"Silent Night Thoughts", which has been memorized since childhood, is not Li Bai's original work? "Daughter of the Sea" does not tell the love story of the Little Mermaid? The Brothers Grimm are actually not fairy tale creators, but folklorists?
Recently, the topic of "Silent Night Thoughts is not Li Bai's original work" rushed to the hot search, and the creator behind it, the post-95 girl Sour (pseudonym), entered the public eye.
During her graduate studies at Peking University, she made videos in the form of hand-drawn comics and shared the stories behind many classic literary works on the platform with interesting explanations.
Sour said that the biggest motivation for making videos is to satisfy her curiosity and desire to create, and for her, it is very lucky to be able to read books as a job, and she enjoys it.
Sour. Photo / provided by the interviewee
The conversation is sour.
[1] The Brothers Grimm were not fairy tale authors, but folklorists
Jiupai News: When did you start doing self-media, and what was your initial positioning of the account?
Sour: I should have officially done self-media in 2019, my undergraduate is communication, my graduate school is radio and television, and painting is my hobby.
At the beginning, I made videos out of interest, and I made simple videos of things I usually draw, and then I made some knowledge-oriented videos, and I was relatively ignorant about account positioning at that time. It wasn't until the establishment of the knowledge area of station B that I gradually had a clear direction for my account positioning - knowledge-based animated videos.
Jiupai News: Why did you want to make a series of videos called "The Truth About Childhood" and where did the inspiration come from?
Sour: Actually, my previous works were mainly textbook series, rereading some texts I learned in childhood with you, and then I wanted to expand this series to make some classic books that I read in my childhood in addition to textbooks, so I had the series "Childhood Truth".
I'm very interested in fairy tales, and "Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales" and "Grimm's Fairy Tales" are almost every child's childhood memories, so it's no surprise that I chose Grimm's fairy tales as the theme for my fairy tale series.
Many of the editions I read when I was a child were excerpts, and the extracurricular books I bought were also condensed editions, but as my reading ability improved, I wanted to read more original editions and feel the charm of being close to the author. After reading the original version, I realized that it was different from childhood books.
"Grimm's Fairy Tales" is a folklore text, and the Brothers Grimm are not actually fairy tale creators, but folklorists, including the later discipline of folklore, which can be said to have been founded by the two of them. During the Napoleonic Wars, with the French conquest of Germanic lands, the Brothers Grimm, as two linguistics students, were wary of the loss of national culture and determined to collect and organize these scattered folk tales. They believed that these folk literatures, as part of the national consciousness, preserved the most natural and pure forms of culture among the people.
Sour hand-painted work. Photo / provided by the interviewee
[2] Read the literature for two or three months to verify the original "The Story of the Peach Blossom Spring"
Jiupai News: Which one is your longest working work?
Sour: It should be the video of Peach Blossom Spring. That topic was hoarded for almost a year, and because there was a lot of literature that needed to be read to make it, the production cycle was very long.
We have learned the article "The Story of the Peach Blossom Spring" in the junior high school textbook, and we know what kind of story it is about, but there are still a lot of "images" in Tao Yuanming's text, and the video is mainly through the interpretation of the "imagery" in "The Story of the Peach Blossom Spring" to analyze the secret that this ancient classic can be passed down for thousands of years.
For example, the relationship between the image of "Peach Blossom" and "The Book of Songs: Tao Yao" and "The Classic of Mountains and Seas", the relationship between the selection of the image of "Fisherman" and "Fisherman's Culture", or the relationship between "Cave" and the Taoist culture of the mainland and the origin of "Cave Heaven and Blessed Land", and the comparison between "The Story of the Peach Blossom Spring" and the "Zhiwei Novels" of the same period in terms of literary genre and theme, etc., through which we can interpret the collective unconscious folk beliefs behind this ancient text of junior high school.
Jiupai News: What is the work that needs to be done in the research part?
Sour: The research work can be summed up very simply, that is, reading things. Like the video of "The Story of the Peach Blossom Spring", I read a lot of literature, read it for two or three months, and I would take notes when I read the literature, and I was very impressed that the notes at that time reached tens of thousands of words.
It's a topic that I'm particularly interested in, so it's a pleasure to read, and for me, it's a great blessing to be able to read books as a kind of work, and I enjoy it.
In order to verify "The Story of the Peach Blossom Spring", I read the literature for two or three months. Photo / provided by the interviewee
Jiupai News: Which work shocks you the most about the difference between the original version and the version that is circulating now?
Sour: It's "Daughter of the Sea". I cried a few times when I was dubbing that video, and after the video was done, I couldn't help but take it out every once in a while, and I thought it was a very meaningful work for me.
During that time, there was a lot of discussion about the movie "The Little Mermaid", and many people thought that the casting of the movie did not fit the image of the Little Mermaid in their minds. But when most people mention the daughter of the sea, they quote the image from the Disney animation version, not the daughter of the sea described by Hans Christian Andersen, so I wanted to see what the original version of The Little Mermaid was like.
The original version was in Danish, so I needed to find the Chinese version that was considered to be the closest to the original translation, and finally found the translation of the 20th century translator Mr. Ye Junjian, and read it from beginning to end.
I was very moved by the process of reading, and for the first time I experienced the complete spiritual connotation of this story, and I found that this was originally a story that was so full of courage, feminist thoughts, and broad-mindedness, so the main purpose of this video of "Daughter of the Sea" is to convey the emotion I received from reading this text to more people.
When we were young, we couldn't decipher the female consciousness that existed in the role of the daughter of the sea, but with the development of the times, the daughter of the sea was reinterpreted to interpret the consciousness of Mr. Andersen beyond the times.
I am very supportive of the rise of women's consciousness, and when we discuss this topic, there will be many different points of view, which is helpful for women to really obtain some social rights, and we need this sensitivity to the protection of their own rights and interests.
[3] The change of poetry is a natural process
Jiupai News: Recently, your work "Silent Night Thoughts" has been on the hot search on Weibo, what do you think?
Sour: This work was actually released in the spring of 2023, which is quite a long time ago, and it also shows that everyone is still very enthusiastic about literature itself, and has always maintained a strong desire to discuss, which is a good phenomenon.
Jiupai News: What do you think of the behavior of later generations to change the original ancient poems of the classics?
Sour: Actually, I think this is normal, and this is also the topic that I want to discuss with you in this video - how to view the evolution of the version of a literary work in the course of history.
There is a concept in architecture that says that if a building has been damaged or damaged with the changes of history, should we repair it exactly as it was in the beginning, or should we preserve the changes given to it by each historical period? This concept is the same in literature, so I will discuss this issue with you through the evolution of the version of "Silent Night Thoughts".
The change of poetry is not a deliberate occurrence, but a natural process. I think the question of whether it is the original version may be important academically, but in the minds of the public, it may be more recognizable and resonant with the later modified version.
Just like "Silent Night Thoughts", what is now widely circulated and compiled into the textbook is still a modified version, because each of us has found our own state of mind in this version, and found our own resonance with this poem. The research of the version is a matter for experts, and as an ordinary reader, if you can experience the artistic conception in the poem and form a consensus, then the poem is meaningful.
Jiupai News: Which of your works are you satisfied with?
Sour: In addition to storytelling, my works also have some popular science. One of my favorite works is a video posted on Mother's Day in 2022, which is about the popular science of female menopause, and everyone's comments under the video are very warm, all about their mothers. I think it's very meaningful to see that my videos can help you better understand the problems that mothers face during menopause and what to do to deal with them.
Another satisfying work is a popular science video about women's menstrual poverty in 2023. That video has a cooperation with the brand, and the brand promises: everyone throws a coin, and it will donate a sanitary napkin. After the video was released, everyone voted millions of coins, and the brand really donated the same amount of sanitary napkins to Yunnan, and the donation amount and details were publicized on the platform. This incident made me realize that making videos can really help others with such a big effect.
Jiupai News Intern Reporter Li Yi Reporter Ma Jieying
Edited by Ren Zhuo
Please contact the reporter on WeChat: linghaojizhe
[Source: Jiupai News]
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