The Surging News reporter Luo Xin intern Zhou Xinyi
When it comes to the writer Wang Xufeng, the first thing that many people think of is the "Tea Man Trilogy". The trilogy includes "There is Jiamu in the South", "The Prince of Never Sleep", and "Building Grass for the City", which is the first series of novels in China to reflect tea culture. This series was written in 1990 and published by the end of 1999, and Wang Xufeng spent a full decade writing a long volume of the ups and downs of the six generations of the Hangtianzui family.
Wang Xufeng (left) at the Shanghai Book Fair
In 1997, the first volume of the trilogy, "Southern Kamu", was adapted into a TV series of the same name. In 2000, Wang Xufeng won the "Mao Dun Literature Award" with the first two volumes of "There is Jiamu in the South" and "The Prince of the Night". The award speech given by the organizing committee is: "The fragrance of tea, the steam of blood, the collision of hearts, and the entanglement of love are intertwined under the author's beautiful and gentle and introverted pen; the century wind, the historical shadow of Hangcheng, the rise and fall of tea, and the love of tea people, reflect each other and blend into one furnace, showing the author's rigorous and intelligent historical knowledge and large-scale depiction of social phenomena that are particularly rare at present." ”
Wang Xufeng shared his experience at the Changning Library
In the years after winning the Mao Award, from the Zhejiang Writers Association to the Tea Culture Institute, Wang Xufeng never stopped writing about tea, and never stopped learning and promoting tea culture. No matter what kind of identity, she is firmly tied to the tea, and she is bitter in it.
This year, thirty years after the "Tea Man Trilogy" was written, Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House launched a new revised version. Wang Xufeng is also working on the fourth tea man series, Wangjiangnan, to fill the gap in the trilogy "from 1948 to 1964". During the 2020 Shanghai Book Fair, Wang Xufeng was interviewed by the surging news reporter on the new version of the "Tea Man Trilogy" and the half-created "Wangjiangnan".
In March this year, the "Tea Man Trilogy" was launched by Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House in a new revised version
"Tea Man Trilogy"
【Dialogue】
The Paper: The "Tea Man Trilogy" launched a new version this year, when you revisit these stories, what new ideas or feelings will you have?
Wang Xufeng: The main thing is that I am more and more sure which places need to be revised, especially the second and third parts of the "Tea Man Trilogy" are missing an era, and I am now adding this part of the content, that is, the real third part of the Tea Man series, "WangjiangNan". The key is to carry on from the top to the bottom, not only to get the previous "The Prince of the Night", but also to receive the next "Building Grass for the City". Therefore, some of the original places still need to be modified.
The Paper: Can you reveal the content and writing progress of "Wangjiangnan"?
Wang Xufeng: "Wangjiangnan" has been written for a long time, has experienced repeated overthrows, and has now written more than 200,000 words.
It is mainly written about the Hang family from 1948 to 1964. In the past ten years, there have been many political and economic events, and I cannot avoid these major time nodes, especially those moments that are of great significance to Chinese tea and tea culture, such as the China Tea Research Institute established in China in 1958. Naturally, I still prefer to focus on cultural embodiment. For example, when writing about the establishment of the Tea Research Institute, I will focus on describing how the site was selected at that time, how the surrounding natural environment was, and how it was integrated with the landscape of the West Lake, which is actually consistent with the spirit of tea culture, which is the process of finding beauty, discovering beauty, and creating beauty.
The Paper: Now that you have written more than 200,000 words, have you ever thought about what kind of length you might write?
Wang Xufeng: Basically, it still maintains the volume of the first few parts, less than 400,000 words and 30 chapters, because the other three parts are also about the same length. Of course, the length of the historical turning point will be longer. I have written 14 chapters of my current story from 1948 to 1949, in other words, the content of these two years occupies almost half of the text of Wangjiangnan.
The Paper: In the "Tea Man" series of stories, you look back at history and write about the fate of families and individuals, but the entry point is the development of Chinese tea. This makes the novel both literary and has the flavor of tea culture research in it.
Wang Xufeng: Spreading and promoting tea culture through novel presentation has always been my original intention. In 1948, our country's tea could be said to have declined to the extreme, or collapsed. Why? As early as 1886, our tea exports reached 134,000 tons, but in 1949 it was only about 1 ton, which is enough to show how terrible the tea trade declined at that time. But we also saw that after the founding of New China in 1949, the first state-level company we established was the tea company, and then immediately traded with the Soviet Union, Poland, Egypt and other places, and the export volume of tea soon went up again. Later, we set up tea factories, tea farms, tea research institutes, and tea departments, and Chinese tea can be described as a desperate time to revitalize.
My original intention in writing the Tea People series was to present the development process of Chinese tea and tea culture. From the late Qing Dynasty to the new century, I hope it is epic, combining the fate of the individual, the fate of the country, and the development destiny of tea itself.
The Paper: Did you say that the "Tea Man Trilogy" pursues the spirit of "harmony", the spirit of the novel is "peace", and the way of expression is "peace".
Wang Xufeng: Yes. The rhythm of history has always been complex, it is presented in various forms, and I have chosen to face it in a way of wisdom, perseverance, persistence and solution. There will be symbolism, polyphony and euphemism in expression, but the tea popularity festival and stance will not change.
The Paper: What do you hope readers will gain after reading "Wangjiangnan"?
Wang Xufeng: I hope that you can understand how a tea person can protect himself and his relatives and friends as much as possible in the face of various delicate choices in such a difficult era, and how he can observe society and face tribulations in a very transparent and intelligent way. Tea people are very introverted in any era, they will not be blind, keep themselves, have a rare concentration, and at the same time full of feelings, do their best to give life a real meaning.
The Paper: The book writes about the wisdom of tea people in the turbulent era. Now that we are in an era of stability and peace, of course, we also have to face all kinds of complex changes, what do you think we can get from the wisdom of the tea people?
Wang Xufeng: I have personally studied tea for so many years, and what I have learned the most is "repression", introverted "retraction" - people must be able to defend themselves, know when to attack, and when to have concentration. Or rather, a person has to have a strong heart. Sometimes we blurt out some bad words in a rage, and then we have to rely on a kind of force to control ourselves, because the "venting" at this time is not right and will consume ourselves.
The other is "dissolving", and people must have the energy to dissolve. Nature has two forces, one is the power of conflict, such as floods, earthquakes, but there is also a power of resolution, such as wild storms will not last. People sometimes take the wrong road, detours, evil roads, to be able to resolve some things at any time, stop and think about it and then make decisions.
The Paper: In addition to writing, you also have to take classes at the Tea Culture Academy. Earlier you said: "Tea culture is often simply mistaken for agronomy, but in fact it is a composite discipline, a high degree of combination of humanities and natural disciplines." "In terms of promoting tea culture, do you have some new ideas or ideas now?"
Wang Xufeng: In fact, I am only one of so many tea culture promotion builders, tea culture is broad and profound, there are many aspects. My personal efforts are more inclined to present tea culture, especially artistic presentation. Personally, I have always believed that there is no culture without presentation, that ideas need to be disseminated through writing books, that art needs to be displayed in order to be able to hear and hear, and that tea needs to be expressed in all fields of society and in the details of life in order to be fully experienced and recognized.
On the other hand, I am now more focused on the global spread of tea. "National Tea Drinking Day" was made by a few of us in the tea industry at that time, and now it has become "International Tea Drinking Day". My team and I are also planning to do global tea culture training, train international tea artists, and carry out mutual cultural cooperation around the world. If I still have time, I would like to do some more in-depth dredging of tea culture on a philosophical level. Because I am in colleges and universities and the leader of the tea culture discipline, we must also understand tea, an important cultural symbol of the Chinese nation, from a higher perspective.
The Paper: How do you evaluate Shanghai's tea culture?
Wang Xufeng: In terms of the amount of tea per capita in the country, Shanghai has always been among the best, and Shanghainese are a large group of tea consumers. Shanghai is also an important town of tea culture, and many tea people have been carrying out tea construction here. This time, I also went to visit the former residence of Mr. Wu Juenong, the contemporary tea saint. I also want to learn from Shanghai's tea culture experience this time, implement specific work details with some people in the same way, and carry out mutual cooperation in tea culture with tea people in Shanghai.
Editor-in-Charge: Liang Jia
Proofreader: Shi Gong