The revelation in "Sven Jiangnan": How the ancients survived the trough
Yu spends about an hour reading poetry every day, and his favorite is Li Qingzhao's works. (Photo courtesy of the program group)
When people are at a low point, how to face the downturn in the general environment? How to adjust your mentality when faced with a job you don't like or a job transfer that you have to do? The classic text reading program "Sven Jiangnan" jointly produced by Oriental Satellite TV and Pumpkin Vision went to the second season, traveling to the depths of the water, and "borrowing ancient times" discussed more topics related to the present.
The program went to Jiujiang Station and read the poet Tao Yuanming. The world knows the ethereal and detached phrase of the originator of the idyllic school "under the eastern fence of the chrysanthemum, leisurely see the South Mountain", but Huang Xiaodan, associate professor of the School of Humanities of Jiangnan University, believes that if you only see this to understand Tao Yuanming, it is a thin Tao Yuanming. In fact, after Tao Yuanming resigned and went into hiding, he paid a very hard price, but he still had spiritual freedom to detach himself, which is the most valuable experience Tao Yuanming provides to contemporary people.
Yue Yunpeng recited an unpopular poem by Tao Yuanming in "Sven Jiangnan", "Fire in the Middle of June in the Penshen Year", which tells the story of Tao Yuanming's home fire when he was 44 years old, "In the middle of summer, the wind is urgent, and Lin Murton burns. There is no room in the house, in front of the door of the boat." A fire broke out that summer, and the family's house and fields burned down, leaving the family temporarily living on a boat in front of the house.
Speaking of reading Tao Yuanming, Yue Yunpeng smiled, because his first reaction was "ashamed". Huang Xiaodan, who was sitting on the other side of the talking table, also smiled, she knew that Tao Yuanming, who was well known to the public, was a transparent and ethereal image, and this side was more difficult for Yue Yunpeng to play. But at the same time, she believes: "Tao Yuanming also has a simple, heavy side as a farmer. He was hungry, he farmed, and his home was on fire. Among all these people sitting at our table today, perhaps Yue Yunpeng knew this feeling best. ”
The first time Yue Yunpeng knelt in his life was because of a fire. In order to teach his brother a lesson, he accidentally started a fire, burning all the corn stalks of the neighbor's house, and "everything was burned, including my third sister's dowry."
In the program, Yue Yunpeng firmly expressed his unwillingness to "return to the countryside". He planted crops as a child, and if the rains were bad that year, or if there was a strong wind during the harvest, "it was over." In Yue Yunpeng's more than ten years of agricultural career, he has encountered such bad luck two or three times: the wheat is yellow, and there was a strong wind the night before cutting the wheat, and all of them were blown down. Yue Yunpeng recalled that the combine harvester could not enter, and "you can only have a harvest by bending down to cut one by one." "And after being blown by the wind, its particles are not so full." Yue Yunpeng said, "Looking at that land, you will shed tears. ”
Huang Xiaodan introduced that Tao Yuanming wrote this poem in 408 AD, in middle age, and he returned to his home. It was originally a very tragic thing for the whole family to be destroyed in a fire, but Tao Yuanming saw that the fire burned in summer, autumn had just begun, and nature had its own power for regeneration.
He "thinks about the heavens and the earth, the past and the future, and the universe of life at night, and the time and space he is in is not very beautiful, so it is better to bear the fate of being a farmer - that is, something will be burned. The last line of the poem is, "Since you have not met the earth, and then fill my garden", if you do not meet a good time, forget it, and return to my life.
"From this poem, we can see that Tao Yuanming does not rely on beating himself with chicken blood, nor on an illusory ideal, he just bears life steadily, and re-enters life over and over again." Huang Xiaodan said, "So why everyone especially likes Tao Yuanming in the midst of hardship is not that Tao Yuanming gave them the opportunity to escape reality, but that they see the power of Tao Yuanming, that is, no matter how much they are suppressed, they can still be like nature - 'fruits and vegetables are reborn', nature can be like this, people can also be like this." ”
Yu Entai played Bai Juyi in the second season of "Sven Jiangnan". (Photo courtesy of the program group)
"Don't go to extremes, find the gap in the middle"
Dashan, a well-known Canadian "foreign student" who used to be a frequent visitor to the Spring Festival Gala stage, speaks crosstalk fluently in Mandarin, and in the past three years, he has begun to recite ancient poems on major short video platforms. At the end of 2022, he performed Du Fu's "The Thatched House Is Broken by the Autumn Breeze", with the text "Prepare a most depressing ancient poem to bid farewell to a sad year and welcome a hopeful and new year". This short video has been retweeted more than 100,000 times on Channels.
Du Fu's poem first moved the mountain with the story, "The autumn breeze in August blew off the roof of my house, and the children laughed at me", which is suitable for theatrical interpretation. The Oyama family had a log cabin by the lake, and he liked to go there in the summer, often living there without shaving or cutting his hair for two or three weeks. At the end of June, the holiday in the cabin was coming to an end, and he had to go out to a show, get a haircut, shave his face, and wear a suit. Oyama remembered this song "The Huts Broken by the Autumn Wind", which he pondered for so long, and must have expressed a very downcast feeling, so he decided to record the unkempt image before the suit and leather shoes. Wrapped in a blanket, he looked decadent, and recited in the shape of King Lear, under the background of electronic music mixed with horror film colors: "Ande Guangsha Thousands of rooms, shelter the world's cold people!" Rain or shine, it's as safe as a mountain. Alack! When I suddenly see this house in front of my eyes, I am enough to freeze to death! ”
Dashan came to China in late 1988 to study Chinese Chinese literature at Peking University, and then studied crosstalk from Ding Guangquan and Jiang Kun, and later left China to return to Canada, where he worked as a host and performed stand-up comedy.
He has really studied ancient poetry systematically in the last three years. During the epidemic, he was in Canada, facing the complete cancellation of live performances, and his performance career and all aspects fell into a low state. When he had nothing to do, he looked at the Tang poems and Song poems, and although these poems were thousands of years apart from contemporary people, Dashan could feel that the feelings conveyed in them were connected. He started by interpreting Li Bai's "Will Enter Wine" and Bai Juyi's "Long Hate Song", using a mix of rock music, jazz and other ways to interpret ancient poems, and made a short video to spread on social networks, but did not expect to receive a warm response from netizens, Dashan's performance career once again ushered in "Xiaoyang Chun".
"The show has a spiritual core of 'reading together'. The excellent text of the Chinese tradition has a different understanding and reading for everyone. Dashan is a foreign friend, but he has a deep connection to China, and I hope that the version he reads will be different from the guest of the main scene. Wang Tianying, executive producer of Oriental Satellite TV Tomatomaker Studio and "Sven Jiangnan", said.
In his opinion, everyone is discussing Su Shi's positive and optimistic attitude to life despite being degraded three times, which is a misreading of Su Shi: "He was not 'although' belittled, but 'because' he was degraded to become the later Su Shi, he achieved his later great works." Therefore, life is not necessarily smooth, and if Su Shi had not experienced these setbacks, he would not have been able to write words like "Fixing the Wind" with an open-minded attitude to life. ”
In April 2023, the second season of "Sven Jiangnan" was broadcast, and Dashan was invited to participate in the recording of the show remotely. He recited several ancient poems in the program, including Bai Juyi's "Pipa Xing". "Pipa Xing" was written when Bai Juyi was slandered and relegated to Jiangzhou (present-day Jiujiang, Jiangxi), "the same is the end of the world, why should they have known each other." Huang Xiaodan introduced that Hong Mai of the Song Dynasty said in "Essays on Rong Zhai" that the pipa girl may not exist and is a created image. Because in Chinese poetry, there is a tradition of borrowing a wife to write an expulsion. "It is not only a narrative of a woman's life, but also a testimony to the lives of those who pursued their ideals but were not recognized." Huang Xiaodan said.
The scholar Hao Bo even praised another poem by Bai Juyi, "Zhongyin", "The big hidden lives in the imperial market, and the small one enters Qiu Fan" and "It is better to be a hidden man, hidden in the commander".
In Hao Bo's view, this poem concentrates on Bai Juyi's philosophy of life in the face of adversity, choosing between big hidden and small hidden "middle hidden". "This degree is very critical," Hao Bo said, "What is the greatest wisdom of Chinese culture?" It is what Confucius said. Don't go to extremes, you have to find the gap in the middle. Zhuangzi said that with ease, the largest space of a knife is on the narrowest seam. You have to find the cracks in your life, find the space for self-consistency, and first learn to reconcile with your own life. Bai Juyi found a way to reconcile with his own life. ”
"Tao Yuanming Spirit"
Actor Yu Entai and Tao Yuanming are fellow villagers, both from Jiujiang, Jiangxi, and he once accidentally visited the secret tomb of Tao Yuanming. He recalls in Sven Jiangnan that he "passed through the current house, opened a modern door, and outside was a wild mountain, and gradually went up the steps to Tao Yuanming's tomb."
Tao Yuanming's tomb was submerged in the barren dust of history until a flash flood in the Ming Dynasty washed the tombstone out. The Ming Dynasty repaired Tao Yuanming's tomb and planted four pine trees on both sides. Hundreds of years later, when Yu Entai visited ancient times, the tombstone was still intact, and he repeatedly rubbed the stone from Tao Yuanming's burial. "Back from there, it was as if I hadn't been to that place. It's a mysterious and magical feeling. Push open the door, paradise, and as soon as I close the door, it was as if I had a dream. ”
In "Sven Jiangnan", Yu Entai plays Bai Juyi, who belittles Jiujiang. The Lushan Flower Trail of "April in the world, the peach blossoms of the mountain temple are in full bloom", Yu Entai will be sad and embarrassed every time he passes by. "Now it's an artificial lake called Ruqin Lake. Every time I walk through the boardwalk above and look at the clear lake, I think of "Daelim Temple Peach Blossoms", which was born in the world under my feet and under the water of Lake Ruqin. ”
Speaking about the "trough of life", Yu Entai said that classical poetry gave him great relief. At the show scene, he blurted out Meng Haoran's poem: Personnel have metabolism, and exchanges have become ancient and modern. The rivers and mountains leave traces, and I will return to the world. "When I hit a trough, I go to the old places where the old-timers have visited, to travel, to read books. If I can't go out at home, I cherish my spiritual world in my room. ”
Yu Entai said in the show that he "practiced the spirit of Tao Yuanming in this life". In 2006, the 29-year-old Yu Entai was well known to the public for his role as Lu Xiucai in the costume sitcom "The Legend of Wulin", but he chose "semi-hidden" under the fame to study for a doctorate at the Central Academy of Drama, for which he pushed off more than a dozen plays in two years, including the later hit "Crossing the Guandong".
Mr. Ye Jiaying described Tao Yuanming's personality as having two characteristics, one is called seriousness and the other is called solid poverty. "To be serious is to live with your true impulses, real experiences. To be poor is to cling to embarrassment, to be able to survive in embarrassment, and to be able to find the joy of life in it. Huang Xiaodan explained.
Ten years after the premiere of "The Legend of Wulin", Yu Entai once went to Kong Zheng to have a party with director Shang Jing. At the gate of the air administration, the uncle who guarded the door saw him and gave him two sacks, which the uncle kept in the warehouse for many years. When Yu Entai opened it, it contained letters written to him by the audience, many of them high school and college students at the time, and a gift box with chocolate, pencils and erasers. The chocolate was ten years old, it had long expired, Yu Entai took it apart, it was a white chocolate, the left side was a little moldy, the right side was clean, he took a bite. "I think it's the power of time, someone once gave you a gift, you took it down years later, ate it in your stomach, showed respect for it, made me re-examine, someone once paid attention to themselves." He said.
When interviewed by Southern Weekend, Yu Entai was on the way to the crew transfer, and he carried a copy of the Book of Poetry with him. Poetry for him is an everyday item in life, picked up at will. He stayed at a hotel on Shantang Street in Suzhou the night before, and through the glass window, he saw the scenery in the pool of stone bricks, each brick was carved with a word, and one stone brick completely paved Tao Yuanming's "Sex Love Hill Mountain".
"Whether it is Tang poetry or Song poetry, it first of all has an additional kind of tenderness, which is not so obvious in real life. It's similar to adding a layer of diffuser to real life, comforting you, making you sleep, and then feeling the warmth of life. Yu Entai said.
"There are countless examples of how the power of words can save a person." Xiang Yang, chief planner of "Sven Jiangnan", said, "Our happiness and unhappiness in life are really related to cognition. Do you have to adjust your cognition, is there any other way for you to do it than read? ”
Yue Yunpeng has worked in farming for more than ten years and played Tao Yuanming in the second season of "Sven Jiangnan". (Photo courtesy of the program group)
"Read the Hearts of Strangers a Thousand Years Ago"
In "Sven Jiangnan", in addition to Dashan, there is also a foreign guest, Yu Zhongzhong from the United States. She used to be a well-known children's English teacher, keen on doing Sino-US cultural exchanges, and in recent years, she has attracted the attention of Chinese netizens for reciting and explaining Tang poems and Song poems on her personal account.
Yu told Southern Weekend that she reads poetry for about an hour every night. Her systematic contact with poetry was accidental, and a friend gave her a set of ancient Chinese poetry books translated by the famous translator Xu Yuanchong, and the aesthetic translation broke through the language barrier, made her feel the charm of ancient Chinese poetry, and fell in love with reading poetry.
Among many ancient literati, Yu China and the United States liked Li Qingzhao the most. "Last night's rain was heavy, and the heavy sleep did not kill the alcohol. Tried to ask the curtain people, but the begonia is still the same. Whether you know it or not, it should be green fat red thin. She said, "After reading ancient poetry, I saw that many ancient people also had low points, and then I felt as if I was not so lonely." ”
Dashan personally objected to some scholars highlighting the particularity of national culture when interpreting Tang poetry and Song poetry, emphasizing that "this is a unique sentiment of Chinese." "Because I read these poems, although there is a strong language barrier, but after overcoming the language barrier, you feel the emotions in it, I think China and foreign countries are generally the same." He said.
Known by Chinese audiences as "the best foreigner to speak Mandarin," Dashan's interest in the Chinese language began as a student. At that time, in Toronto, working during the summer vacation, there was a Vietnamese overseas Chinese working together, and he begged the other party to teach him Chinese. The other party asked half-jokingly, which Chinese do you want to learn first? There are roughly two kinds of Chinese, one is the Chinese spoken by ordinary people in their daily lives, and the other is the Chinese spoken by government officials on official occasions. Puzzled, Dashan replied, "Then I'll learn the language of your common people," and the first Chinese he was taught was Cantonese.
Today's mountain has long broken through the language barrier, and Chinese speaks fluently and authentically, so when preparing to record a short video of ancient poetry, he is no longer satisfied with understanding the general meaning of the poem, but also splits and interprets each word, refers to academic discussions from all parties, and ponders pronunciation. For example, the verse in Wang Wei's "Farewell" "Dismount and drink junjiu", and some scholars proposed that "drink" should be pronounced yìn instead of yǐn, these are all exquisite.
The biggest obstacle for foreigners to appreciate ancient Chinese poetry is also language, "because it is already difficult enough to learn Chinese, and ancient Chinese is a highly condensed Chinese." Oyama said. Many people can only understand ancient poetry with the help of translation, but it is extremely difficult to translate ancient poetry, a sentence often has several levels of meaning, translators often can only choose one level to translate out, multiple levels are a little overturned, the artistry of the poem is also consumed.
Starting in mid-September 2022, he has toured the world to perform "Dashan Laughing Friends", a special performance that includes stand-up comedy, music, music and poetry.
Recently, Dashan was invited to the United Nations Headquarters in New York to perform a recitation of Li Bai's "Shu Road Difficulty" to diplomats from various countries, and he used a saxophone and an electronic organ to interpret this Tang poem in a jazz style and Chinese. Such recitations are also his repertoire on talk show tours. He believes that the best way for foreigners to accept Chinese poetry is through performative recitation and dramatic performance, because this will express the expressions and emotions in the language, and the listener is more susceptible to infection.
Dashan feels that there is an essential difference between Chinese and English, which lies in the stability of the culture, "English is a young language, but a native English speaker like me feels very difficult to read Shakespeare, in fact, Shakespeare is more than 400 years ago, the last years of the Ming Dynasty." But we look at "Pipa Xing", more than a thousand years ago, "Nineteen Ancient Poems", and even more than two thousand years ago, a little hint can be completely read, all thanks to the fact that Chinese characters are a very stable language system. He said.
"So as long as the language barrier is overcome, the core inside, the perception of life can be completely felt, and there will even be a special enjoyment - I read the heart of a stranger a thousand years ago, and his emotions, feelings, and life perceptions at that time were transmitted to me halfway around the world more than a thousand years ago, and the distance between people is not so far." Oyama told Southern Weekend.
Southern Weekend reporter Li Yilan