Reshaping Jiangnan culture: from the most Jiangnan to the forefront

Humble Administrator's Garden launched the night tour project "Humble Administrator's Greetings".

Reinvent Jiangnan culture

Reporter/Xu Tian

Published in China News Weekly, No. 1018 on November 1, 2021

It was late, and in the water outside the Canglang Pavilion, a wooden boat was leisurely moving. The white-robed scholar stood on the bow of the ship and stepped on the moon. After landing ashore, he read Kunbai and led the audience into the Canglang Pavilion, and also entered the story of Shen Fu and Yunniang. Since the premiere of kunqu opera "Six Memories of Floating Life" in Canglang Pavilion, the oldest garden in Suzhou in 2018, this garden version of the immersive Kunqu opera created with the concept of "Kunqu + Garden" has come out of the circle among young opera fans.

Suzhou was able to create this real-life Kunqu opera, which is not unexpected. This city with a history of more than 2,500 years of founding has too many cultural ip: 2 world cultural heritage sites including gardens and the Grand Canal, 61 national key cultural relics protection units, 6 world-class intangible cultural heritage including Kunqu, embroidery and silk, and 33 national intangible cultural heritages.

At the moment when the wave of cultural industry is coming, how these IPs can expand their connotation, create their contemporaneity, and become the core competitiveness of Suzhou is an important issue facing Suzhou.

According to the Three-year Action Plan for brand building of Jiangnan Culture issued at the beginning of this year, the city is working the excavation and research, display and presentation, transformation and development, dissemination and promotion of Jiangnan culture, and strives to make Suzhou the core narrator, communicator and leader of Jiangnan Culture. "If 'Made in Suzhou' is our 'hardest core', then 'Jiangnan culture' is our 'brightest business card'." Xu Kunlin, then a member of the Standing Committee of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee and secretary of the Suzhou Municipal Party Committee, said that Suzhou will comprehensively launch the "Jiangnan Culture" brand and reshape the core position of Jiangnan culture.

Nostalgia and Gangnam Dreams

"Six Tales of Floating Life" will be launched because the project producer has made a vision. If foreign tourists come to Suzhou and can only stay overnight, which side of Jiangnan culture do they most want to experience? Producer Xiao Yan said that the answer they gave was that the World Heritage Garden and the Intangible Cultural Heritage Kunqu Opera.

Jiangnan culture is undoubtedly rich in connotation, but to some extent, it has become a "stereotype" of the Chinese people: it is the people who sleep in the pillow river, the alleys of the powder-walled Dewa; it is the Kunqu opera that floats out of the lane, and the uncle casually hums the commentary; it is the handmade three-shrimp noodles in early summer, and the hairy crabs that are fat and tender in late autumn.

But Wang Yao, a Yangtze River scholar and director of the Academic Committee of Soochow University, pointed out to China News Weekly that Jiangnan culture has not yet formed a clear definition. In addition to Suzhou, Shanghai, Jiangsu Nanjing, and Zhejiang Hangzhou are all starting from the local position, interpreting Jiangnan culture, hoping to grasp the core discourse power.

Xiong Yuezhi, distinguished professor of Fudan University and researcher of The Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, explained that these four cities are four cultural centers that have existed in the history of the Jiangnan region, Nanjing and Hangzhou have become cultural centers due to the improvement of political status, while Suzhou and Shanghai have become cultural centers mainly due to the improvement of economic status.

However, Wang Yao believes that Nanjing and Hangzhou have historically served as capitals, which have been greatly influenced by politics, and their Jiangnan culture is not pure enough; Shanghai rose at the beginning of the last century, because of its international characteristics, the culture has changed into a Shanghai culture. Only Suzhou has always retained the context that has been handed down from ancient times to the present.

In fact, Suzhou's Jiangnan culture is also gradually constructed. On the first floor of the West Hall, which was just opened on September 29, the curator Li Jun and his colleagues gave their understanding of this construction process in the permanent exhibition "Pure Jiangnan".

Before the southern crossing of the Western Jin Dynasty, Wu Di Shangwu. Most of the famous spring and autumn swords that survived in the world were produced in the land of Wuyue. The Book of Han records that "the kings of Wuyue are all brave, so their people are still good at using swords, and they are easy to die." "With the southward shift of the center of power and the southward movement of the warriors, the land of Wuyue became the political, economic and cultural center of the country, and Wu Feng gradually changed to advocating culture and etiquette. Xiong Yuezhi said that during the Six Dynasties, the customs of Jiangnan were very different from those of the Western Han Dynasty, and Confucians often had wide clothes and belts, Shangwen Shangya, and even smoked clothes and shaved their faces, and Fu Fan Shi Zhu.

Suzhou's cultural context was further developed in the Tang and Song dynasties. The Tang Dynasty poets Wei Yingwu, Bai Juyi, and Liu Yuxi successively served as Suzhou Thorn History, and Liu Yuxi once said, "Suzhou Thorn History Case Poetry". Fan Zhongyan, a Song Dynasty politician and writer, also presided over Suzhou and founded Fuxue. This was the first state-run school in China, and since then, students have come and gone, boosting Suzhou to the peak of "Jiangnan culture" in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The Wumen four families, including Tang Yin and Wen Zhengming, were all the rage, and Feng Menglong's "Three Words" became the pinnacle of classical Chinese short vernacular novels. Kunqu opera, which originated in Kunshan, Suzhou, innovated the water mill tune in the Ming Dynasty and became the mainstream of opera. There are more than 50 kinds of craftsmanship in Suzuo during the Kangxi Yongzheng period, which are professional and delicate. Among the more than 1.8 million collections in the Forbidden City, there are 10 categories of su gong and Su zuo, about 317,000 pieces. Suzhou is the city with the closest connection to the Forbidden City besides Beijing.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the "Jiangnan culture" with Suzhou as the core city entered a period of comprehensive prosperity. Kong Feili analyzed in the book "Calling the Soul" that the rulers of the Qing Dynasty were troubled by how to establish political control over the arrogant upper academic circles in Jiangnan, who were not only striving for a place in the imperial examination or obtaining a high-ranking official Houlu, if anyone could make a Manchu feel like a rude foreigner, it was the Jiangnan literati.

Wang Yao said that Chinese nostalgia for traditional culture is actually a Jiangnan dream, a poem and a distant place where humanities and landscapes coexist. Suzhou, on the other hand, is precisely the master of this aesthetic taste.

Integrity and innovation

In 2011, after getting an offer for a financial job and an acceptance letter from a University in the Uk, Zhang Xue, a male student who was about to graduate from his senior year, made a decision that surprised the people around him. He returned to his hometown of Suzhou to inherit his mother's embroidery skills.

Her mother, Xue Jindi, is the representative inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of Suzhou embroidery, and she is also the most traditional type of craftsmen in the previous generation in Suzhou. Born in Zhenhu, an important birthplace of Su embroidery, he grew up in a textile machine, and later entered the state-run embroidery factory to work, with the reform of the state-run system, Xue Jindi took a group of embroidery girls to take orders in his own handicraft workshop. The works are sold to Russia and the United States, and in general, the more full the embroidery, the more complicated the stitching, the more popular it is with customers, such as full-scale peonies.

Zhang Xue, who gradually became a teacher, soon found himself at odds with his mother. Influenced by ancient poetry and landscape painting, Zhang Xue after the 80s likes the minimalist and blank style. The mother is a little puzzled, embroidery should reflect the kung fu on the hand, can too much white space be accepted?

In fact, this is the core issue that Jiangnan culture is facing in the inheritance of contemporary times, including Kunqu opera and embroidery, including intangible cultural heritage, to some extent, represents the highest aesthetic of Jiangnan culture, can this aesthetic be changed because of the development of the times? Need to cater to the needs of contemporary markets?

Qu Qixia, secretary of the party branch of the Contemporary Kunshan Opera House in Kunshan, also found the same problem. As the eighth Kun Opera in China, it was named "Contemporary Kun Opera" at the beginning of its establishment, which means based on tradition and facing the contemporary. However, the exquisite and elegant Kunqu opera is in line with contemporary people and has also encountered difficulties.

On the one hand, the words of Kunqu opera follow a strict word card pattern, and at the moment when the language environment has changed, the audience has the problem of not being able to understand and understand. Some young viewers even say that it is easier to understand english subtitles than to watch original subtitles. On the other hand, Kunqu opera is proud of the water mill tone, the water mill tune is gentle and long, such as stone grinding rice, slowly swallowed, once launched, immediately by the Ming Dynasty opera fans. But in the fast-paced moment, the audience only has two hours left for a movie, how can the slow-paced Kunqu opera retain the audience, not only retain the water mill tone within the limited total duration, but also tell the plot brilliantly and reasonably?

Li Hong, director of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Department of the Suzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film and Tourism, told China News Weekly that because the concept of intangible cultural heritage appeared late and the construction of disciplines lagged behind, many theories were inconclusive and were still in the exploratory stage. Some experts believe that intangible cultural heritage should be immutable, and what the master passes down should be completely accepted and passed on by the disciple. Of course, there are many more people who believe that the intangible cultural heritage has been passed down from ancient times to the present, and it has long been not what it was at the beginning of its birth, and has undergone development and change. Passed down from the contemporary era onwards, it should also be allowed to improve without violating the premise of the core, which is more in line with the aesthetic needs of contemporary people.

In Suzhou, inheritance and innovation are more mainstream practices, of course, innovation must be prudent. Since its establishment six years ago, Kunshan Contemporary Kun Theater has inherited 40 classic Kunzi zizi plays, and on this basis, 5 new plays have been created. In the new plays of contemporary themes, they try to combine contemporary language to create recitations. Audience feedback, this time even if you do not read the subtitles, you can understand. Feng Huiqing, deputy director of the Kunshan Municipal Bureau of Culture, Sports, Radio, Television and Tourism, said that they hope to retain young people in the theater and "grasp the aesthetics of Kunqu opera from dolls", and in a few years, this group of people will become loyal fans of Kunqu opera, which will be of great benefit to the inheritance of Kunqu opera.

Zhang Xue's innovation has also been recognized, he insisted on doing minimalist embroidery, fixed his personal style, and attracted the attention of experts and the market. One of his works is embroidered with only a case, an incense burner, and a stick of incense, and the cigarette smokes and emits a word "Buddha" in all directions. The 8th Jiangsu Yibo Silver Needle Cup Embroidery Competition awarded the gold medal to this work, believing that it is ethereal, cave-like, elegant and elegant, and the artistic conception is reflected in the blank space. Later, NetEase games, movies "Detective Pikachu", Tencent qq show, etc. have all come to look for cross-border cooperation with this unique embroidery inheritor.

In Li Hong's view, all innovation will be market-oriented, and the market will vote with its feet and give answers. Before the answer is clear enough, Qu Qixia said that everyone is carefully arguing, thinking and practicing at the same time. This prudence is even more evident in the market-oriented attempts of the Humble Administrator's Garden, a world cultural heritage site.

In November 2020, the Humble Administrator's Garden opened 12 acres of the total area of 72 mu, and used light and shadow technology to create a night tour project "Humble Administrator's Greeting". It's a very different experience from daytime excursions, more like a wonderful night in the garden. The landscape paintings hanging in the hall came to life, and the water flowed down from the mountains; on the low slope of the roadside, three deer were strolling leisurely; listening to the banana leaves outside the yuxuan swaying with the wind, and the sound of wind, rain, and thunder came from the interactive headphones.

Although the "Humble Administrator's Greetings" made a stunning appearance, Xue Zhijian, director of the Suzhou Garden Museum, revealed that the Humble Administrator's Garden made a year-long demonstration for the night tour project. The garden is a fragile life, all year round, adding a few more hours of night swimming every day, is the self-healing ability of the garden enough? The Humble Administrator's Garden decided to delay the closure of the park by an hour and a half in May last year to see the effect. After 5 months, after full evaluation, the night tour project of "Humble Administrators and Ask Ya" was officially opened. In order not to destroy the pavilion buildings and ancient trees, all the light and shadow equipment in the night tour is removable. After the park closed at 5:30, the workers urgently set up equipment, and after the night tour, they were all demolished and put into the warehouse, as if they had never appeared.

Li Jiangnan, view the world

Shanghai's International Convention and Exhibition Center is a huge "four-leaf clover" with a total construction area of more than 1.5 million square meters, of which 1,200 square meters belong to Suzhou. In May this year, su zuo museum opened in Shanghai, su embroidery, silk, nuclear carving, Ming and Qing dynasty furniture and other 12 Su zuo door works in the museum.

If Suzhou wants to comprehensively build the Jiangnan cultural brand, going out is an indispensable step. Lu Pinggui, general manager of Suzhou Cultural Tourism Group Cultural Development Co., Ltd., told China News Weekly that the positioning of Su Zuo Guan is very clear, and it is a boutique flagship store for international and domestic centralized exhibition and sales of Su Gong Su Zuo.

Therefore, there is another core issue that Suzhou must face to reshape the "Jiangnan culture", in Suzhou's external narration, in addition to the exquisite elegance of the small bridge flowing water, the pink wall Dewa, the Kunqu garden, and the Sugong Suzuo, can the connotation of "Jiangnan culture" be further enriched? Since its development, does "Jiangnan culture" have its contemporary performance?

Compared with the GDP of breaking 2 trillion yuan, in the past, suzhou's cultural industry development was slightly short. The Suzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Culture and Tourism told China News Weekly that Suzhou's cultural industry has the characteristics of "big but not strong". For example, the added value of the cultural industry is high, but the proportion of GDP is not high; the contribution rate of the cultural manufacturing industry is high, but the proportion of the cultural service industry is relatively low; the number of cultural industry units is large, but there are not many enterprises and brands with national influence; there are more employees in the cultural industry, but there are not many high-level cultural talents.

To this end, Suzhou is making efforts in many ways to make up for shortcomings. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, under the condition of tight financial funds, the scale of special cultural industry support funds arranged by the city's financial plans at all levels will double compared with the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, from 150 million yuan to 300 million yuan per year.

On the one hand, Suzhou is exploring how to activate and make good use of Jiangnan cultural genes, give products more Jiangnan cultural connotations, and strive to transform the advantages of cultural resources into industrial development advantages; on the other hand, Suzhou is also looking for the landing point and grasp of Jiangnan cultural contemporaneity. Chen Long, secretary of the party group and chairman of Suzhou New Era Group, told China News Weekly that before the epidemic, Suzhou received 130 million tourists a year, and everyone came to Suzhou, in addition to going to the old city, gardens, enjoying Kunqu opera, commenting on bombs, what else can be done? This is an urgent problem that Needs to be Solved in Suzhou.

Some people also expressed confusion, if "Gangnam culture" becomes contemporary, will it produce changes, or will it be pure Jiangnan? Wang Yao said that from the history of Suzhou, "Jiangnan culture" has amazing vitality, and there is no need to worry about it being eroded and changed too much. "Jiangnan culture should be confident and vigorously embrace other cultures." When a city is modern enough, or even cosmopolitan, it is dominated by one culture and mixed with multiple cultures. ”

What's more, in his view, unlike many other cities and urban cultures, Suzhou's "Jiangnan culture" has been closely integrated with secular life. It is the poetry that envelops every ordinary day and night, flowing through the stage, calligraphy and painting, Su zuo and literature, pervading between children, youth, prime-age and old people. Every tourist who comes to Suzhou can find the taste of old Suzhou from the streets and alleys, and can also understand the new story that Suzhou wants to tell.