Shannon explains the difference in the quality of agarwood. Photo by Zhang Pengfei
Shannon Chen Linhan inspected the incense of the Qinan tree. Photo by Zhang Pengfei
Boshan furnace. Photo by Chen Yuedong
●Liao Jun
■ Editor's Note
What exactly does electric white look like? Is it a southern town surrounded by mountains and seas, or a goodwill city with "only one good heart"? Lady Sin, Wang Zhan'ao, the town of architecture, the town of agarwood, the thousand-year-old commercial port... There are many business cards for electric white, but which one is more important?
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Dianbai is committed to building itself into the strongest economic area in the "non-Pearl" region and building a city of mountains and seas that is livable, suitable for work and travel. There have been many media reports, but perhaps, we can paint a portrait of the cultural tourism of dianbai from various angles such as literature, art, communication, etc., record the development footprint of dianbai, and present a different perspective.
This passage of stories comes from alpine bays, scenic spots, and also from village streets and local folk. We hope that it will allow you to see a more "high-definition" electric white.
Red Sleeves Add Fragrance to Night Reading. This is the wonderful life of traditional cultural people.
Burning incense, the original elegance of the ancients, with the promotion of health culture has also entered the homes of the people. Chen Youyi of the Northern Song Dynasty wrote a romance: "The bright window extends the quiet book, and sits silently to eliminate the dust." It is about to be infinite, and it is a smoke. "Agarwood in the Boshan furnace, double smoke and one breath Ling Zixia", by sheng Tang Li Bai's "Yang Ren'er" verse, we glimpse the charming artistic conception of boshan furnace incense.
What I want to talk about here is a culture of agarwood.
As a TCM lover, I have been trying to knock on the door of the ancient agarwood. In fact, it is not far from Maoming City, and the electric white agarwood has a long history. The widespread use of agarwood during the Southern Dynasty Lady Xian is corroborated in ancient texts. The Sui-Tang Jia Dialect records the conversation between Tang Taizong and Lady Xian's grandson Feng Ang, and it can be seen that agarwood trees were planted around the Baixia Cave before and after the Sui and Tang dynasties. Ming Jiajing's "Guangdong Tongzhi" records that "agarwood was produced in Gao, Dou, Lei, and Qiong Prefectures", including today's Xinyi, Gaozhou, and Dianbai. The history of ancient gaoliang is ethereal, real and distant. Agarwood is no longer just a taste of Traditional Chinese medicine, it contains too much.
We decided to enter Dianbai Guanzhu Town again, which is the core of the cultivation and processing of electric white agarwood, and Shayuan Agarwood Street is a famous agarwood culture street.
The sunshine in mid-spring is very good, and at the Qinan Xiangshan Residence, the local Shannon Chen Linhan waits for a long time. The low-key living room and rich collection reveal the owner's extraordinary agarwood life. A bottle of antique Boshan stove is burning, cigarette smoke, full of aroma, simple and thick mahogany table, is a pile of dark shiny agarwood. Burning incense, tasting tea, asking wood, talking about agarwood stories. The brewed tea is a fine agarwood tea with a local banana. Chen Linhan, the year of the flower armor, is the representative of Shannon. He comes from a century-old agarwood family of Dianbai, and his grandfather, father, he and his son have been running agarwood for four generations. From the collection, acquisition, processing, promotion and collection of incense, their family now owns a number of local brands of agarwood: Qinan Xiangshan, Yihezhai and so on. In the face of our arrival, he talked nonchalantly. This thin and strong man, wearing a duck-tongue hat, has mixed feelings about the experience of picking incense that year.
In the summer of 1982, chen Linhan followed his father across the ocean after graduating from primary school, came to Qiongzhong County on Hainan Island, and walked into Limu Mountain. It is a typical tropical virgin forest, inaccessible and with little access. Chen Linhan's clan relatives used machetes to clear the surrounding bushes and open up the path. Limu Mountain is hundreds of miles in circumference, the scenery is magnificent, the clouds are swirling, the dead leaves are thick, the miasma is heavy, the beasts are infested, and the ancient forests are confused. They picked up a bag of rice, as well as antimony pots, tents, raincoats, flashlights, hacksaws and other outdoor camping debris. Find a high-slope camp, and then divide their work, some people do logistics food, and the other two people look for wild agarwood trees in groups. In order to make a living, they risked their lives to explore the pristine mountains, often encountering poisonous snakes and wild boars, and sometimes they could not find a fragrant wild tree for more than 20 days. They live in tattered tents, eat and sleep in the wind, often hot and sleepless. They have no conditions to bathe and wash, and often come out of the mountain for a month, unkempt and dirty, resembling wild people. Life in the mountains is difficult, they only have salted radish with white rice, and occasionally beat down pheasants and hares to improve their diet. One of the team members stole wild mushrooms poisoned, fortunately eating too much and surviving. Occasionally, they found a hundred-year-old wild agarwood tree, and they were excited around the incense tree, which was the biggest reward for them. The early shannons brought back the precious variety of wild agarwood saplings: Qinan. Chen Linhan showed the photos of that year, the fleeing bush tent, the open-air stove with a fire, and the group of tired Shannon, some of whom remained in the primeval forest forever.
Chen Linhan's incense picking story is a microcosm of many Maoming Shannon farmers, who painstakingly collected a very small amount of agarwood and returned to their hometown in exchange for a small income. They went out to work hard, climbed mountains and waded through the water, and hugged each other to keep warm. This valuable spirit of cooperation of electric white agarwood people embodies the power of the spirit of "kindness and maoming".
Looking for agarwood culture, Chen Linhan suggested that I take a walk around the nearby Agarwood Mountain.
Under the leadership of The Travel Master Brother Wang Xiong, I went deep into this treasure mountain for the second time. Agarwood Mountain, located in Guanzhu Town, Lingkeng Village Committee Jingai Mountain, also known as Lingkeng Mountain, is more than 400 meters above sea level and has a radius of more than 10 kilometers. Shaped like a sleeping Buddha, the mountain is continuous, with more than ten peaks such as Beacon Peak, Golden Pagoda Peak, and Cactus Peak. Lush vegetation, rocky rocks, valleys and caves. Quaint temple complexes dotted with dots. Here Chinese herbal medicine is spread all over the mountains, of which more than 3 million plants of agarwood, is the earliest and largest scale of white wood incense (agarwood) standardized GAP planting research demonstration base in Asia.
In search of incense and asking the mountain, we start by crossing the cave. There are too many nameless caves, ancient vines winding, birds singing. The boulders are rugged, gloomy, and the cave is unusually cold. In the sweat, encounter a stream of panic. Walk past the Chaolin Pavilion, the Three Holy Emperor's Palace, the Three Pagoda Halls of the Ancient Cave, the Ancient Cave of The Rock Creek, the Guanyin Pavilion, the Xianjia Hall, the abandoned nunnery, and the cave cellar. It is said that slang drums have been excavated here, and the ruins of ancient battlefields have been preserved. Stone boats, stone chambers, immortal stones, pits (Pan Xi), and the legend of Pan Maoming collecting hundreds of grasses and hanging pots in the Jin Dynasty. Through the narrow cave entrance, come to the German Rock, ascend to the far horizon, the blue waves of the reservoir under the mountain are like flowers, and the floating mountain ridge is overlooked in the distance.
The iron gate of Agarwood Mountain was opened, and we drove straight to the mountain. Three men circled and circled in a lonely car on the huge Agarwood Mountain, and began to enjoy the natural sound of the deep mountain. Agarwood trees are like hemp, and the mountains are full of spring colors.
Choose a cool place and park our car. This is an old house from the 70s of the last century.
The surroundings are silent. A yellow dog looked at the strange visitor. Bamboo fences, adjacent to dark boulders, turn through the wooden gate and lead to the valley to the east. The pond at the top of the hill is not far away. Under the shade of the agarwood tree, Brother Wang Xiong took off professional belongings from the commercial vehicle, and the brothers of Quanzhou who accompanied him assisted in supporting the table, making a fire, and boiling tea. See also, the quaint Boshan furnace.
Of course, it is brewed with agarwood tea, taking mountain spring water, and specially burning Qinan incense. We ate tea quietly, inadvertently frozen in a frame of mountain scenery. Cave exploring, tracing the creek, ascending the heights, visiting the valley, tasting incense, asking, sipping tea, smelling birds, listening to the sound of frogs. Here I learned about the "earth sink" and "ant sink" of agarwood, as well as the "raw knot" and "leak" of the incense process. The magical agarwood is a stunning encounter of the essence of heaven and earth, just like this afternoon's wonderful incense tasting tour. I don't want to go back, I really want to stay until night, be with the stars and moon mountains, and hold a handful of agarwood leaves to lie down.
Finally waited for Mr. Wang Keyuan. At the Agarwood Hotel in Shalang District, we first met this main figure of the agarwood culture in western Guangdong.
In the factory area of Junyuan Pharmaceutical Company, the mother tree of Chess Nan Agarwood was found. Qi nan, also known as Qinan and Canaan incense, is a rare variety of agarwood. This tree is named "Chess Nan No. 1". Outside the iron cage hung the signs of "Canaan Agarwood Research Base of Tropical Forestry Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Forestry" and "Ganan Agarwood Research Base of Institute of Medicinal Plants of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences".
See also Boshan incense burner. Junyuan Pharmaceutical Factory area is drifting with sporadic light rain, warm halls, full of aroma. "The incense in the Boshan furnace, the double smoke lingers in Zixia." In the dappled projection, Mr. Wang was full of interest, interpreting the mysterious charm of agarwood culture.
In the dialogue with Mr. Wang, in his planning of the Medical and Creative Town of Agarwood Mountain in China, we are pleased to see the spring of Agarwood Culture in Western Guangdong.
Coordinator of this edition: Deng Jianqing, Yang Tengfei