The 2021 China Grand Canal Cultural Belt Beijing-Hangzhou Dialogue Series activities were held on the Grand Canal River. Photo by Wang Gang
HANGZHOU, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- Looking at China's map, the Grand Canal connecting the north and south is even more distinctive when major rivers flow eastward.
This is a river of water transport, "Hangzhou wharf loaded with rice, a fiber pulled to the city of Beijing", a saying that the Grand Canal is very important for the operation of the water; this is a river of culture, stretching for 3200 kilometers, stringing dozens of cities along the coast, is a unique carrier of cultural integration between the north and the south.
From the river of water transport to the river of culture, if you want to choose all the mouths and the Grand Canal "heart" from the passage of time, the Hangzhou section with the richest historical monuments and the deepest cultural heritage may be the best choice. The 2021 China Grand Canal Cultural Belt Beijing-Hangzhou Dialogue is being held in Hangzhou, which also provides an opportunity for people to understand the Hangzhou section of the Grand Canal. Thanks to the continuous promotion of cultural inheritance, protection and utilization for many years, the Hangzhou section of the Grand Canal is more and more like a Jiangnan woman, with "ink and danqing" flowing in her pen, and a gentle temperament between "words and demeanor".
Hangzhou section of the Grand Canal of China. Photo by Wang Gang
Prosperous since ancient times
"The morning sun reflects on the canal..." On the banks of the Arch Bridge of the Grand Canal, in the strange lanes, soft tunes came from time to time. Zhou Zhihua is the inheritor of China's intangible cultural heritage "Little Hot Dim", who opened the "Old Happy Tea House" in a house with the charm of the old Jiangnan on the side of the Grand Canal, which is not large in size, but often "bursts", and many tourists will spend hours listening to an authentic Hangzhou dialect.
"Old Happy Tea House" was formerly known as the Central Jishi Tea Material ClubHouse. Originally, it was initiated by a foot-picking worker next to Gongchen Bridge, mainly engaged in the charity relief of tea charity. As a hundred years ago, a cup of tea, resting feet, an ancient bridge, witnessing the prosperity of the world.
Hangzhou drama has a rich range of genres and deep historical roots, especially along the Gongchen Bridge, which is a good place to drink tea and watch drama. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were four tea garden theaters in Tianxian, Fuxian, Yangchun and Ronghua, and Tan Xinpei, Gai Mingtian and Zhou Xinfang all performed on stage here.
The ancient folk charm is the most charming. Or attracted by the old bottom context, Xu Junyue, the inheritor of the Zhejiang guqin, also chose his studio by the canal. "The Grand Canal culture is an important representative of Hangzhou's traditional culture, which has the natural genes of inheriting the Zhejiang school of guqin, and can open the Zhejiang School Xumen Guqin Museum to the canal, which can be described as complementary." Xu Junyue said.
Holding lectures and art collections to enhance the sense of cultural experience, carrying out activities such as entering the campus, entering the community, entering the enterprise, hoping to make more people fall in love with this traditional art... As a "canal culture messenger", Xu Junyue has been committed to promoting guqin culture, so that the millennium Yayin can flow leisurely on the banks of the ancient canal. "Grand Canal culture is not just a symbol, it's more of a way for people to live. Therefore, in an effort to integrate guqin culture into the daily lives of the people, we should contribute more. ”
In addition to the inheritance of cultural craftsmen, the charm of canal culture also comes from the cultural genes scattered in every corner of the coast, which is a well-preserved material carrier everywhere.
Located in the Gongshu District of Hangzhou, Qiaoxi Historical and Cultural District is one of the representatives. The so-called "West of the Bridge", originally a generic name for the area west of gongchen Bridge, preserves historical relics such as the Temple of Wealth and the Temple of Zhang Daxian, including the wharf along the river, the courtyard-style houses, the buildings of the Republic of China Lane, the old-style public housing tube buildings, and the people who have lived here all their lives.
In the early days, the Qiaoxi Historical and Cultural District witnessed the bustling scenery along the canal in the past, and also saw the helplessness of the industrial decline in the 1980s and 1990s, and it was once dirty and dilapidated. After entering the new century, Hangzhou launched the canal comprehensive protection project, and the protection and restoration of the Qiaoxi Historical and Cultural Block became one of the key points of the project. On the basis of protecting its authenticity, Hangzhou excavates historical and cultural resources, comprehensively sorts out the spatial pattern, commercial formats, etc., and has embarked on the protection and development path of "protecting heritage, integrating space, improving people's livelihood, and more new formats", so that the people's living environment can be improved, the historical landscape has been restored, and the industrial heritage buildings have been transformed and used as museums.
Today's Qiaoxi Historical and Cultural District is a complex historical district integrating residential, commercial, creative industries and cultural tourism, which concentrates on Hangzhou's modern industrial culture, civilian residential culture and warehousing culture, and tourists flock to hangzhou.
Lu Xiaoliang, secretary of the party committee and chairman of the board of directors of Hangzhou Canal Group, introduced that while protecting the Grand Canal, Hangzhou has excavated about 340,000 square meters of urban memory carried by repaired historical buildings, built and opened a series of landscapes of "one museum, two belts, two fields, three gardens, six ports, and fifteen bridges", forming a cultural and leisure experience corridor with three major historical blocks, four major cultural parks, museum groups, temples and temples, heritage sites, 22 kilometers of walking trails, and 1.3 million square meters of green belt as important nodes.
Decoding and inheriting the cultural genes of the Grand Canal also requires "collective wisdom and collective efforts". To this end, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal Protection and Heritage Hangzhou Seminar, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal (Hangzhou Section) Protection, Inheritance and Utilization Expert Seminar and other related meetings have been held in Hangzhou many times in recent years, experts and scholars gathered on the Grand Canal, talk about the ancient use of the Grand Canal culture, and dig deep into the historical and cultural resources with the Grand Canal as the core. In addition, the Hangzhou Canal Series, which embodies collective wisdom, also reveals the significance of this artificial canal to Hangzhou's economic, social, cultural and urban development.
"Hidden" in a chimney in a canal study. Photo by Wang Gang
Saramori this morning
How is the millennium context always new? The Grand Canal itself is the largest IP. In order to empower IP, Hangzhou abandoned conventional publicity methods and focused on making the Grand Canal "young" and "close to the people".
In the Gongshu District of Hangzhou, rafting on the Shangtang Ancient Canal, "Like a Dream on the Pond" took the citizens and tourists to start an immersive night tour. As China's first cultural live performance of jiangnan ancient canal, it interprets historical allusions in a new way of "progressive performance and immersive performance", showing the "seven transports and thirteen scenes" of The Shangtang River, recreating the former prosperity of the Shangtang Ancient Canal, and allowing tourists to appreciate a different kind of canal cultural feast.
This is a real-life performance that breaks through the traditional stage performance form, and it is also a window to observe the Hangzhou section of the Grand Canal to become a "people's canal" and a "tourist's canal".
"The boat is on the river, and the two sides are houses, and we embed the performance in the living area of the people, and it is very rare to interpret the thousand-year-old culture in such an atmosphere." Liu Zhouming, general director of "Like a Dream on the Pond", said that the performance integrates cruise ships, drama and opera, song and dance and poetry performances, and scientific and technological shows, and the purpose is to fully excavate the three cultural cores of canal culture, city culture and folk culture.
In order to let the canal culture continue in a more fashionable and people-friendly way, Hangzhou pressed the acceleration button of the construction of the Grand Canal Cultural Belt. For example, in the Gongshu District, where the core section of the Hangzhou section of the Grand Canal passes through the city, the local government vigorously implements the "culture-led" strategy and deeply rooted in the cultural roots and soul of the canal.
In Gongshu, the former site of the large chimney of the Hangzhou Thermal Power Plant has been transformed into a chimney cultural square, which gathers the Canal Culture and Art Center, the Canal Study Room, and the Cultural Planning Hall. For example, the canal study room has a total collection of about 20,000 books, of which many canal documents are specially displayed, which record the development of the history and culture of the canal in detail.
Zhang Shi, who lives on the banks of the Grand Canal, often brings her children here to "punch the clock". "The children loved the study hidden in the big chimney, where they could feel the 'collision' between the vicissitudes of history and modern art. As a child of the canal, I grew up with the water, so I often brought my children here to understand the canal and read about the canal. ”
Chen Jin, secretary of the Gongshu District Party Committee, said that Gongshu will continue to coordinate the protection, inheritance and use of the precious cultural heritage of the Grand Canal, continue to enhance the exhibition facilities of the museum, continue to strengthen the theoretical research of canal culture, continue to strengthen the international exchange of canal culture, continue to deepen the construction of a "museum without walls", continue to build the project group of the Grand Canal National Cultural Park, better build the "people's canal" and "tourists' canal", and form a group of common prosperity results that the masses can see, touch and feel. Accelerate the construction of the Grand Canal National Cultural Park model area.
Hangzhou has also infiltrated culture into all aspects of industrial transformation and development.
Facing the Grand Canal, Hangzhou Steel Group achieved "rebirth": the company shut down the Mid-Levels Steel Base and built a digital economy characteristic town - Hangzhou Steel Zhigu, where a number of digital economy innovation projects were nurtured and grown, and the former "black king kong" turned into "green and rich".
Hangzhou Heavy Machinery Factory was transformed into the Sun Theater, with an investment of 1.5 billion yuan to introduce Cirque du Soleil Asia's only resident show "X Show", and Hangzhou citizens can enjoy the world's top live performances at their doorstep...
Focus on the present, look to the future. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Hangzhou will clearly focus on the planning and construction of the northern part of the city and the construction center of the Grand Canal National Cultural Park, and fully complete the construction of the Grand Canal Cultural Belt and the Grand Canal National Cultural Park (Hangzhou Section). It is planned to promote about 180 government investment projects, with a total investment of about 50 billion yuan and a land collection and storage scale of more than 2,000 mu.
Focusing on the two major time nodes before the Hangzhou Asian Games and the end of 2023, the local government will accelerate the construction of the landmark project of the Grand Canal National Cultural Park. It is planned that before the Asian Games, the two landmark projects of the Central Landscape Avenue and Xiaohe Park in the north of the city will be fully completed, the integration and upgrading of interactive cultural tourism on the waterfront of the Old Town will be fully completed, the south section of the Power Plant River on the waterfront public space of the Grand Canal will be basically completed, and the public area of the former site of the Hangzhou Steel Industry on the Grand Canal will be completed and opened. At the end of 2023, the public space on the waterfront of the Grand Canal will be fully completed, the comprehensive protection project of the former site of the Hangzhou Steel Industry of the Grand Canal and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal Museum will be basically completed, and the hangzhou model construction of the Grand Canal National Cultural Park will be completed.
Canal culture to see Hangzhou. Liu Xin, deputy secretary of the Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee and mayor, publicly stated, "The Grand Canal is a precious heritage left by the ancestors and a mobile culture. The history of the canal is the cultural, economic and military history of the Chinese nation, which records the unceasing pace of the Chinese nation. We must build the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal into a comprehensive link and bridge of cultural concentricity, economic co-construction, scientific and technological co-creation, and happiness sharing, so that the Grand Canal can truly become a 'people's canal'. ”
The day is getting dark, like the weaving boat lights up, the evening wind gently caresses the river, the fireworks in the world, the most soothing of mortal hearts. Hangzhou, the southernmost point of the Grand Canal, is in such a silent moisturizing that tells the unique charm of canal culture. (End)
Source: China News Network