The statements in this article are based on reliable sources and are repeated at the end of this article
It is said that the meaning of things is given by people, that is to say, whether there is meaning or not is determined by people, learning we can gain knowledge, it is a meaningful thing, playing games can harvest happiness, this is also a meaningful thing, but if it is a student age, because playing games and abandoning learning, then this matter becomes meaningless.
For example, a farmer in Shanxi Province copied four famous works with calligraphy that he had practiced for 50 years.
This honest farmer spent eight years and painstakingly copied the four famous works, which he wanted as a gift for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.
Is there any point in this? Is it true that this farmer has spent eight years doing completely useless work?
01
Broad and profound Chinese culture
In terms of education, Zhang Xicai is really not educated, because his family is too poor, and he will not go to the fourth grade of primary school. If you want to talk about artistic attainments, if Zhang Xicai is second in the village, no one dares to say first, in fact, this is all due to his good handwriting.
But when it comes to why he copied these four famous works, it is actually related to a foreign trip, and in foreign museums, Zhang Xicai really knows how popular Chinese culture is abroad.
In 2011, because Zhang Xicai's children were not accustomed to seeing their father immersed in calligraphy in China and Japan, and wanted to take their father to see the outside world, they decided to take their parents to travel abroad, so that their parents who had worked hard all their lives could enjoy themselves and feel a different cultural atmosphere.
In a foreign museum, the family was walking and looking, and suddenly Zhang Xicai stopped in front of a calligraphy artwork, and the children curiously leaned over and found that what attracted their father was actually a Chinese character calligraphy work.
Zhang Xicai had an unbelievable expression, turned to his daughter and asked, Mi thought that foreigners also like our Chinese calligraphy, and her daughter replied to her father with a smile, saying that Chinese culture is hot now, and foreigners are rushing to learn it, and they want to experience the charm of our culture.
This discovery gave Zhang Xicai a great shock, and later during the trip, Zhang Xicai did find that, as his daughter said, he met a group of foreigners who wrote calligraphy.
Seeing this scene, Zhang Xicai hurriedly stepped forward to observe, but foreigners are always foreigners, and some exercises are still not in place, so Zhang Xicai shook his head again and again. Soon, Zhang Xicai's reaction attracted the attention of foreigners, and Zhang Xicai tried it in broken Chinese.
Originally, Zhang Xicai didn't want to accept it, but seeing the eyes of this group of foreigners, there were expectations, doubts, and disdain, so Zhang Xicai held the brush handed over and wrote a few words on the paper.
The eyes of the foreigners around him were straight, and they called this the real art, of course, Zhang Xicai didn't understand this, but judging from their expressions, they should have been shocked.
After returning to China, he decided to use the brush in his hand to transcribe literary masterpieces and complete the transcription of all books before the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.
It was 2011, and there were still 10 years to go before 2021, and he hoped to use this decade to give the best gift to the party.
But then again, how did a farmer who didn't graduate from elementary school practice a good hand?
02
Fifty years of grinding
Zhang Xicai was born in 1944, a farmer, in that era full of war, farmers are often the poorest and hardest, but Zhang Xicai is lucky, his parents have an early advanced ideological consciousness, that no matter how poor they are, they can't be poor in education, once the whole family saves money and sends Zhang Xicai to study in the village school.
When Zhang Xicai first knew how to write, when the teacher in the school saw the name written in Zhang Xicai's book, he was amazed by his good handwriting, and he encouraged Zhang Xicai to have such a talent, which is rare and will definitely be achieved if practiced.
So the little Zhang Xicai memorized his husband's words in his mind, and after completing the homework required by his husband, he would also find time to practice writing.
It's a pity that this kind of life only lasted four years, Zhang Xicai's family was too poor when he was in the fourth grade, and his family had to let him drop out of school, and the young Zhang Xicai could only practice calligraphy on the ground with a wooden stick.
In this way, Zhang Xi reached the age of 18, he enlisted in the army, and had the opportunity to systematically learn cultural knowledge in the army, and his conditions for practicing calligraphy were also much better.
Because once he began to systematically learn calligraphy, Zhang Xicai found that there were many ways in calligraphy, and he could only explore step by step without experience in this area.
After retiring from the army, Zhang Xicai became an employee of a silk weaving printing and dyeing factory in Gaoping City, and he still did not relax in the practice of calligraphy. This life lasted for decades, until he retired.
03
Life of practicing calligraphy after retirement
After retirement, Zhang Xicai had more time to practice calligraphy, except for picking up pine nuts to send girls to school, he spent almost all of his time practicing calligraphy.
Every morning, he gets up an hour or two early to practice calligraphy, then sends his grandchildren to school, and then goes home to continue practicing, and he sometimes can't hear his wife calling him to eat.
Sometimes when he is free, Zhang Xicai will carry a bucket and a big brush to the square where there are not many people in the park, and practice calligraphy on the ground with water as ink, which will attract a lot of old grandfathers and old ladies to come and see the excitement, they are full of praise for Zhang Xicai's calligraphy, and there are many old people who are interested in calligraphy to come and join Zhang Xicai.
Although Zhang Xicai's handwriting disappeared after the sun irradiated it, so many people practiced calligraphy in the park, and the management of the Common Era forbade them to practice calligraphy here on the grounds of disrupting the normal entertainment activities of the park. There was no way, Zhang Xicai could only go home and practice calligraphy at home.
However, after so many years, Zhang Xicai's reputation for writing well has gradually spread, and many relatives and friends, neighbors and neighbors will ask him for some calligraphy works to frame and put in the room as a work of art.
There are also Spring Festival times, many people will bring some red paper to Zhang Xicai's house, and ask him to write one or two couplets for themselves to celebrate and celebrate.
Whether it is asking for artwork or writing couplets to neighbors, Zhang Xicai is always busy agreeing, because he thinks that it is very happy for someone to like his own words, and give others their own ink treasures, others are happy and happy, so why not?
In addition to the ink treasure for others, the rest of Zhang Xicai is the cheapest ink used in the motivation to practice words, and the paper used is also a waste newspaper, as long as he can achieve his goal, he doesn't care how cheap the material is.
Therefore, a large part of these calligraphy works used for practice are thrown away as garbage by my wife and children, and they say that these are useless, and even if they write more, they will be a piece of waste paper at home.
It was because of their words that Zhang Xi began to think about how he could make calligraphy meaningful, and then after a trip abroad, he really made up his mind to copy the famous book as a gift for the 100th anniversary of the party's birth, which is also a very meaningful thing.
04
Copying the four famous works as a gift
China has been in China for 5,000 years, and there are so many famous books that have been handed down like smoke, so which one should we copy? Zhang Xicai made a mistake for a while, and if he copied this book and thought that it was better, would he have to tear it down and start over? Isn't this just useless work?
After thinking about it, Zhang Xi decided to transcribe four famous books at one time, that is, the four famous books that everyone is familiar with. I thought it would be difficult to copy one famous book, but I decided to copy four copies at once, which is a lot of effort.
"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has more than 700,000 words, "Journey to the West" has more than 800,000 words, "Water Margin" has 900,000 words, and "Dream of Red Mansions" has the most, with more than 1 million and 70,000 words, adding up to more than 350,000 words in total.
Even if you write in ordinary words, it will take a long time to finish writing these, not to mention that the font used by Zhang Xicai is a real italics, so when will it have to be written?
When he decided to start transcribing the four famous novels, Zhang Xicai was already 67 years old, and it was estimated that he would be seventy or eighty by the time he completed it.
But Zhang Xicai made up his mind that no one could stop him, and he had to save paper to transcribe four famous books, so Zhang Xicai's writing must be small and neat.
He cut the fine rice paper he bought neatly, and then bound it carefully, just one of the famous books cost nearly fifty or sixty volumes, once an old man spent nearly ten years just copying the Dream of Red Mansions, which aroused Zhang Xicai's fighting spirit.
He added all the characters of the four famous works together and then calculated how many words he copied every day, so that all the famous works of Jiang could be copied within the specified time. In this way, Zhang Xicai often copied until late at night, so his body also fell ill, and he was often dizzy and couldn't hold the pen.
Even so, Zhang Xicai gritted his teeth and persevered, copying the Dream of Red Mansions with the largest number of words in three years, and then framed it in a discarded paper bag and stamped it.
After the three masterpieces, Zhang Xicai concocted the same method, basically it took a year or two to transcribe all the four famous books, a total of nearly 160 volumes, and this time point is April 2018, much earlier than the specified time.
Soon, many netizens knew about Zhang Xicai's copying of the four famous books, and they expressed their opinions one after another, thinking that it was meaningless for the old man Zhang Xicai to do this.
But Zhang Xicai did not pay attention to these voices, his previous haze was swept away, and he became energetic, and he did not take these as his own private collections, but dedicated them to the Communist Party of China on the 100th anniversary of the party's birth.
He understood that under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the country was prosperous and strong, and he had so much time to copy these masterpieces to realize his ambitions.
A simple little thing, day and night, decades of persistence, whether it is meaningful or not, he makes us admire.
Resources
[1] China Daily: February 3, 2015 [Shanxi Ancient Old Man Hand-copied Four Famous Works, Pre-Gift Party 100th Birthday]
[2] China News Network: March 18, 2019 [Shanxi septuagenarians spent eight years copying four famous works]