo Liming in the early middle and early Ming period, and finally go to Furong Garden to see the garden that retains the interest of early Xishan in the part of the transformation of the late Republic of China."
This is a visit suggestion from Wang Tianxiang, a friend who is familiar with Fuzhou's ancient construction, for visitors who visit Sanfang and Seven Alleys and Zhuzifang for the first time. In this historical district, you can get a glimpse of the most prosperous and prosperous appearance of Fuzhou in the Ming and Qing dynasties. If you are willing to listen to his detailed explanation, he will tell you that most of the family families living in the three lanes and seven lanes have friendship and social relationships. Some are peers, some are colleagues, and some are in-laws. Shuxiang Mendi and the hairpin clan stand side by side, and the relationship network is crisscrossed, which is enough to connect the history of Fuzhou from the Ming and Qing dynasties to modern times.
Yellow Lane is a short alley among the three lanes and seven lanes, which is often inadvertently missed by tourists. However, this alley is the place where Fuzhou's civilization has been rejuvenated since the modern era, where scholarly families gather, and the small yellow building is the old vestige of the famous scribe Liang Zhangju and the bibliophile Chen Shouyu.
Liang Zhangju became famous in modern history, not only because he was a friend and colleague of Lin Zexu, a famous minister who presided over the sale of cigarettes in Humen, but also because of his abundance of writings, he was praised by his friend Lin Zexu as "a scholar in the middle of the court, the richest writer is unsurpassed", and his three notebooks "Shuyuan Jiluo", "Wandering Congza" and "Returning to the Field Trivia" are all must-read books for Qing history research, especially modern history research. And the reason why Xiaohuanglou is famous is because of Liang Zhangju.
After Liang Zhangju repaired the Yellow Tower, his neighbor Chen Shouyun specially congratulated him with a poem: "The Yellow Lane Gate Court remembers Devon, and the Yellow Lou has a new facet of Meixuan." But teach the land to become a mansion, what is the name to thank Fu Dun? And he wrote his own poem and commented: "The Yu Mansion is separated from the uncle, and there are also two small buildings in front and behind, but it is not as good as the official documents, and it is ashamed to be open"-although it is a welcome to the neighbors, Chen Shouyun's self-humility is also a little too much. As a famous scripture scholar and bibliophile in the late Qing Dynasty, his library building "Xiao Yan Huan Guan" has a collection of more than 80,000 volumes, including treatises on the scriptures of successive dynasties and Fujian local historical documents, among which the world's rare rare book Wang Yingshan compiled the Fujian history "Eight Fujian Tongzhi" in the second year of Hongzhi of the Ming Dynasty, which was originally a treasure of Tianyi Pavilion and is now owned by Xiao Yan Huan Pavilion.
Whether it is Liang Zhangju's Yellow Tower, or Chen Shouyu's Xiao Huan Pavilion, the area of the two former houses is not large, and it cannot be like the Suzhou garden that can arrange the terraces and ponds in the wide garden at will, but small and fine, which is the characteristic of the small yellow building. Behind the walls, the halls are heavy, the paths and corner doors, the twists and turns, quite fascinating ingenuity. In the small garden, stacked with delicate rockeries and small pavilions, visited at dusk, when the sky is dark, the slanting sun floating on the water surface, reflecting the dark shadows gradually disappearing over the rockeries and halls, in the slender changes, there is an inexplicable and slender movement, just like the scrolls in the former library room, gently blown by the wind.
Chu
Hillside building
Hillside Building, the name, can hardly find a few search results in an online search. It is so unknown that few people know of its existence except for ancient building lovers of Fuzhou's old buildings. But it is a unique Fuzhou ancient house.
"Gucuo" is a Fuzhou dialect that refers to ancient houses, especially residential buildings. As the name suggests, the Gucuo Mountain Side Building is named because it is close to the foothills of the lower Jing Mountain. This is the ancestral home of the Zhu clan. Since the first year of Xuande in the Ming Dynasty, the Zhu family came from Changxing, Zhejiang Province to Changqing Tuntian, Yongtai, Fuzhou, as a hundred households, and then settled in Zhongyang Village under the jurisdiction of Changqing in the ninth year of Xuande. And this ancestral home, according to genealogical records, was built in the fourth year of the apocalypse at the end of the Ming Dynasty. Although today's building is already an architectural feature of the early Qing dynasty in terms of appearance, it is also more than 300 years old.
The mountainside building combines the architectural styles of eastern Fujian and central Fujian, which is relatively rare in the Fuzhou area. The three-story Shuzhai of the building retains the inscription of studying after the Spring Festival during the Daoguang period and the Xianfeng period, at least only in Fujian.
Most of these ancient houses still retain their original residential purpose, and those who live in the ancient houses are still the descendants of the original builders. The Hillside Building is one of them. The descendants of the Zhu family still live in this ancient house hundreds of years later. Some old people still remember that there were plaques hanging on the hall that read "the ancient road shines on people", and the yinglian on the pillars of the hall was peeled off and faded, they were just written and pasted in those years, when the vermilion paper was gorgeous and the ink was fresh, those old people who were now gray-haired, or the reading man carrying a school bag.
Compared with the grand history of the changes of the times, the ancient house records the small history of a family, but the shadow of the times and personal suffering often coincide, the original white wall, painted with "unity and tension" red art characters, written with the old three articles of "In Memory of Bethune". On the beam frame that was originally clear on the head, electric lights were hung. Visit an ancient house and see not just an ancient building, but traces left here over the centuries.
Descendants have spread out, and some have gradually moved out of their old homes, which is the development of the times and the original intention and vision of the ancestors to hope that their descendants will reproduce. And the family business created by the ancestors has gradually faded and withered in time. The old and the new are a cycle, and the story of damage and repair is also repeated in this ancient house. Today, the ancient house is facing a new round of renovation. It's just that the ancestors of the past hope to "repair the old and the new", and the new generation of future generations already have the concept of cultural relics protection, and more advocate "repairing the old as the old" - one looks forward, the other turns backward, which may sound contradictory, but in fact it is not, because whether it is the ancestors or the descendants, their wish is to pass on this ancient house to the next generation for a long time.
No one can hold on to time, not even for a moment, whether old or new, they are changing, and as always, just as the ancient house itself has life, and this life is given by generations of people who have lived here, just as it was when it was built, and from that moment it stood in the tide of time, receiving new life from generation to generation.
bridge
Banyan Bridge
Bridge is one of the many characteristics of Fuzhou. Fuzhou coast, developed hydrology, rivers and streams like spider webs in Fuzhou, a few meters of distance, is to separate the two banks, so bridges, across the Fuzhou rivers. Wang Shimao of the Ming Dynasty's "Min Bushu" "Min Zhong Bridge A World" has now become Fuzhou's most proud praise. The Ming Dynasty's "Eight Fujian Tongzhi" included 253 bridges in Fuzhou Prefecture, and the "Fuzhou Fuzhi" during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty included 643 bridges.
In a bird's-eye view of Fuzhou City during the Kangxi period, the famous long bridge Wanshou Bridge in Fuzhou can be clearly seen in the place where Western flags are flying. This bridge across the Min River, nearly 400 meters long, was built in the first year of Shaosheng in the Song Dynasty, and was originally a pontoon bridge. The poet Lu You once climbed this pontoon bridge and marveled at its magnificence: "On the nine-track Xuxing angry waves, a thousand ships cross the heart of the river." The bells and drums of the temple tower urge the dawn, and the clouds and smoke have fallen since ancient times. ”
During the reign of Dade and Zhi in the Yuan Dynasty, the bridge was transformed into a stone bridge and became a landmark in Fuzhou. The bridge has been repaired several times. In 1930, the stone bridge was added to the original stone beams with reinforced concrete beam slabs, during the Anti-Japanese War, it was bombed by enemy aircraft, flooded, the bridge foundation collapsed, the bridge piers collapsed, and the bridge deck was broken, but people still repaired and reinforced the bridge.
It was not until 1996 that a new bridge was built, this long bridge spanning the Min River for nearly 900 years, disappeared from people's sight, only a huge section of old stone piers, with a shocking huge figure, to show the former majesty to passers-by.
Compared to the Wanshou Bridge, the Rongyin Bridge is a very small stone bridge, with a total length of only 27 meters. It is said that the bridge was built in the Song Dynasty, but it cannot be examined. The existing bridge was rebuilt during the Guangxu period of the late Qing Dynasty with donations from Chen Bi, the township eunuch of Minhou. The bridge is engraved with an inscription written by him himself: "Rong Yin Bridge, Guangxu 24 years, Chen Bi inscription". Chen Bi floated and sank in the late Qing Dynasty and served as a shangshu in the Ministry of Postal Transmission, and his former residence is now one of the tourist attractions of Minhou.
Compared with his former mansion with carved beams and paintings, this small bridge is not remarkable, but for local villagers, it is far more intimate than Shangshu's mansion. The reason why people believe that this bridge was built in the early Song Dynasty is precisely because of the thousand-year-old banyan tree at the head of the bridge, and people believe that this banyan tree was planted at the same time as the stone bridge was built. Because the banyan tree shades the city and the countryside, the banyan tree air roots have gradually wrapped the bridge piers over the centuries, and the huge canopy shades the ancient bridge, and the banyan tree and the ancient bridge are integrated, becoming the most specific impression of the Fuzhou people who go south and north to their hometown.
The stone bridge has been repaired and patched up several times, and time is like flowing water under the bridge, and I don't know how to take away a few old sayings and old things told by the head of the banyan tree. The bridges that connect this shore to the other, the past and the present, are just like that. The banyan tree at the head of the bridge grows every year and has long leaves and lush leaves. The shade covers generations of people who go and return, go and never return. Watch people meet, meet, and part here.
blessing
Stone furnace
At the end of this journey through time and space, please focus your attention on such a seemingly inconspicuous stone stove, which looks a bit like the stone lamp holder common in period films, and the small pavilion decorated by bonsai lovers next to the short pine. Its texture does not look as quiet as the white marble in the palace building, nor does it shimmer with metallic luster like the copper incense burner filled with incense in front of the temple hall.
It is so old that it can almost be called decaying, and the traces of the accumulated smoke and fire have faded due to the oblivion of the years, and a heavy rain common in summer and autumn in Fuzhou will water it to the ground.
But it still stood there until it was discovered by a member of the old Fuzhou building complex, Xiao Feijiao, and photographed it.
"Look at this, is it tomorrow or earlier?"
Another ancient architecture researcher in Fuzhou, "Aier Min", received a photo sent by Xiaofei Knife, and he "immediately became nervous" when he saw the photo. So, he went to the village of Cangshan Maenishi where the furnace is located.
This stone furnace is located in the palace temple in the village, and the locals call this temple "the Great Palace", but it is actually just a small courtyard. After inspecting the existing foyer and main hall of the temple, Aier Min found that although the existing wooden structure was a relic of the restoration in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the pillar foundation and foundation were old objects from the middle Ming period. The stone pillar foundations are so old, so is this furnace also from this era?
At first glance, Aier Min thought he had seen a stone pavilion from the Song and Yuan dynasties. After taking a closer look, he confirmed his first instinct that the stone furnace had too many features that matched the architectural characteristics of Fujian's Song and Yuan dynasties. The stone imitation wood style used in stone furnaces appeared in the fifth dynasty and was popular in the Song and Yuan dynasties. Three bulges can be seen in the part of the ridge, which is called "ridge warp" and is in line with the stone pagodas typical of the Southern Song Dynasty, such as the Xianyou Dustless Pagoda and the famous Kaiyuan Temple Twin Pagodas in Quanzhou. The reliefs between the buckets resemble early furniture or the "incisor teeth" on the Song Dynasty Tasumi seat, which is the form recorded in the Northern Song Dynasty architectural monograph "Building French Style".
"To sum up, the furnace found this time can basically be confirmed to be built in the Song Dynasty," Aier Min cautiously concluded. Local villagers told him that the Wang family had settled here since the Southern Song Dynasty, and that they had built the Grand Palace, and that the princes in the palace were both gods and their ancestors. This furnace may have been erected at that time.
Thousands of years of incense have illuminated the fate of this ancient family in the vicissitudes of the world, and the descendants who burn incense in front of the temple and bow have become the ancestors of the ancestors, and the ancestors have blessed the prosperity of future generations in the rising incense.
After a prosperous life, wars, revolutions and movements in the past hundred years, the vicissitudes of the years, the stone furnace stands there, conveying the news of future generations to the gods and ancestors, and sharing the protection of ancestors with every future generation. Today, in the wave of urban construction, the descendants of the ancestors who built this stone furnace thousands of years ago in the 21st century have decided to work together to preserve this stone furnace, which is not only the legacy of ancestors, the sustenance of faith, the infusion of feelings for many years, and the precious cultural heritage of everyone in this land - it deserves to be treated and blessed, just as it has blessed the people of this land so firmly in the past thousand years.
Time always flows imperceptibly, pushing people forward between steps and steps. On the night of my parting from Fuzhou, I walked from Sanfang Qixiang to the snack street opposite. Although the time has passed, the noise of the day has not faded, but it is rendered more brightly by the lights of the restaurant and food stalls, and the unabated heat is wrapped in the fragrant aroma of various Fuzhou snacks and delicacies, like a soft little hand holding the saliva between the mouthpieces, the pot stove is extinguished, the barbecue is soaring green smoke, as if the ancient gods are also slowly descending from the night sky, coming to eat the fireworks of this world.
So familiar, so far away, like a dream.
I am still waiting, wandering in the endless dreams and boundless blessings of this city, waiting to meet you again.
Fuzhou snack street view Photo by Li Xiaen.
(Special thanks to Wang Tianxiang, Xiao Feidao, Zhang Jizhou, Xue Jitian, Anonymous for the time being, Aier Min, and the ranking colleagues of the old building complex in Fuzhou for their selfless help for this article)
Text/Li Yang
Photo/Small flying knife
Editor/Luo Dong Li Yang
Proofreader/Xue Jingning