The moral law in nostalgia
——Written at the "First Canal · Nostalgia Theme Seminar".
Wang Jiuxin/text
Wang Jiuxin: Winner of the first Lu Xun Literature Award Poetry Award. Vice President of the Chinese Poetry Society, member of the Poetry Professional Committee of the China Writers Association. He has published 8 poetry collections such as "Wild Snow", "Wild Snow 2 Episodes", "To the Sea" and "Song of the Earth", prose collections "Peerless Ding" and "Cold Snort", essay collection "Their Light", and essay collection "Emotion, Style and Charm".
My hometown is located in Longwangmiao Village, Daming County, in the Handanwei section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. My ancestral home is on the east bank of the Wei River, which is the Wei section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. When I was about six years old, fifty-four years ago, my father and mother returned to my hometown with my sister and brother and my family of five. My father's sister, my aunt's son, Brother Jianzeng, took the three of us to the Wei River, which is also the edge of the canal, every day to play in the water. It is to pick up a bunch of small tiles, bend down flush to the level of the river and throw them into the river vigorously, and the tiles that are often thrown out can make three, five, seven or eight, or even a dozen or so small blisters. The more we played, the happier we became, and we often threw our arms in pain, but we were full of interest and couldn't want to return. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Changzhou City for the warm invitation, which enabled me to have a macro imagination of the overall channel of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and a micro survey of the Changzhou section, so that I could find the location of my ancestral house in the Handan section between Beijing and Hangzhou, especially knowing that I have such a long history of fate with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.
A big river rolls over in waves. When I was a child, my parents told me that I could go down the canal to Tianjin Wei, which was my mother's hometown. I often think in private, maybe it was my father when I was a teenager who was full of beautiful yearning for Tianjin Wei, so I married a beautiful woman from Tianjin - my mother! If my father longed for Hangzhou, maybe my mother would have been from Hangzhou. That's not for sure. In short, my father and mother have an inseparable relationship with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, that is to say, when they were teenagers and young adults, they were all children of the Grand Canal who grew up drinking the water of the Grand Canal, and I am a well-deserved descendant of the Grand Canal. Now, the literary friends in Changzhou invited me to study the canal and nostalgia, and the first thing I want to look for is the blood source, blood and blood relationship between me and the Grand Canal.
When it comes to nostalgia, we can't help but say that in the afterglow. In fact, in my opinion, the small poem "Homesickness" in Yu Guang is just a concentrated expression of the common nostalgia of Taiwan poets as a whole; And the nostalgia of Taiwan poets and Taiwan compatriots is only a part of the common nostalgia of our Chinese nation. Tomorrow I have to fly back to Xi'an, because I am going to visit my father's grave during the Qingming Festival. This is a common custom and etiquette of the Chinese people for thousands of years, just like the Chinese have to celebrate New Year's Day, the Lantern Festival, and the Spring Festival, this is the common nostalgia of the Chinese nation, and no one is exempt from customs. I have a private thought, that is, what is nostalgia? My understanding of nostalgia is that through this series of traditional national festivals, a never-ending and never-changing moral law is formed, which is the spiritual core of nostalgia. A series of festivals are forms, and the ultimate goal of the form is to serve the formation of a moral law, although it is not explicitly stated, and there is no mandatory requirement that everyone should remember distant relatives, remember the deceased ancestors, help the old and love the young, take care of the villagers, act according to customs and observe the seasonal solar terms, and so on. However, the form of this series of festivals is in a conventional way, to the descendants of generations, to carry out the most quiet and natural education. This kind of natural educational life, or in other words, the way of educating people, is like a moral education formed by nature, which has contributed to the formation of the moral law of the Chinese nation. It is humane, affectionate, ritualized, and also emotional and gamified - from time and place, to the character objects and various life content, including sacrifices, food, amusement, etc., are all Jackie Chan matching, natural carving form, very vulgar and very high-end effective.
As we all know, China does not have a state religion, or the Chinese nation has never formed a national religion; Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, etc., are all foreign religions. But why is the Chinese nation able to thrive? Why has it always had the national consciousness of remembering one's ancestors and worrying about one's heart? Why has the self-identity and self-esteem of the nation never been lost? I believe that it is precisely because of the generational inheritance and continuous continuation of a national nostalgic culture that we can create the greatest and most intelligent education system that although there is no religion, it is no less than religion. This is a nostalgic culture and national spirit created by our industrious and brave Chinese nation that is in line with human nature and secular nostalgia and a series of cultural ceremonies. It is worth noting that whenever the economy of our nation develops, the nostalgic culture will be developed by leaps and bounds, which is part of the national consciousness, only the more conscious our whole nation is, the more our economy will develop, because with the conscious moral law, the moral law of development and progress, we can really obtain the cohesion of conscious convergence. The growing cohesion of a nation is the fundamental guarantee for a nation's growing strength. It is not that we should carry forward the culture of nostalgia, but that we should more consciously publicize the moral law formed by the nostalgic culture that is unique to our nation and has been proven by history to be wisdom, science, rationality, and accession to the WTO. This is the real soft power of a nation, and it is also the fundamental guarantee that a nation will never fall down because of its big roots and deep roots in the forest of the world.
As you know, Mr. Yu Guangzhong is a poet, but fortunately, I am also mistaken for a poet. Mr. Yu's ideal is to "swear to be the inheritor of Qu Yuan and Li Bai", and it just so happens that our ideals are the same. Some people say that poets are all romanticism that is high in the void, and they are the most unreliable, especially if they can't engage in politics, and they are as ungrounded as a fool's dream when they do anything. In fact, if we understand Qu Yuan and Li Bai, we will understand that they are the real politicians. They are full of magnificent ideals and beautiful talents, how many emperors and kings in the past and present can match? Shooting all over the railing, looking through the autumn water, facing the sky, how many can send out "Tianwen" through the ages like Qu Yuan? If politicians in ancient and modern times, both at home and abroad, can ask questions again and again like Qu Yuan, what big deal can make them stumped and constantly look up at the starry sky and hang their heads in despair, without any opinions? In fact, in my opinion, Qu Yuan and Li Bai originally did not want to write any immortal chapters that will last for centuries, but to show their ambitions, dedicate their ideals, and benefit the people. It's just that all of this is impossible to achieve and I was forced to be helpless, so I had to wave it and write the magnificent ideal into a poem! This is a national tragedy, like Mr. Yu Guangzhong's "Homesickness", which is also a poetic expression of his pain across the sea and unable to return. However, Mr. Yu Guangzhong is a poet who wants to "swear to be the inheritor of Qu Yuan and Li Bai", and his poems also prove that his creative practice and pursuit constitute the "new nostalgia" of such a successor, of course, this can also be said to be the common "new nostalgia" of another intellectual elite. In fact, there is an existing tradition, that is, the uninterrupted "Tao" of the spiritual inheritance of "literature carries the Tao", which is the common nostalgia of the intellectual elite of the past and present who are constantly updated and permanent. This vein of heaven and earth righteousness is the natural mission of the creator and inheritor of the moral law created by the "new nostalgia".
……… Along this mission, think about the future of the Grand Canal, historically speaking, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is the largest and oldest in human history, 16 times longer than the Suez Canal, 22 times longer than the Panama Canal, although there are currently airplanes and high-speed trains extending in all directions, but the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is different from all modes of transportation - - It has always been a miracle in the cultural landscape, remembering it is the past and memories, that is, nostalgia is pervasive, it is like the Great Wall of the Yellow River, is the hometown of the people on both sides of the Grand Canal. We Chinese should cherish the Grand Canal as much as we cherish the Great Wall and the Yellow River; cherish our Grand Canal as the entire African people cherish the pyramids; It is necessary to carry out the investigation, design and development of the seven sections of the Grand Canal at the national development strategic level, just like the "eight horizontal and eight vertical" construction of the high-speed railway, so that it will become the same civilization as the Great Wall and the Yellow River pyramid in human history, and reproduce the style of the past and the glory of today's new era. As a descendant of the Grand Canal, like Mr. Yu Guangzhong, I am looking forward to the early development of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, including the great development of all aspects of historical culture and material culture, so that our ancient canal will benefit the people again and radiate new vitality and vitality to comprehensively improve the happiness index of the people on both sides of the canal.
A poem in the poet's afterglow leads to a river, and a river leads to a seminar. I believe that the nostalgia in the heart of the poem belongs to all of us, and there must be a common ideal buried deep in the nostalgia of all of us. Let's fight for our ideals.
2019.4.7.In Beijing
On April 12th, it was changed to Shenzhen Jingming Hotel